Jessica Szohr Reads Chick Lit Aloud to Her BoyfriendWhich is unfortunate, because we wanted that relationship to last. Plus, Jim Cramer threatens to open up a can of whoop-ass on Jon Stewart, and more in our daily gossip roundup.
Taxi TV: Turn It Up or Turn It Off?In which we ask: Are you one of those people who idly watches the new in-cab programming? Or do you angrily poke at the screen until it mercifully blacks out?
in other news
Print Organizations Band Together, But Who Will Remain on the Island?MEDIA
• Print organizations make like Survivor: The New York Times, Hearst, Tribune, and Gannet form an alliance to back a new online company called quadrantONE. [USAT]
• Star magazine makes no apologies for paying sources for scoops. In fact, “right underneath [Candace] Trunzo’s editor’s note in the current issue is an unbridled pitch with dollar signs around the edges.” [NYP]
• Bad blood is brewing between Barron’s and CNBC after the publication ran a critical story about Mad Money’s Jim Cramer. [CJR]
company town
Meet Microsoft’s ‘Gatekeeper of Funding’FINANCE
• Now that Yahoo rejected Microsoft’s $44.6 billion bid, it’s up to Microsoft’s self-described “gatekeeper of funding” Christopher P. Liddell to plot the company’s next chess move. [DealBook/NYT]
• Fearful that 90 percent of TheStreet.com’s franchise revolves around Jim Cramer, today the finance-driven Website launched Mainstreet.com, which will revolve around celebrities and personal finance. You think Britney’s psychological drama is intense? Wait until you hear about her bond portfolio. [NYP]
• France’s rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel might have had an accomplice. How did police find out? By sifting through 2,000 pages of instant-message traffic. Bet that was a gr8 time. [NYT]
in other news
Suze Orman Will Be the Last Celebrity Living in ManhattanAs the year closes, we’re pondering our future in New York City. Here we sit, in our once unassuming Brooklyn coffee shop, which has recently begun being frequented by Keri Russell from Felicity and the guy from Basquiat. As we watch them talking shop over their laptops, we are, once again, getting the creeping feeling that soon, we’re going to be priced out of our neighborhood by celebrities. But can we really blame them? As Hilary Swank said recently, real-estate prices “have just skyrocketed!”; and even the celebrities themselves have been displaced Manhattan by the bankers. (Have you been to the West Village lately? Salman Rushdie and Julian Schnabel are like the last old hippies there. Other than that it’s like fucking Logan’s Run, all buff young dudes from UBS.) But according to Jim Cramer in yesterday’s Times, it’s the foreign buyers, those wielders of yuan and dirham, who are going to own New York City in the future. “The rest of us can live in Schenectady or Plattsburgh,” he wrote. “We can come here on the weekends and stay at a nice hotel in Astoria.” But not Suze Orman! This past weekend, Savings Diva Suze did not have nightmares about the credit-card bills she was going to receive after overextending herself on Christmas. This past weekend, the Observer tells us, she closed on an apartment at the Plaza. An apartment with “100-year-old mosaic tile patterns in the bathroom, walnut-bordered herringbone parquet in the living room” which she paid for in … cash. $3,610,886 and 34 cents, to be exact. There you have it. Suze Orman will outlast us all. Because only she has the Courage to be Rich.
The World of Tomorrow [NYT]
TV’s Finance Maharishi, Buys $3.6 M. Plaza Spread [NYO]
company town
Will Dick Parsons Pull a Bloomberg?MEDIA
• Rumor has it that Richard Parson’s will announce his departure at Time Warner as early as this week. Jeff Bewkes, longtime No. 2, is set to take over as CEO. Does this mean a Parsons run for mayor? [Times of London]
• Radar cooked up a clever quiz: Fox News anchor or porn star? You decide. Wait, no, Murdoch decides. [Radar]
• Jim Cramer matched Rupert Murdoch’s legendary subtlety: “We have a competitor now in Fox and it is really important to destroy and mutilate them.” [Broadcasting & Cable]
white men with money
The Beef of the Century: Jim Cramer Disses Chuck PrinceThe war of words between 50 Cent and Kanye West is yesterday’s news — but it is ON between Jim Cramer and Citigroup CEO Chuck Prince, whom Cramer thinks should be fired, like, now. Under Prince’s reign, “Citigroup has been at the cutting edge of everything that is bad,” Cramer told Farnoosh Torabi of The Street today.
party lines
Jim Cramer’s Wisdom Is More Valuable Than Ron Perelman’s Boat
A quiz: Which is worth more, a three-night, all-paid, all-access, five-star trip to this year’s Cannes Film Festival, including an all-you-can-party-with-celebs pass on Ronald Perelman’s 188-foot yacht, or, a chance to have dinner with Mad Money moneyman Jim Cramer? The answer: Mad Money, baby. A bidding war erupted last night for the Cramer prize — a chance to have dinner with the investment guru (also a New York columnist) and watch a taping of his CNBC show — at the fund-raising gala New York first lady Silda Wall Spitzer threw last night at Christie’s for her charity, Children for Children. Howard Milstein — president of Emigrant Savings Bank, managing partner of Milstein Properties, and, last night, the man sitting at Governor Spitzer’s left — won the Cramer night with a bid of $20,000. Perelman’s Cannes-party donation — donated anonymously — fared far less well, going for only $12,000 to some guy in the back whose identity we couldn’t really figure out. Perelman wasn’t there, but somewhere, he must have felt slighted. Adding insult to injury: This auction was in the same room where Perelman’s ex, Ellen Barkin, last year hawked all the fancy jewelry he gave her. The price for those? $20.3 million. —Geoffrey Gray
company town
Ad Agencies Better Figure Out the Internet Right QuickMEDIA
• Nike abandons its longtime ad agency Wieden + Kennedy to search for a more digital-savvy firm; Madison Avenue fears its own Internet ignorance. [WSJ]
• Has Tribune Co. finally settled on Sam Zell as a buyer? [WSJ]
• Sharing a Daytime Emmy with another winner? The National Academy of TV Arts & Sciences is charging $350 for a second statuette. [Variety via Mediabistro]
• Life magazine is dead for the third time. Time Inc. announced today that it will discontinue the Life Sunday newspaper supplement on April 20. [Time Inc.]
company town
Jim Cramer, Manipulator?FINANCE
• Mad Money host Jim Cramer (and New York columnist) recalls his good old days of stock manipulation. [YouTube via NYP]
• Activist shareholder Evelyn Y. Davis demands that the board of Goldman Sachs stop distributing stock options immediately. [DealBook/NYT]
• Wannabe buyer attacks Smith & Wollensky CEO, claiming that accepting another, lower bid would personally benefit Alan Stillman. [Crain’s]
company town
Blood Money: Blodget vs. CramerFINANCIAL
• Stock picker Henry Blodget threw a party for his new advice book, The Wall Street Self-Defense Manual, then challenged rival stock picker Jim Cramer to an on-air debate. [DealBreaker]
• Vornado finally cried uncle in its battle with the Blackstone Group to buy the nation’s largest office landlord. [DealBook/NYT]
• Heads are rolling at hedge fund D.B. Zwirn & Co., which was busted in October for misallocating expenses. [NYP]
company town
Star Takes the Stand, Forgets Her Past
LAW
• Back before Star Jones married a beard and was thwarted by Barbara Walters, she had to prosecute guys named T-Black and A. [NYP]
• With New Jersey opening the door to “irreconcilable differences” in divorces, New York may now be the only state that forbids “no-fault” splits. [New Jersey Law Blog via New York Divorce Report]
• New York State’s chief judge says underpaid jurists are at a new “level of frustration and anger and despair” over their meager paychecks. [NYLJ]
