TONY OF ALL MEDIA

A most distressing story today from NPR about my former boss Ross Levinsohn—currently the publisher of The Los Angeles Times—and an alleged history of sexual misconduct and what's being called "frat house behavior" at companies he's worked for. In the handful of months (just under a year, as I recall) he held the reins of the company that published The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard and my old magazine, Adweek, all I can say is, I never witnessed such behavior. Of course, that's not saying much—I never witnessed him much, period. The company was in New York but Ross lives in LA, and as one of the senior most editors of one of the media properties he oversaw, I think I laid eyes on him two, maybe three times tops—usually when there were a red carpet and paparazzi involved. In fact, I remember one glitzy event where I snapped a picture with my own iPhone of Ross with a couple of our colleagues, along with our guest of honor Russell Simmons—a powerful man who'...

Well here's an all new and different marketing technique — but not one that'll win any awards. The racy men's underwear brand Andrew Christian — whose ads , even at their least controversial, are most definitely NSFW — has taken exploitation to a whole new level with a promotional email blast teasing leaked nudes of Olympic diver Tom Daley, as Queerty reports. The link was quickly taken down by the advertiser, but not before some people took to Twitter to slam the stunt: But Calvin Stowell of The Trevor Project had the most spot-on take: (Don't forget all those media and advertising blogs too, Calvin.)

There was a funny story in the Post about a lady attempting to return a dead Christmas tree to Costco, in January — and the store actually giving her her money back. As the piece points out, Costco is one of a number of retailers famous for their generous returns policies, with the discount store's employees reporting taking back stuff like an empty wine bottle, old fish, even a used chicken coop. The overlooked part of the story, though, is that while taking back virtually anything — even if it's used, even if the customer doesn't have a receipt —might seem like a dumb policy, especially considering how challenged the retail sector continues to be, it's actually a shrewd gimmick for luring shoppers and multiplying sales during the post-holiday doldrums. The Times reported the other day that retailers are doing more than ever to keep the holiday shopping season roaring deep into the winter — encouraging people to go ahead and return those ugly Christmas sweaters an...

The Daily Mail's story about Juanita Broaddrick taking to Twitter to slam Oprah Winfrey for her passionate, headline-making speech at the Golden Globes contained an unfortunate typo referencing Sen. Lindsey Graham. The website noted that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough told viewers of his show this morning that some Democrats had confided to him that they believe Broaddrick's allegation, then added: We think they meant Sen. Lindsey Graham. (There's the screen grab, lest the evidence be lost once someone at the Daily Mail gets around to fixing the faux pas.) The sexuality of the unmarried South Carolina Republican has been speculated about for years, should it have escaped your attention. Was the Daily Mail's oopsie a subliminal and totally innocent yet nonetheless homophobic slip on the part of some writer or editor? Or perhaps a more sinister, not-so-subtle dig at Graham? Or maybe (and most likely), it was simply another case of "ducking spell check" run...

It would appear that David Zinczenko has more lives than your average editor—and that Hearst, the new owner of Men's Health, is somewhat fonder of the magazine's most famous steward than his former boss was. It was revealed today that Dave Z is coming back  home —joining Men's Health as interim editorial director now that Rodale's sale to Hearst has been finalized. And it is Dave who has the last laugh—again. You may recall that five years ago, former Rodale chief exec Maria Rodale infamously  bounced  the longtime Men's Health editor, saying his contract was up and that it seemed "a good time for a change." Zinczenko is a Pennsylvania native who'd spent his entire publishing career, over two decades, at Emmaus, Pa.-based Rodale and who, in 2010, even gave the eulogy at a well-attended hometown memorial service for Maria's mother, Ardie Rodale, which I happened to attend. (As I recall, Dave was the only employee of the Rodale company and the only...

A couple of points: Firstly, as has been pointed out numerous times by many sources and despite the president's persistent fantasies, the Times is far from "failing." As Business Insider reported last month, the paper now has 130 million monthly readers and 3.5 million paid subscribers—more than double its digital subscriptions two years ago. Also, as MSNBC producer Kyle Griffin pointed out on Twitter this morning in response to Trump's tweet, if the Times is failing so hard then why, Mr. President, do you continue to do interviews with it?