Feminist Helen Gurley Brown Dead At 90

Famed feminism pioneer, one-time Cosmopolitan Magazine editor, and well-regarded Manhattan philanthropist Helen Gurley Brown has died at the age of 90.

Ms. Brown, who wrote “Sex and the Single Girl,” took over at the magazine in 1965, giving it its sexually frank tone. She remained editor until 1997 and is still listed as editor in chief for Cosmopolitan International on all mastheads. Until her death, Ms. Brown was known for coming into her pink corner office nearly every day. The Hearst statement reads: “It would be hard to overstate the importance to Hearst of her success with Cosmopolitan, or the value of the friendship many of us enjoyed with her. Helen was one of the world’s most recognized magazine editors and book authors, and a true pioneer for women in journalism — and beyond.”

When I was a kid, Brown was a favorite target of television comedians and late night hosts, but I was too young to get the jokes.

Out Magazine

"Marriage Defender" Doug Manchester Buys San Diego's Daily Newspaper

Hotel kingpin and Prop 8 backer Doug Manchester has purchased San Diego's Union-Tribune for $110 million. And locals can expect some big changes.

What happens when that brash, bold, confrontational man steps into the newsroom of the region's largest newspaper? John Lynch, the former local radio executive who will become the newspaper's new president and CEO, offered a preview Thursday night of that future. Some parts of the paper may stay the same. Lynch and Manchester want its publisher, Ed Moss, and its editor, Jeff Light, to stay. Lynch said he doesn't foresee the print product disappearing for at least a decade. But Lynch said he wants the paper to be pro-business. The sports page to be pro-Chargers stadium. And reporters to become stars. "It's news information, but it's also show biz," Lynch said. "You get people to tune in and read your site or the paper when there's an 'Oh wow' in the paper."

BACKGROUND: After Manchester's $125,000 donation to Protect Marriage was made public, a boycott of his San Diego hotels was launched, costing the properties millions in lost convention business. Manchester then offered LGBT groups blocks of free hotel rooms with a value that equaled his Prop 8 donation, an olive branch that was refused. In 2009 Manchester's wife of 43 years launched an ugly divorce proceeding that included claims that he had forged her name on an $8M tax refund check. Last year his hotel hosted the wedding of Ladyfingers Prejean.

Thank You, Steve

I decided to read the wingut New York Post over breakfast this morning, something I very rarely do, because I was curious to see teabagger teeth-gnashing over Sarah Palin's announcement. What I found at the front of the paper was four full pages of tributes to Steve Jobs. (Plus the cover.) And way way way back in the lower right corner of page 16? One sentence about Sarah Palin. Even in death, Steve Jobs does the world good.

NGLJA's Media Map

Click over for the National Gay & Lesbian Journalists Association's interactive national LGBT media map, which shows news-oriented publications and websites by state. A lot of states are blank and the NGLJA invites your input if you know of unlisted titles. (Via - Queerty)

CANADA: National Post Apologizes For Running Anti-Transgender Ad

Canada's National Post has apologized for publishing a nasty anti-trans ad paid for by the anti-gay Institute for Canadian Values. Many thanks to ALL of the 488 JMG readers who clicked out on the complaint form! (You were all Canadians, right? Heh.)

Earlier this week the National Post ran an advertisement that has caused some controversy. The ad, bought by the Institute for Canadian Values, argued against aspects of the Ontario school curriculum that include instruction about certain aspects of human sexuality. Specifically, it objected to teaching young children — those between junior kindergarten and Grade 3 — about transsexual/transgender/intersexed/two spirited issues. The National Post has procedures in place for vetting the content of advertising, especially advocacy advertising. The procedures are intended to ensure that such ads meet a standard of tone and respect that is consistent with furthering constructive dialogue about important public policy issues. In this case, those procedures were not followed. An ad that should not have run in its proposed form was allowed to run. This ad will not run in the National Post again.

The paper adds that it will donate the income from the ad to an LGBT rights group. Thanks haters! No, really!

TrustoCorp Strikes Again

The media pranksters at TrustoCorp are at it again and have slipped fake versions of Us, People, and OK Magazine onto newsstands in NYC and LA.

No details were spared as headlines blasted celebrities and public figures like Lindsey Lohan, Sarah Palin and Donald Trump in hypothetical features of entertaining variants for ever popular gossip magazines such as US, People and OK. What’s more is that each page of the tabloid have an embedded alphanumeric code that leads to a secret website for people that can figure it out. So keep your eyes peeled as you pass by your local newsstands as you may be lucky enough to find that TrustoCorp made a special delivery in your neighborhood.

Hit the links for close-ups of each fake mag.

Murdoch Scandal Widens

Conde Nast Inks WTC Deal

Aspirational magazine publisher Conde Nast has signed the long-awaited deal to assume over one million square feet of office space in One World Trade Center, which when completed will be the tallest skyscraper in the nation.

The lease marked the largest single tenant to be brought into Lower Manhattan in years. The project is being developed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which sold an ownership stake to the Durst Organization. “We hope Condé Nast, at long last united into a single building, will be the catalyst for the rebirth of the downtown area,” Newhouse told a crowd of reporters and elected officials standing in the bare concrete, window-clad floor of the tower — one of the floors being leased by his company.

Such an act takes a major load off the back of the Port Authority, which is seeking to lease up a building that comes with a long list of challenges. One World Trade Center is surely worth far less that it costs to build (the tower was valued last year at $2 billion, while its construction price tag is over $3 billion). It undeniably causes anxiety over future terrorism among potential tenants. At present, there is just one other private tenant, for 190,000 square feet, signed on to the 2.6 million-square-foot building.

Thousands of clackers are surely sobbing in their Times Square cubes. Quick, somebody get three thousand feet of velvet rope to Ground Zero, stat!

NEW YORK: Sen. Ruben Diaz Launches Boycott Of Gay-Friendly Spanish Paper

Last week New York's most widely-read Spanish-language newspaper, El Diario, published an editorial supporting marriage equality and obliquely criticizing state Sen. Ruben Diaz for his upcoming anti-gay rally. Yesterday Diaz announced that he will be spearheading a boycott of the paper because of their supposedly anti-Christian positions.

The Newspaper, El Diario La Prensa, calls itself “The Champion of the Hispanics.” But you will never read or find a reporter from El Diario La Prensa covering one of the hundreds of events that we Evangelical Christians celebrate throughout the year. They never cover or report news about the Grand Evangelical Children’s Parade that is held every year. They never cover a celebration of Bishops Day or The Day of the Superintendents. They never cover a single Pastors Day of the many that occur throughout the year. They never send a reporter to cover any of the great campaigns of evangelists such as Yiye Avila, Jorge Raschke or many other great evangelists. And they never cover the New York Hispanic Clergy Organization’s Annual Banquet which is held to honor our pastors and leaders. All our activities are geared to help prevent crime in our communities, for example, taking drug addicts, prostitution and criminals off the street, but El Diario La Prensa does not care. But when it comes to an event regarding homosexuals or an event in favor of abortion, even if there are four people attending, El Diario La Prensa highlights these events on its front pages.

According to Diaz, every fifty cents spent to purchase a copy of El Diario is money spent to support abortion and gay marriage.

TIME Copies Hitler Cover

New York Times Announces Paywall

Beginning March 28th, you'll be allowed to read exactly twenty New York Times articles per month. After that, you've gotta pay.

Once readers click on their 21st article, they will have the option of buying one of three digital news packages — $15 for a month of access to the Web site and a mobile phone app; $20 for Web access and an iPad app; and $35 for an all-access plan. All subscribers who receive the paper through home delivery will have free and unlimited access across all Times digital platforms except, for now, e-readers like the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes & Noble Nook. “A few years ago it was almost an article of faith that people would not pay for the content they accessed via the Web,” Arthur Sulzberger Jr., chairman of The New York Times Company, said in his annual State of The Times remarks, which were delivered to employees on Thursday morning.

Even the Times itself is unsure if this will work.

The debate consuming the newspaper business now centers on the question that The Times hopes to answer: Can you reverse 15 years of consumer behavior and build a business around online subscriptions? Many believe the answer is no. No American news organization as large as The Times has attempted to put its content behind a pay wall after allowing unrestricted access. The move is being closely watched by anxious publishers, which have warily embraced the Web and struggled with how to turn online journalism into a profitable business.

This raises an interesting dilemma for bloggers, who even if they subscribe, may hesitate to excerpt articles that their readers may not be able to access in full.

UDPATE: Andrew Sullivan notes the exception for stories linked by blogs, which I totally missed.

If I read it correctly, it almost privileges links from blogs and social media against more direct access. Which makes it a gift to the blogosphere. Anyway, that's my first take: and it's one of great relief. We all want to keep the NYT in business (well, almost all of us). But we also don't want to see it disappear behind some Great NewsCorp-Style Paywall. It looks to me as if they have gotten the balance just about right.

SAN DIEGO: Publisher Of Defunct LGBT Newspaper Dead Of Apparent Suicide

The body of Michael Portantino, the publisher of San Diego's recently defunct Gay & Lesbian Times, has been found outside a local gay hotel. The San Diego County coroner is calling it an apparent suicide.

The decedent was a 52 year old single White male who resided in a home in San Diego. On 12/08/10, he apparently jumped from a building and landed on the cement walkway before his body was discovered by passersby. 9-1-1 was called and medics arrived and confirmed the death without intervention due to the obvious signs of trauma. The examination is being conducted today 12/09/10.

The hotel has only six floors. Prior to his paper's closure, Portantino's competitors had publicly accused the title of inflating its circulation numbers to advertisers.

UPDATE: San Diego's "ex-gay" loon and multiple felon James Hartline is celebrating Portantino's death on Twitter and has posted the below 2008 clip of a group of Hartline-led Christianists protesting a proposed declaration of Gay & Lesbian Times Day by the San Diego city council.


(Via - Rex Wockner)

British Newspaper's "Win The Cover" Contest Results In Gay Marriage Proposal

The British version of Metro, a free daily newspaper, held a contest in which the winning reader would be allowed to use the front page for whatever reason they liked. The winner decided to use the space to propose to his boyfriend of five years. Here's how his partner got the news.

Having missed out on his own copy from the station on his way through, it was a fellow Tube passenger's Metro that caught Ben's eye. Clocking his name, the 23-year-old panicked at the sight of it on the front cover. 'I don't always get a Metro at my station - depending on the time of the morning there can be hardly any left,' he explained. 'So I didn't get a Metro this morning and, on the train, this guy was reading it in front of me. 'Then I saw my name and I thought "what?" I sort of blinked twice, then I'm looking around for a Metro - I gave up my seat to try to find one. 'When I found one and saw the front cover properly it was a shock - and as soon as I got above ground again at Marble Arch I had five or six missed calls on my phone from people asking if I'd seen it.' Ben eventually gave his partner a resounding 'YES' when the pair were able to get through to each other a few hours later - after Ben initially texted Jon with the promise: 'I'm going to kill you!'

The couple says they may tie the knot on their next anniversary in May.

Best-Selling Books By Politicians

Dubya's memoir launches today and The Daily Beast has ranked the best-selling books by politicians in the last ten years. Dubya's publisher is shipping 1.5M copies for the initial run, but of course no one knows if those will actually sell through.

Literature Death Watch

(Source)

Bob Guccione Dies At Age 79

Bob Guccione, founder of Penthouse Magazine and the man whose spectacular flop Caligula introduced hetero movie audiences to fisting, has died at the age of 79.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1930, Guccione started Penthouse in the mid-1960s. By the 1980s, he had created a $300 million media business and Penthouse had a circulation of 4.7 million, according to the New York Times. Marc Bell, chief executive officer of FriendFinder Networks Inc., which now publishes Penthouse and runs adult websites, called the death “very sad” in an e-mailed statement. The company plans to release a statement today, he said. Penthouse’s first issue hit newsstands in the U.K. in 1965 and went on sale in the U.S. in 1969, according to Biography.com. The magazine challenged the popularity of Playboy, a men’s magazine that had gained widespread following, by featuring photos and content that were intended to be more explicit and provocative.

Back in one of my writing classes in college, students held an unauthorized Penthouse Forum contest. All entries were required to contain the rote phrases "much to my surprise" and "needless to say," which appeared in almost all every issue. Much to my surprise, when I opened the door there stood two buxom blond twins! Needless to say, I invited them in. I recall arguing for the inclusion of the equally overused "endless gobs of ropey cum," but I was denied.

I still miss Guccione's excellent science/sci-fi title, Omni Magazine.

Tweet Of The Day - James Hartline

"Ex-gay" whackadoodle and multiple felon James Hartline is claiming credit for this week's shuttering of the San Diego Gay & Lesbian Times. Of course, the paper's closure had absolutely nothing to do with James Hartline, but facts and lying matter little to San Diego's "leading warrior for Christ" (his self-awarded title.) We're still waiting on Hartline's promised Broadway musical The Chronicles Of Sodom, BTW.

Essence Magazine Publishes Online Photo Essay Of Lesbian Wedding

With the guidance of GLAAD, Essence Magazine, which is aimed at black females, has published an online photo essay of a lesbian wedding. The article includes a profile of how the women met and later married in Washington DC. This is a first for the magazine.

James Franco For Candy Magazine

Copyranter points out James Franco's cover shot for the first issue of Candy Magazine, "the first transversal style magazine." One thousand copies only, street date October 24th.