Hasta La Ideas

Now that Gannett owns North Jersey Media Group, staffers at the newspaper company are preparing for layoffs.

According to The New York Post, “copy editors, designers and production people” were all asked to apply for new jobs, as their current roles would be consolidated.

Those asked to apply for new roles will learn by October 15 if they have a job. It’s rough out there.

Here’s the first uncensored look at HBO’s Westworld, an upcoming science fiction thriller series about a futuristic theme park from producer J.J. Abrams. Westworld, which stars Anthony Hopkins, Evan Rachel Wood, Ed Harris, and James Marsden, premieres on October 2nd, 2016…(Read…)

French Canadian filmmaker, Patrick Boivin, brings to life the epic Transformers battle his 5-year-old son, Romeo, imagines while playing in the backyard…(Read…)

The New York Times Advertising department is looking for a well-rounded Graphic Designer to create beautiful and effective visual communication in support of our Creative Strategy team. The Graphic Designer will oversee the creative development and packaging of advertising opportunities, reporting directly to the Associate Creative Director.

View the full design job here

In her latest column for New York Social Diary, 93-year-old Liz Smith lavishes praise on a trio of articles in the Aug. 29 issue of The New Yorker. The first is Paul Rudnick’s imagining of what might be in Melania Trump’s diary; the second, Nick Paumgarten’s look at an exclusive restaurant in Eaton, N.Y.; and the third, a brief item about the popularity of the topic of Donald Trump on website Hello Poetry.

In the Sept. 5 issue of The New Yorker, there is another piece, about Smith herself. The longtime journalist looks back on her relationship with Trump as a reporter, and explains to Jeffrey Toobin how and why it coalesced unfavorably for her:

When the Post published a front-page story quoting Marla Maples calling her affair with Trump “the best sex I ever had,” Smith wrote a column urging Ivana to “stop sobbing over Donald Juan,” and observing that Trump “still relishes his macho-man publicity.” The Trumps’ divorce, followed by Donald’s brief marriage to Maples, gave Smith the story of her career. At the time, she was a regular on WNBC’s “Live at Five,” in addition to writing her column. She parlayed the Trump story into a big contract to move her column to New York Newsday, which is now defunct, like a number of the seven newspapers she’s worked for.

During the eighties, Smith enjoyed a good deal of Trump’s hospitality, including visits to his Mar-a-Lago estate, in Palm Beach. “I was left holding the bag, ethically, because I had foolishly appeared to have accepted a lot of favors from him,” she said. “The truth was I thought I could get him to give me money for my charities. He never gave me a dime. And I got the criticism I deserved.”

Smith is amazed Trump lasted this long in New York, let alone on the national stage. Check out some of Smith’s other recent New York Social Diary columns here.