David Hauslaib

Out magazine threw its annual "Out 100" fete at Gotham Hall in midtown on Friday, Nov. 14, an event that felt more intimate than in previous years: fewer high-wattage luminaries and an altogether understated sensibility.

And, indeed, there was some bad mojo in the air. Proposition 8, the California ballot measure that prohibits gay marriage, had passed 10 days earlier. And you couldn't help but feel that Out--which was sold earlier this year for pennies to the owners of the hereTV! network--might be throwing its last big party that every gay boy from Chelsea to Bushwick tries to get on the list for.  read more »

Debbie Newman, most recently an intern for the Daily News' Rush & Malloy gossip column and freelancer at Life & Style, will be the next editor of Jossip.com.

Since late September, when former Jossip editor Corynne Steindler left the media and celebrity gossip site for the New York Post's Page Six column, Jossip publisher David Hauslaib has been doing the daily blogging duties. Now, Newman will take over on Dec. 27.

Newman, a 24-year-old Columbia Universtiy graduate, said that she spoke to Hauslaib about the job after bumping into him at a Reuters-sponsored panel.

"She's really coming to the table with much more than you'd assume from the average intern at a gossip column," said Hauslaib. "She really understands the media business and the industry."

Newman has also been a research assistant to gossip-publishing saboteurix Kitty Kelley. This will be her first foray into blogging.

Newman said that blogging daily seemed "ambitious," but "not too overwhelming."

"I wish I was a little tech-savvier," she said, "but I can learn as I go on." --Michael Calderone

The Transom is warily excited about the launch of Queerty. The web site will reportedly be lifestyley and gossipy and fruity all over, which is definitely a combination with which The Transom can get down.

Published by David Hauslaib of Jossip and written by Bradford Shellhammer, a fairly recent arrival to New York, the site certainly comes with cred—Mr. Shellhammer has been blogging since back in the day. ("Back in the day" is official blog slang. It means "any time prior to 9/11.")  read more »

And The Transom knows that the site's publisher, Mr. Hauslaib, though only just now entering his first autumn that isn't also called a "semester," is wily and deadly serious and feels himself ready for bigger leagues. Apart from his other achievements, The Transom understands that the youngster is dating a smart older fella, one of Manhattan's big-league tabloid gossips, Mr. Ben Widdicombe. (An inquiry to the gossip columnist was met with a reply that did not answer the question, and Mr. Hauslaib has not yet responded to an inquiry.)

We'd pull out that old chestnut about "only fucking your way to the middle" but there's no need to disparage these adorable romance rumors. In fact, shouldn't we all be so lucky to find love, or at least like, in these perilous, dreadful times? —Choire Sicha