Michael Kinsley

Is This Thing On? Time's James Poniewozik put out a call to his readers for their reactions to VH1's Rock of Love. "I'm not really qualified to hold forth on VH1's Rock of Love II, having joined the series for, oh, about the last half-hour of the finale (I won't spoil, don't worry). But it seems like the sort of show that inspires, um, passions, so I'll throw this thread open to your opinions on Bret's choice between Daisy and Ambre," he writes. As of now, only one person's responded and that's to praise the amazing talent of ... Paul Giamatti?

Inside Baseball: Also in Time, Michael Kinsley exposes the long-simmering feud between writers and editors and offers "an apology to any writers I may have treated callously over my years as an editor. If I didn't answer your e-mail, I'm sorry. If the check was late or the amount less than agreed on, please forgive me." He also asserts that "On the Internet, they don't have editors," which is more or less what Ken Auletta fretted about twelve years ago in a New Yorker profile of Mr. Kinsley called "The Re-Education of Michael Kinsley" in which he wrote, "If [Esther] Dyson's guess—and it can be only that—is correct, then Kinsley the editor is destined to become another middleman, another roadkill in the abyss of cyberspace." (Remember 'cyberspace'?)  read more »

Last week, Michael Kinsley arrived at 4 Times Square for a meeting with Portfolio editor Joanne Lipman and word of the meeting spread quickly through the building: Was he about to become the latest masthead addition to the monthly business magazine?

Not quite yet.

Mr. Kinsley told Media Mob that he was meeting with Ms. Lipman to give her a few pointers with how to run the magazine.  read more »

The way David Remnick became editor of The New Yorker is well-documented. A few weeks after Tina Brown had unexpectedly quit, S.I. Newhouse offered Michael Kinsley the job, then quickly withdrew his offer and gave it to Mr. Remnick.

Recently, Mr. Remnick gave a speech at Princeton and offered a tiny anecdote about how he won perhaps the most coveted job in magazine journalsim. The Daily Princetonian reports:

Recalling his rise to his current post, Remnick said he was "anointed by mistake." One weekend, he volunteered to write a memo on how to improve the magazine, and since the editor-in-chief position was empty at the time, his suggestions launched him into the job.

Maybe S.I. Newhouse saw the memo a day after he offered Mr. Kinsley the job?  read more »

Who won’t be the next managing editor of Time magazine? Michael Kinsley, for starters.  read more »

We've all been a bit busy this weeks, which is why I'm only now noting a really extraordinary moment last Friday on NY1's Road to City Hall.

Between an interview with Bill Thompson and a reporters' round table, NY1's Goldin spent a few minutes on air with Carolyn Curiel, the Times editorial writer whom Jason and I described a couple of weeks ago (no link available) as, perhaps, the most powerful person in New York politics.

Her appearance was extraordinary because you don't see the members of the Times editorial board on television very often. They're one of the last Voice of God institutions in America. The Wall Street Journal editorial board, a hugely effective combat unit of the conservative movement, has its own television show, and its members have faces and distinct identities. Over in Los Angeles, Michael Kinsley was, until recently, deconstructing the editorial voice in response to his sense that the unsigned editorial is pretty close to a dead form.

I'm not sure if Curiel's appearance, in a black suit and colorful broach, was a one-time fluke or a cautious step away from Voice of God. But if it was the latter, it seems both brave and kind of suicidal. It's unclear how anonymous editorializing survives once the writers become known as individuals.

Anyway, Curiel turns out to be kind of a pro on television, substantially more confident and fluen than at least one of the reporters who followed her. She described being particularly impressed with one local pol, Darlene Mealy, who wound up pulling off an important upset this week.

And she expanded on a couple of other endorsements. Of Gifford's mailing, she said, "That was a pretty big violation in our books," one that had good-government groups asking, "'What are you thinking?'"  read more »

She spoke about the response to Katrina -- a "travesty" -- and about how much she likes the officer sent in to take over, Thad Allen, whom she met when she was the American Ambassador to Belize.

And she downplayed the notion of a guaranteed Bloomberg endorsement: "We will look at him as we do every candidate," she said.

This week, the New York City Board of Elections ruled against one major incumbent: The New York Dail  read more »

Here we go again: The New Republic 's railing on the Democratic Party.  read more »

Not long ago, the two titans of online journalism were bitchy opposites, snapping at each other like  read more »

In a strange way, Sept.  read more »

From Walter Winchell to Matt Drudge, journalists have always liked to think of themselves as fascina  read more »

Maureen Dowd has been bought. So has John Updike.  read more »

On July 13, Tina Brown, budding intellectual-property mogul, took time from taking meetings to take  read more »