Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

Sarah Palin Can't Do Anything Right | Sarah Palin is in New York, have you heard? She's supposedly in town to meet with HarperCollins about the book she's supposed to write (and which you're dying to read, of course). But she threw everyone through a bit of a loop by dining at Michael's yesterday, power center of the media elite and hardly a venue known for attracting people who go hunting and fishing and are married to champion snowmobile racers. Not that there was any chance she run into the likes of Barry Diller or Tina Brown. She went there for dinner. [Gawker]

• The New York Blade, one of the two big gay and lesbian newspapers in New York City, has suspended publication and laid off most of its staff. [NYT]
• How many books can you possibly read about Bernie Madoff? Who knows, but there at least four books about him scheduled to hit stores this fall. [Crains]
• David Rohde, the New York Times reporter who was kidnapped in Afghanistan with his translator in November and released a couple of weeks ago, returned to the Times newsroom to a standing ovation yesterday. [NYT]
• James Frey's young adult novel has been sold to HarperCollins. [NYT]
• Wonkette editor Ken Layne has sold a book to HarperCollins, too. [NYO]
• The battle between CNBC's Dennis Kneale and bloggers goes on. [Dealbreaker]

• The late night battle rages on: After losing ground to Letterman, Conan bounced back last night, and had a pretty solid first week overall. [THR, NYT]
• Boston-based Intercontinental Real Estate Corp. confirms that it has been talks with the New York Times Co. to purchase the Boston Globe. [BH]
• Stephen Colbert's decision to broadcast from Iraq worked out nicely: Ratings for the Comedy Central show have been up 25 percent this week. [NYT]
• Joy Behar is launching a new talk show on HLN. The best part about it: She'll be bumping blowhard Lou Dobbs from his 9pm slot on the network. [NYT]
• TV, print and online ad spending fell 14 percent in the first quarter. [WSJ]
• Hope you're a Marley & Me fan. HarperCollins is cemented a deal to publish 13 children's books about the world's most famous Labrador. Yes, 13. [PW] More

• Veteran theater producer Rocco Landesman has been nominated to be the next chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. [NYT]
• Why did David Geffen try to buy a stake in the New York Times? It wasn't because he thought he'd make money, that's for certain. [Newsweek]
• After taking some heat over a $75,000 speaking fee he received last week, the Times's Tom Friedman says he now plans to return the money. [LAT]
• Sarah Palin's book deal with HarperCollins is a go. How much money was involved isn't clear but the memoir will be out in 2010, which just so happens when she'll be running for reelection in Alaska. [LAT, AP]
• Bad news, hooker fans: Craigslist is dropping its erotic services section. [WP]More

Peter Arnell can't seem to catch a break these days. Earlier this year, the advertising mogul and "brand expert" was widely mocked for blowing millions on a silly, new logo Pepsi. Just weeks later, his decision to change Tropicana's packaging turned into an epic disaster, causing thousands of consumers to cry foul and sending sales plummeting by 20 percent. Now he has another more defeat to add to his list. HarperCollins just won a lawsuit against Arnell and he'll now have to write the publishing house a check for $100,000.More

• HarperCollins is launching a new imprint which will focus on "pop culture, sports, style and content derived from the Internet." Clever! [NYT]
• Sony Pictures is cutting 300 employees, or 4% of its workforce. [LAT]
• YouTube and Universal are in talks to build a "hub" for music videos. [WSJ]
• Jon Stewart went to town on CNBC last night, in case you missed it. [Portfolio]
• For some reason, NBC has decided to bring back Heroes next season. [THR]
• In the first two months of this year, 7,453 jobs were lost at media companies. You know, just in case you're keeping track or whatever. [THR]

Victoria Gotti's Change of Heart | Last June, HarperCollins filed suit against Victoria Gotti after she failed to turn in a memoir she'd agreed to write (and for which she'd been paid a $70,000 advance). The reason? Gotti claimed the publisher had demanded she provide inside dirt on her late father, Mafia boss John Gotti, whereas she thought the book was going to just be about her. "They wanted more of dad than I was willing to give," she said at the time. It looks like someone's had a change of mind. Publishers Marketplace reports that Gotti has signed a new book deal:More

• HarperCollins announced layoffs and a major reorg today. [NYO, Gawker]
• No one wants to take the editor job at OK! [Page Six]
• Ron Burkle's magazine distribution company is suing a bunch of publishing companies for trying to drive it out of business. We should be so lucky. [NYP]
• Michael Kinsley explains why micropayments won't save newspapers. [NYT]
• Time's Walter Isaacson, however, argued the opposite position last night when he appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. [NYO, TDS]
• Hachette is dropping out of the Magazine Publishers of America. [AdAge]
• Live Nation and Ticketmaster have announced plans to merge. [NYT]
• CBS scored big ratings on Sunday thanks to the Grammys. [AdAge]
• A day in the life of Fox News anchor Shepard Smith. [Esquire]

You have to feel a little bit sorry for Tatiana and Natasha Boncompagni, the two sisters embroiled in a nasty spat over the rights to the forthcoming novel Hedge Fund Wives. (If you've missed the action thus far, see here, here and here.) Both women have seen their reps damaged as a result, and Tatiana's career as a journalist and novelist will probably be overshadowed by the incident for many years to come. (Fortunately, she married into money. Or so she says.) Yesterday Natasha took down the website that hosted pages from the disputed manuscript. (We have a copy of the judge's ruling here, in case you're interested.) One party, we hear, that is not all that unhappy about the flurry of press that has followed in recent days? HarperCollins, not surprisingly. Hedge Fund Wives is now available for pre-order and the book's sales rank has edged up ever so slightly from 500,000 to 132,377. The messy feud has also boosted Boncompagni's first book, Gilding Lily: It dipped below 10,000 earlier this week before losing some ground today. It's now ranked 19,921.

HarperCollins appears to be standing by Tatiana Boncompagni as she battles her sister, Natasha, over who actually authored the forthcoming novel Hedge Fund Wives. At least for the moment! We just heard back from Erin Crum, director of corporate communications at HarperCollins: "We hope that they can work it out amicably, and we will still be publishing the book on May 5th."

What promises to be an onslaught of publicity for Tatiana Boncompagni's novel Gilding Lily is just beginning. The book, which sounds more than a little autobiographical, isn't out till September 9th, but HarperCollins released a video of Boncompagni (in a low-cut dress, natch) poking fun at the high society her characters inhabit—which is a neat pre-emptive measure against being dismissed as yet another author of shallow chick lit. Because if she deliberately wrote it that way, it's actually satire! See Tatiana laugh at herself and her ilk after the jump. More

• Whoops! The "anonymous" magazine editor who was quoted in this week's New York cover story about plastic surgery? Meet Elle's Carol Smith. [Portfolio]
• Greg Zuckerman, the WSJ reporter who landed the first interview with John Paulson back in January, has landed a six-figure book deal with Doubleday. [NYP]
• More on John Edwards' alleged love child, the story that some media outlets apparently don't want you to see. [Gawker]
• Not only is Dr. Dre releasing a new album, he's got a line of vodka and cognac in the works, too. [Reuters]
• Tommy Hilfiger is producing a special for Bravo, which will "representative of Tommy's unique view of America," whatever that means. [AdAge]
• The Village Voice is launching four new blogs. [MB]
• The mood at the goodbye party for former HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman: festive with a "slight undertow of regret." [NYM]

Undeterred by Jerry Seinfeld identifying her as a potential assassin because of her three names, cookbook author Missy Chase Lapine is expanding her defamation lawsuit against the Seinfelds to also include Jessica Seinfeld's publisher HarperCollins. Both Lapine's book, The Sneaky Chef, and the book she accuses of ripping it off, Deceptively Delicious, became bestsellers, but—surprise!—the author with the famous husband who also landed a coveted appearance on Oprah has sold many more copies of her book. More

The truth about HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman's abrupt departure from her job has now been established, sort of. While it's obvious that News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch fired her—not least because heir-in-waiting  Brian Murray was offered Friedman's job two days before she knew anything about it—no one who's willing to speak knows why the unscrupulous Aussie cut loose a woman who, by all accounts, had done extremely well for the company and was widely admired by her publishing cohorts. And so the normally dry old book industry is consumed with soap opera-ish emotion and intrigue: Agent Robert Gottlieb calls the decision "a dreadful mistake...What can be in the minds of these people, losing somebody that valuable, is simply beyond my comprehension," while a HarperCollins exec says that they'd "all be helped emotionally if we had a better sense of why this happened." Bring in the trauma counselors!

The news that Harper Collins' CEO of ten years, Jane Friedman, is stepping down—just days after announcing at Book Expo America that she "loves" her job—has been met with surprise from both industry watchers and colleagues, and has triggered speculation that she was ruthlessly cut loose by her boss, News Corp. overlord Rupert Murdoch, due to disappointing company performance. The official line is that she resigned, of course, and the House of Rupe has since announced that Brian Murray, Friedman's No. 2, will take over as CEO effective immediately. No doubt the real story will emerge in the next few days.