NOTE: This is what happened the first time.

EARLIER:

FISHBOWLNY EXCLUSIVE:

Success on the Web invites imitation and, as they say, player haters. And News Corp.-owned MySpace has seen plenty of 'em — most recently Eons.com — essentially a MySpace for geezers. Meet the latest Myspace spinoff: Niggaspace.

On Sunday, Niggaspace — a "place fo' niggas" — was launched by an 18-year-old New Jersey native who goes by the name of "Tyrone" — a reference to the "Tyrone Biggums" character played by Dave Chappelle on Chappelle's Show. Since its Sunday launch, the site has seen over 30,000 unique visitors, "Tyrone" says.

"The site is in no way meant to be racist," he told FishbowlNY today. The domain name was purchased in February, "Tyrone" says, with the intention of creating an alternative to MySpace where "black people can feel comfortable." "Tyrone," though, says Niggaspace is for everyone, not just blacks.

According to its "About" section, "you definitely don't have to be black to join! We just want to embrace the black culture that continues to innovate and strive!"

"Tyrone," who declined to confirm his own race, says he wants to remain anonymous because he can see "blood being shed" over the site and, specifically, the word "nigga," a "paradox of the English language," he says. "People feel so passionate about it." He is quick to point out that "nigga" should not to be confused with "nigger."

"Tyrone" adds: "Martin Luther King had his mission lined up, and he was assassinated."

Approximately 1,500 users have registered with the site according to "Tyrone." ("Im2thick4u," a 19-year-old woman from Chicago describes herself, not surpisingly, as "bootylicious"; other members' descriptions are, well, not suitable for work.) He says he has spent approximately $550 to get the site up and running, and plans additional community enhancements, such as the ability to host "rap battles."

(An administrator profile for "Tyrone" is here.)

According to whois.com, Niggaspace's administrative contact is located in Los Angeles just outside LAX.

In an e-mail provided to FishbowlNY, "Tyrone" responds to one of what we can only imagine will be thousands of outcries for the name of the site to be changed, if not folded entirely:

continued...

Andrew Stengel, a former vice president at Miramax Films and New York's director of People For the Amercian Way, which co-sponsored Shut Up & Sing's New York premiere:

"This apparent NBC decision insults Americans' intelligence. Why doesn't NBC think viewers deserve to hear differing views?"

NBC, get ready for 900,000 letters from PFAW members, Stengel says.

EARLIER:

First, the hard news:

The ink is barely dry on ex-Viacom CEO Tom Freston's severance package, but talk of his replacement at MTV is already surfacing. Dealbreaker reports it's Mike Salmi of Atom Films.

Meanwhile, our favorite party host was roasted this week, and Radar tracked down one of the ghost roasters — Mark Katz — a former Clinton speechwriter.

EARLIER:

A FishbowlNY spy reports:

Law & Order SVU star Mariska Hargitay, Harigitay was among the first to arrive on the red carpet at Fashion Group International's Night of Stars at Cipriani 42nd Street last night. Hargitay, who talked to every TV crew from Access Hollywood to the TV Guide Channel — was seething about remarks made by The View's Elisabeth Hasselbeck about how a character that gets raped on an upcoming episode is named after her. The View's talking head called SVU's Neal Baer to complain that it was "irresponsible" to have a character so close in name, despite the show's insistence that it's not so. "How stupid," said Hargitay who sees the move as a publicity ploy. "I feel sorry for her." Hargitay, who has filled in as a guest host on the show, says next time she's on the show she'll confront Hasselbeck about her ranting. Sources say that's about to happen as View producer Bill Geddie reportedly called the show to apologize for Hasselbeck's outburst.

Hargitay, who wore a gravity defying dress by Carolina Herrera, was there to present the Upper East Side favorite with a star award in front of fashionable Hollywood A-listers like Julianne Moore, Gwyneth Paltrow, Herrera, Yves Saint Laurent's Stefano Pilati and Narciso Rodriguez.

• Paris Hilton's PSA In Seventeen: "All it takes is one drink"; accompanying video PSA nixed. [Jossip]

• Does Jane Pauley: Have a case against the Times? [Eat the Press]

• Camille Paglia: U.S. reporters "pallid and wimpy" when compared to the BBC. [Salon]

• Harvard Crimson Writer: Stole from Slate. [Boston Globe]

• Reiniventing: Martha. [BusinessWeek]

• NBC's: 'Wheezing' business model. [BW]

NBC has joined the CW network in refusing to accept an ad for Shut Up & Sing, an upcoming documentary on the politically-outspoken Dixie Chicks. NBC claims it cannot accept the spots "as they are disparaging to President Bush." CW says they do "not have appropriate programming in which to schedule" the ads, Drudge reports. The movie opens nationwide November 10.

Said Harvey Weinstein, co-chairman of The Weinstein Company: "It's a sad commentary about the level of fear in our society that a movie about a group of courageous entertainers who were blacklisted for exercising their right of free speech is now itself being blacklisted by corporate America. The idea that anyone should be penalized for criticizing the president is sad and profoundly un-American."

This is seemingly what Robert Kennedy Jr. was talking about.

Beck showed up with his skinny well-coiffed band of punky deviants last night at the Knitting Factory to play an hour-long private set in front of 200 celebrating his Paste magazine cover. Roots drummer ?uestlove served as the between-sets DJ. Jame Iha of the Smashing Pumpkins was just being James Iha of the Smashing Pumpkins, hanging out in the VIP area with overblown blonde locks befitting Courtney Love. We contemplated Paste's disporportionate amount of street cred for a magazine that, while certainly well put together, we barely think about much less read. Beck, in a Courtney Love move, left the venue while his band — including an exceedingly mediocre white breakdancer/cowbell-player who looked like he just rolled out of his dorm room — played the encore.

EARLIER:

In a report issued by the Metro Transportation Authority's board, free daily newspapers like amNY and Metro have been found to be responsible for fires and flooding in subways, and played a "major" role in a 2004 flood that crippled the system. As Gothamist notes, the MTA refuses to take blame for the 2004 flood.

Via the New York Post:

The papers, designed to be read quickly and then thrown away, blow on the tracks and clog up drains — which is what happened in the flood.

The irony to us, however, is not the MTA's refusal to take blame, but the Post's editorial on the report, which, while feigning full disclosure ("The Post is not a disinterested party in this affair. The free papers, after all, compete for readers and advertisers with the one you're reading right now") fails to mention that they are also at times handed out for free.

That they're doing it legally is irrelevant. What, exactly, does the Post think we do with their papers when we grab it on our way to down into the 6? Take them home and vacuum seal them?

Full disclosure: We've only done that twice.

Imagine our delight last night at the poshest of posh media events when we discovered that the smart, witty author at our Mandarin Oriental hotel table, James Kynge, had just won the Financial Times' "Business Book of the Year Award."

First we listened to a brilliant and depressing speech by Larry Summers, the former Treasury Secretary who was offed as Harvard president after making remarks that were taken as an insult to womenkind (more on that, below). And we saw such media lights as FT editor Lionel Barber, Time Inc.'s Michael Elliott, the always irrepressible Ed Koller, Bloomberg editor-at-large Tom Keene (like Koller, spiffy in a bowtie), some people who tried to sell us corporate jets, Garrick Uttley, Chris Anderson (whose book The Long Tail, which we partied to, was also nominated), Kynge's lovely, intelligent and charming wife Lucy Kynge (2½ years in Mongolia?!), Time business editor Bill Saporito, Kynge's editor at Hougton Mifflin, Webster Younce, newly New York-based Guardian business reporter Andrew Clark, and many more.

Kynge, a Chinese-speaking Englishman who lives in Beijing and whose name is pronounced "King", had been tricked by one of the wily judges (we think she was Rachel Lomax, Deputy Governor for Monetary Policy, Bank of England) into thinking he wasn't the winner so he relaxed, drank wine, argued with us (sometimes in Japanese!) about everything from Chinese publishing, to the Internet, to the state of intellectual property in the digital age, and nearly fainted when Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, co-sponsors of the event, announced the award for Kynge's book China Shakes the World.

"I hope I'm not going to do a Halle Berry," Kynge joked.

continued...

From: Mark Glaser

Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 5:47 PM

To: REDACTED

Subject: CORRECTION: Brian Ross: Foley Story a Watershed for ABC News on the Web

Hi all,

Sorry to bother you again, but there was an egregious error in my last email (NOT in the blog post), and it's not an error you want to make when writing about an investigative reporter...

I wrote: "Foley, a stalwart on the investigative journalism scene..."

And should have written: "Ross, a stalwart on the investigative journalism scene..."

While Foley has become a big name in the world of investigative journalism, Brian Ross is the one who's doing the investigating.

My apologies for the mistake.

Best,
Mark

In Mark's defense — Glaser, not Foley — Foley is clearly a stalwart in the text messaging scene.

Remember Mike Daisey — that James Frey, J.T. Leroy monologuist whose off Broadway show we first reported, then reviewed? Well, he's taken the marketing of Truth to YouTube, with a satirical video in which he says he's had consensual sex with Frey.

Someone, please fact-check that.

EARLIER:

Dan Bova, executive editor of Stuff and former Jimmy Kimmel Live staffer, has been named editor-in-chief. Bova replaces Jimmy Jellinek, who jumped to Felix Dennis' other boyish title, Maxim.

Says Bova of the appointment: "We're absolutely obsessive about delivering the greatest gear, music, movies, games and style —everything the 20-something with money to blow needs to know about. I apologize in advance to any readers whose heads explode from awesome overload."

Original Message

From: [FLACK REDACTED]

Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 9:42 AM

To: tips@mediabistro.com

Subject: "Talk To Me With Oprah Whinfrey"

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New Weekly Call-in Show on "Oprah & Friends" to Air Every Thursday, Providing Fans with Direct Access to Oprah

At this point, why even bother with anything beyond "Oprah"?

We assume the Times knew about Ogunnaike's VH1 appearances

While New York Times' television and entertainment writer Lola Ogunnaike was "remarkably poised and telegenic" in her Oct. 16 appearance on The View, her bosses were decidedly less effusive, suspending her for not giving them advance warning of her stint as "special guest co-host," Jossip reports. Coupled with her recent spate of ABC coverage for the paper (The View's parent network), present and former colleagues are scratching their heads over what on earth Ogunnaike was thinking.

When hitting The View last week (not her first foray into national television, as she's appeared more than once on the Today show), Ogunnaike went on-record with her decision not to move in with her husband prior to marrying, citing her mom as trotting out that old "cow... milk" single-girl saw we've had fingers wagged at us about, too. Only Ogunnaike took it a step further, informing her co-hosts and the larger View-watching public that her now-husband's "enjoyed a few milkshakes since then." To join the embattled Ogunnaike in taking a metaphor too far: But do they bring all the boys to the yard?