Maer Roshan | The New York Observer

Where in the World Is Maer Roshan?

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:13:10 -0400

It hardly seems like a year ago, but remember last September? Just after Lehman declared bankruptcy, we dealt with a rapid wave of media closures here in the city: The Sun, 02138 and, for a third time, Radar.

But we didn’t expect that it would take long for Maer Roshan, Radar’s editor, to get up to a new trick. However many times he’d fallen before, he’d also proven, with dogged determination, that year after...

Gawker Hires John Cook

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:12:40 -0500

John Cook, the longtime Radar contributor and the crackerjack TV reporter for the Chicago Tribune, is heading to Gawker. His first day is Monday.

He'll be covering covering a variety of things: his old beat in television; he'll respond to the day's news when he's got something to say; and he'll be digging through FOIAs and courthouse documents for topics "that align with the stuff Gawker does," something the Web site has long been after...

Radar Attracts Media's Living Dead to Posthumous Party at Citrine

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 08:02:05 -0400

"I basically started Radar because I didn't want to work at any other magazine," said Maer Roshan, the editor of the recently folded magazine. "And after six years, all of it came down to this."

Mr. Roshan was surveying his party, the night before Halloween, which had become a kind of Night of the Living Dead for journalism. "PRINT IS DEAD! LONG LIVE RADAR!" read the invitation, which was retooled after a recent development at...

Lineup for October 29, 2008

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 07:43:56 -0400

Felix Gillette talks to MSNBC president Phil Griffin, who says, "A lot of people like to make fun of cable... They think it’s something for people who don’t get news. No. It’s for people who really understand news, want depth and want it from people they connect to."

John Koblin gets the details of Bill Keller's budget talks with New York Times staffers, including news about a special "investment fund" to help pay...

Notes on Black Friday: Maer's Pot of Gold, David Blum's Demise Foretold

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 19:03:49 -0400

Headlines at radaronline.com on Tuesday, Oct. 28, included: “Jessica Simpson: Major Movie Star, Comrade”; “Vanessa & Zac Back in the U.S”; “Sean Penn’s Gay History Closeted.”

Yowza!

Radar has ever been sold as an heir to Spy: poppy and irreverent and, most of all, smart, as though OK! had gone to college and majored in semiotics. But in the days since the Web site...

Radar Staff Drinking Bottles of Stella As They Pack; Gathering at East Village Bar

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:18:46 -0400

As of 3 P.M. all Radar staffers were expected to leave from their East 45th Street office.

According to a source, editorial staffers have spent the last 90 minutes or so boxing up their belongings, laughing and drinking from bottles of Stella Artois. While they pack, there are apparently some careful eyes watching what they decide to take from the office.

When some staffers have gone up to pick up their severance checks, HR people...

Maer Roshan: The Exit Interview

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:59:45 -0400

"I never worked with a better or more dedicated staff in my life. I'm sorry that we couldn’t achieve the potential that I know this magazine has—had."

Media Mob just spoke with Maer Roshan, the editor of Radar, which is folding.

"What is so frustrating is that we seemed to have reached a turning point," he said. "You're dealing with independent investors and they saw the market and they were fearful about the future."

He said...

Radar Shutting Down (Again)

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:23:54 -0400

Radar editor Maer Roshan convened his staff late this morning and announced that the magazine would be shutting down immediately. Staffers are expected to clear out their desks by the end of the day.

"The magazine is gone and the Web site is being reincarnated," said a Radar staffer who attended the meeting.

The web site has been sold to AMI and will be redesigned and rebuilt to "become a competitor to TMZ," our source said....

Moe Tkacik Off the Radar

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:22:32 -0400

That news about Moe Tkacik joining Radar? Never mind.

Apparently, Ms. Tkacik has changed her mind and rejected the offer from Radar. She'll leave Jezebel and begin writing for her company's flagship site, Gawker.com.

Reached by Media Mob, Radar editor Maer Roshan, who is currently not in the office, told us that the memo he sent out to the Radar staff announcing she was hired—writing that she will "bring her unique style and voice to a...

Roshan Roulette: Five Staffers Flee; Can Ex-Wonkette Cox Save Radar?

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 19:31:43 -0400

“Three or four people leaving is not a big deal,” insisted Maer Roshan, founder and editor in chief of Radar.

Actually, it’s five: Senior editor Tyler Gray, en route to Blender, just had his last day at the magazine, as did managing editor Leigh Ann Boutwell, who is joining her boyfriend on the West Coast. On the business side, the magazine’s president, Fred Poust, fled Radar’s East 45th Street offices on May...

Radar's Deputy Editor Chris Tennant is Out

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:03:32 -0500

Late this afternoon, Radar editor Maer Roshan announced that the magazine's deputy editor Chris Tennant is out. He'll stay "onboard" as a contributing editor. Here's the memo:

I am sad to announce that Chris will be leaving his position as Deputy Editor of Radar next month to concentrate on his upcoming book and other projects. He will remain onboard as a Contributing Editor and will continue to work closely with Radar in this new role....

Radar Party: Everyone Looks Like Someone Who Knows Someone Who Was Invited

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 13:37:51 -0500

Around 9pm at the New Museum on Bowery, Radar editor Maer Roshan, dressed in an extremely well-fitting John Varvatos suit, was standing next to the bar. The suit was dark, but it wasn't entirely clear what color it was in a dimly lit room on the ground floor.

Mr. Roshan's magazine was throwing a party intended to honor "the most exciting rogues, renegades, and rule-breakers of the year." Film-maker Craig Brewer, writer Shalom Auslander,...

Passing the Gladwell Point

Sun, 08 Oct 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Before getting into what’s wrong with Malcolm Gladwell, it helps to talk about what’s been right about Malcolm Gladwell. Mr. Gladwell, the nimbus-haired New Yorker reporter specializing in the coverage of ideas, has laid down a significant number of the milestones by which the educated, New Yorker–reading citizen of the year 2006 has found his or her way to this particular moment of socio-cultural existence.

Since January of 1999, for one example, when...

Maer Roshan: Mary Mapes Was Going To Work for Dan Rather, Has Too Heard of Radar

Tue, 05 Sep 2006 14:12:31 -0400

Radar editor Maer Roshan said that he is standing by his magazine's story that former CBS producer Mary Mapes is going to work with Dan Rather at HDNet. Both Ms. Mapes and HDNet's owner, Mark Cuban, denied the arrangement today "The reporter, who's a trusted one here, did speak to her," Mr. Roshan said this afternoon. "We first got that information about a month ago. It could conceivably be that [Ms. Mapes] doesn't remember. It...

Pinging the Sonar: Radar Sets Sail!

Tue, 05 Sep 2006 05:20:58 -0400

Radar's back, baby. And it's bountiful, with a crew of pasty young men laboring night and day. Local well-known job-jumping ne'er-do-wells Jeff Bercovici and Matt Haber and Marcus Baram are all stuffed belowdecks on the Viking slave galleon that is the good ship Maer Roshan. Homeless no more! In fact, that galley is packed; the two main blogs alone list eleven staffers, giving it, no doubt, the highest staff costs of any weblog site in...

Why Times Ran Wiretap Story, Defying Bush

Sun, 25 Dec 2005 19:00:00 -0500

On the afternoon of Dec. 15, New York Times executives put the paper’s preferred First Amendment lawyer, Floyd Abrams, on standby. In the pipeline for the next day’s paper was a story that President George W. Bush had specifically asked the paper not to run, revealing that the National Security Agency had been wiretapping Americans without using warrants. The President had made the request in person, nine days before, in an Oval Office meeting...

[em]Radar [/em]Shuts Down: Maer Roshan's Statement

Wed, 14 Dec 2005 14:32:00 -0500

Thanks to a world-class team of talent, in just a few short months, Radar Magazine and Radar Online made a significant impact on the cultural landscape, breaking news and publishing groundbreaking stories that struck a chord with our unique, much-coveted audience. The magazine built up brand recognition and credibility that many magazines spend years and millions of dollars trying to attain. I sincerely thank Mort Zuckerman and Jeffrey Epstein for their support thus far....

A Trip Down Memory Lane With Joyce Wadler

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 12:12:00 -0500

From Boldface Names, The New York Times, March 28, 2003: How Do I Get a Cute Actress To Add Sizzle to My Steak? Next to MAER ROSHAN, who has gotten endless attention for a magazine he has not published (Radar), we are shocked and awed by the Men's Health editor, DAVID ZINCZENKO, who had gotten endless attention for a job he said he would not take (editor of GQ). Mr. Zinczenko, for the last six months, has...

Immature Magazines Borrow; Mature Magazines Pay Homage

Mon, 08 Aug 2005 07:09:00 -0400

Left, RADAR (via Gawker); Right, Esquire, April 1968. Update: It turns out that the art director with the balls to rip off George Lois' legendary Esquire cover was none other than... George Lois. (Very sneaky, RADAR!) From a press release just received at Mob HQ:

Radar magazine's Maer Roshan has brought legendary adman and cover designer genius George Lois out of retirement to design the issue's September/October issue, on sale August 16th. [...] "Magazines don't even try to do...

May 18, 2005 – May 25, 2005

Sun, 22 May 2005 20:00:00 -0400

Wednesday 18th

May is the new April! Other lessons learned this week: Not every woman can pull off the blousy-tunic-over-jeans look; starlets continue to shrink; men don't like it when you chomp down on their nuts; and it's not a cold, it's allergies. O.K .! Tonight is a special one for those in catty media circles who have been rubbing their moist palms gleefully in anticipation for the relaunch (ker- plop!) of Radar magazine, a...

Off the Record

Sun, 23 Jan 2005 19:00:00 -0500

When he was getting started as a reporter, Jack Patrick O'Gilfoil Healy didn't think much about his byline. He signed his work "Pat Healy," the name he went by; sometimes, he went with the more formal "Patrick Healy."

"I think Patrick and Pat are more or less the same," said Mr. Healy, who is now an intermediate reporter for The New York Times, covering Long Island out of the Garden City office. But in 2002,...

Power Punk: Joshua Long

Sun, 14 Dec 2003 19:00:00 -0500

The Talented Mr. Long

If Joshua Long gets his way, he'll be a TV studio chief by January 2004. Never mind that he's never spent a single second in the TV business. "The timeline is to have a deal on the table within 45 days," said Mr. Long, talking about his would-be startup, General Television Company, which exists only as a business plan on the desks of some unnamed private investors. But Mr. Long...

The Eight Day Week

Sun, 02 Dec 2001 19:00:00 -0500

Wednesday 28th

Another reason not to move to San Francisco, even though New York's economy is looking a bit rickety: For 22 years, the City by the Bay has been hosting an Exotic Erotic Ball , which arrives on our shores tonight accompanied by many waxy-looking female-bodybuilder types (see grim photo). Madonna attended this overanxious, sex-positive spectacle in, like, 1982 and they're still trying to milk it. "The whole thing started in my penthouse in...

Todd Purdum Is New Adam Clymer; Adam Nagourney Is New Todd Purdum

Sun, 20 May 2001 20:00:00 -0400

Hollywood movies and glossy magazines–they go together like peanut butter and chocolate in this town, but rarely do they resemble anything like Rolling Stone 's weirdly prominent role in the promotion of the teenybopper film A Knight's Tale .

For years, of course, movie companies have lifted choice phrases ("A Wow-Pow, Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Action Fest!") out of critical reviews in newspapers for use in promotional materials. Sometimes, as with an artsy-fartsy movie, a...