Regarding Howard: The "mainstream" media catches up with Taboid Baby on Stern's irrelevance and probable return to "free" radio

We've been writing for a couple of years about Howard Stern's irrelevance that began the moment he left free radio and sold out to a paid satellite system, and have predicted that he would eventually return in some form to "free FM." Now the "mainstream" media, in the form of The Los Angeles Times, is catching up. Greg Braxton writes in tomorrow's paper:

Howard Stern loses listeners--
and influence -- on satellite radio

Howard Stern, the self-proclaimed King of All Media, has lost his crown.

The shock jock's syndicated morning radio show once drew a national audience of 12 million, but since jumping to satellite radio three years ago, his listeners have dwindled to a fraction of that. Where once Stern routinely commanded a parade of Hollywood's hottest stars -- George Clooney, Johnny Depp, Julia Roberts -- today publicists are left to tout studio appearances by the likes of Chevy Chase, Joan Rivers or Hulk Hogan.

Stern, weary of fighting the Federal Communications Commission over hefty fines and charges of indecency on his terrestrial show, wanted creative independence on the unregulated airwaves of satellite. He got it -- and a lucrative five-year contract worth hundreds of million of dollars.

But for a 54-year-old man who once likened his youthful craving for media attention to a heroin addiction, the move may have come with unintended consequences. Along with the loss of a massive daily radio audience, Stern has also watched as his past triumphs of a hit movie, bestselling books and huge pay-per-view television specials recede into memory.

So far, the radio personality's leap from traditional media to a niche platform has come at a heavy price -- namely, cultural relevancy. Unlike an Arianna Huffington, who vastly increased her reach on her upstart website, Stern's place in the national conversation has been reduced to a murmur in the din of the exploding entertainment universe.

"It's like Howard went from playing Madison Avenue to playing an upscale off-Broadway concert hall for a lot of money," said Tom Taylor, executive news editor at Radio-Info.com, which tracks the radio industry. "He made a Faustian bargain. He got everything he wanted in terms of money and not being bothered by the FCC, but he lost the bulk of his audience."

...Radio analysts... estimated the actual size of Stern's daily satellite audience to be between 1 million and 2 million.

Stern's program today is much like it was.... and despite the enhanced autonomy, the language is only a bit more coarse and the sexual discussions slightly more explicit.

"The show has a lot of sameness, though he definitely has a lot more freedom now," Taylor said. "There's a sense talking to the people who know him that he is aware that he's isolated. But he knew this would happen."

With a reduced audience, Stern's show is no longer a prime stop on the major film promotion circuit. And the A-list guests who used to submit to Stern's biting personal questions in order to hype their projects have become scarce...

It's a far cry from previous years, when from the bully pulpit of his radio show, Stern anointed himself as "The King of All Media"...

Since Stern's departure from terrestrial radio, rumors have periodically circulated that the shock jock will return to his terrestrial radio roots. Stern has dismissed the talk, but his current contract expires in 2010. What then?

Dr. Ruehl's Realm of Bizarre News Quiz Show

The Realm Of Bizarre News 42: Quiz Special Edition

Tabloid Baby pal, contributor, columnist and TV, movie and music video star Dr. Franklin Ruehl, Ph.D. is back with a special edition of his Realm of Bizarre News: his Amazing, Hypergalactic, Ultradimensional Quiz Show. Plus, he hauls out his straw-through-the-potato trick, er, experiment.

The Seventh Python reunites with Fatso

In typical, deliberately obscure fashion, Neil Innes has embarked on a thirtieth anniversary reunion tour with a band that no one's heard of! The star of The Seventh Python, the acclaimed musical biopic from our pals at Frozen Pictures is on the road in the UK with Fatso, the house band from Rutland Weekend Television, his series with Eric Idle, on which the Rutles first appeared (and George Harrison appeared-- with Fatso-- as well). Rutle John Halsey and Rockpile legend Billy Bremner are also in the combo that played the Cavern Club in Liverpool last night.

Neil answered five questions from London's Metro:

Neil Innes is offten referred to as 'the seventh Python'. He was also a member of Beatles pastiche The Rutles and The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. His other group, Fatso, are now reunited after a 30-year break.

Rather than a Fatso tour, there was going to be another Bonzo tour. What happened?

The last Bonzo tour was enough. It was a happy bubble in a turbulent world. I'm proud of the CD we made last summer (Pour l'Amour Des Chiens), but seriously, folks: for me, the time has come to let sleeping dogs lie.

How have you managed to reunite such an far-flung combo?

Bassist Brian Hodgson has been the driving force behind the reunion. We're all really looking forward to it happening. I'm sitting here grinning just at the thought of it.

Will you be playing exclusively Fatso stuff, or will there be contributions from the repertoire of each band member?

There will be old favourites from The Rutles, Python and The Bonzos, as well as individual stuff. There'll be a certain amount of mucking about and dressing up, but we'll also be doing George Harrison's Beware Of Darkness and John Halsey [drummer] has promised us Summer Holiday.

Are there any plans for an accompanying album or DVD?

We'll be recording every night of the tour, for our own amusement as much as anything. Like The Bonzos, this is not a career move: it's purely for the fun of it.

After the tour, will you be returning to your solo work?

I'll be going back to Holland, where I'm producing a CD for a theatrical genius called Freek De Jonge. We've known each other for 25 years and if we don't do it now, we never will. I'll be getting on with my book and then thinking about solo work. I've just invested in [editing software application] Final Cut Pro, so I think I'll become a movie-maker.

Dean Reynolds is the new face of network news arrogance, elitism and irrelevance

CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds makes news by complaining about campaign creature comforts and deadlines through that hip yuppie thing called "blogging" on the CBS News site (the one that Katie Couric pretends to "blog" on):

"...The McCain folks are more helpful and generally friendly. The schedules are printed on actual books you can hold in your hand, read, and then plan accordingly. The press aides are more knowledgeable and useful to us in the news media. The events are designed with a better eye, and for the simple needs of the press corps...

"The McCain campaign plane is better than Obama's, which is cramped, uncomfortable and smells terrible most of the time. Somehow the McCain folks manage to keep their charter clean, even where the press is seated.

"The other day in Albuquerque, N.M., the reporters were given almost no time to file their reports after McCain spoke. It was an important, aggressive speech, lambasting Obama's past associations. When we asked for more time to write up his remarks and prepare our reports, the campaign readily agreed to it. They understood.

"Similar requests are often denied or ignored by the Obama campaign aides...."

Boo hoo hoo.

Dr. Phil to focus on human trafficking

Tina Malave, Tabloid Baby pal and correspondent on the 2005 revival of A Current Affair, wants us to watch the Dr. Phil show tomorrow, Friday, October 10th.

For good reason! It features an issue and a person Tina's brought to public attention.

Tina writes:

Hi Everybody,

I just wanted to let you know that this Friday the Dr. Phil Show is airing their first ever show about Human Trafficking and they feature my friend Maria Suarez, whose book I'm currently writing. They packed a lot into the show, which was incredibly insightful, but because of time, they were not able to share all the details of Maria's amazing and unbelievable story.

For those of you not familiar with her story; Maria came to America legally at the age of 15. Two weeks after arriving in California she was offered a job helping an elderly couple by a woman she met in front of her house. But instead, the woman sold her to a 67 year old pedophile known in his neighborhood as a "brujo" or witch, who practiced black magic.

For 5 years Maria was physically, sexually, emotionally and spiritually tortured by this man, before he was killed by a neighbor who was being harrassed by the old man as well. The killer and his wife pinned the crime on Maria, who at that point was an emotionally broken girl who didn't understand English or the legal system. She ended up serving 22 1/2 years in prison for a crime she did not commit before the CA Board of Prison Terms finally re-investigated her case and released her.

Her story is incredible, but what's even more amazing is that Maria managed to walk out of almost 3 decades of hell with the untouched heart of an angel. While in prison she learned English, got her GED and took college courses, and she is now a counselor for abused woman as well as men who are abusers. She's truly a remarkable and inspirational woman, and I'm proud to call her a friend.

It's so important that high profile shows like Dr. Phil continue to do episodes and follow ups to bring awareness to the buying and selling of human beings that is going on, right here in America, in mind blowing numbers.

If you have the time after the show airs on Friday, please visit the Dr. Phil Show website (www.drphil.com) and tell them you want to hear more stories about this crime, how to end it, and more about Maria's story.

We appreciate your support! Please pass this on!

All the Best,

Tina Malave and Maria Suarez

"My fellow prisoners": McCain's POW flashback

John McCain slips up, or is he cracking up?

And you thought we weren't serious when we said his POW experience is a reason he's unfit for the job of President.

Lloyd Thaxton

He had an influential television show and a very good blog.

His wife writes:

LLOYD HAS MOVED ON

Hello:

My name is Barbara Thaxton, Lloyd's wife.

Lloyd passed away last Sunday morning in my arms. He has now moved on
to his next creative project ... making the angels laugh.

Goodbye my beloved. I will miss you.

The world will miss you.

Your comments are welcome.

Bursky boffo in first preview of The New 30!

Veteran comedian Alan Bursky made a rousing comeback and the theatre world saw a new contender emerge last night as the solo show The New 30 had its first preview on the Sunset Strip.

Eric Cohen's comic play about a generation's obsession with looking and acting younger than our ages played to a select crowd at The Laugh Factory, and while there are obvious technical kinks to work out in the multi-media stage production, the content, pacing and delivery of the show point to a winner.


The celeb-studded crowd that included comics Elayne Boosler and Dom Irrera and former HBO chief Chris Albrecht were howling at the observations on everything from Botox to erectile dysfunction to Keith Richards.

The fast-paced, laugh-filled play, which is produced by our pals at Frozen Pictures along with Cohen's Murray Hemingway Productions, is obviously a prime candidate for franchising in theatres and comedy clubs across the country.

But it was Bursky's performance that had the crowd on its feet. A veteran of thirty years of the comedy wars (he first hit it big as a teenager), Bursky's comfort onstage, interjections of physical comedy and ability to relate to the audience erased all boundaries between author and actor and made it seem as if he'd lived every ache, embarrassment, disappointment and prostate problem that Cohen writes about so hilariously.


The show returns for two more showcase previews at The Laugh Factory on October 28th and November 6th. Meanwhile, Bursky will be appearing at Harrah's Improv on the Las Vegas Strip with John Caponera (who appears in Frozen Pictures' influential sports comedy Cloud 9) from October 14th through 19th. If you're lucky enough to be in Vegas, catch Alan Bursky before he explodes again.

"That One"?

Five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam do not automatically qualify a man to become president. In fact, in the case of cranky, reckless, old cancer-riddled John McCain, it should disqualify him, and not only because the five years of brainwashing techniques he underwent still cause him to cringe at the sound of jangling keys.

The POW experience and determination to "rewin" Vietnam came out loud and strong in last night's debate when he referred to his opponent Barack Obama as "That One," a dehumanizing label that is not only outrageous and racist but surely stems from the treatment he received at the hands of his Congcaptors.

And don't get us started on that demagogue Sarah Palin. We're happy to be be recognized as the first new organization to compare her to Lonesome Rhodes.

The New 30 is the next great solo comedy show

First it was movie musicals, now our pals at Frozen Pictures are into thea-tuh! Ha! The team that brought us Burt Reynolds in Cloud 9 and the hilarious new meditation on celebrity culture, The Seventh Python, is now producing a solo comedy performance that's having the first of three previews tomorrow night at the Laugh Factory on The Sunset Strip.

The New 30 (as in "fifty is the new thirty...") is a nonstop laughfest about the losing fight against growing old, written by one of the premier television comedy writers of the past 30 years. Eric Cohen was Johnny Carson's head monologue writer. He was a creator of Welcome Back, Kotter. He's written and produced for every major sitcom from Mr. T and Tina (a lost classic) to the Golden Girls to Raymond.

And to top it off, he produced a series starring The Olsen Twins, but we'll have to wait for him to write a book on that one.

Now Eric Cohen doesn't perform the show. He's the playwright. And he's directing Alan Bursky, a veteran everyman funnyman and another veteran of the last golden age of standup (the era from Richard Lewis to Drew Carey) who's got historic Tonight Show cred as the youngest comedian to appear on show.

He was 18, Johnny was in his heyday. Now Bursky's the new 30 (as in "fifty's..."). Bursky's lived the standup life as few others, from the top on network TV and Vegas to the lows and even a place in Comedy Babylon as Freddie Prinze's best friend and roommate when Freddie shot himself (Mike Binder played Bursky in the TV movie).


We caught a rehearsal. This isn't one of those "plays" where the playwright is recreating his birth or past trauma. This is a hilarious and knowing report from the front lines of the war on aging, with old school laugh-out-loud one-liners mixed with new insight into the modern-day obsession with youth and looking good, no matter the cost. There are lots of laughs and we can see this branching out and playing clubs and theaters in every town that has a pharmacy that stocks Viagra or Botox.

The first preview is 8 pm Tuesday at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood.

Check out The New 30 website here.

Cut out the attached flyer for a half-price ticket.


And hey guys, here's your first review:

"A nonstop laughfest about the losing fight against growing old! A hilarious and knowing report from the front lines of the war on aging! Old school laugh-out-loud one-liners mixed with new insight into the modern-day obsession with youth and looking good, no matter the cost!"

--TabloidBaby.com

Bizarre News! Dr. Ruehl is a werewolf!

The Realm Of Bizarre News 41: The Werewolf Chronicles

Tabloid Baby pal, contributor, columnist and TV, movie and music video star Dr. Franklin Ruehl, Ph.D. hides his face in this latest installment of his Realm of Bizarre News But why?

When Steve Dunleavy wrote about Tabloid Baby

"I normally would have sued
the son-of-a-gun
for what he wrote about me,
but I can't-- it's all doggone true."

When Tabloid Baby was published in November 1999, New York Post superstars Steve Dunleavy and Neal Travis hosted a launch party for the book at Elaine's restaurant on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

Duneleavy also appeared at numerous events to promote the book in which he was featured controversially-- and wrote the following review of Tabloid Baby for The New York Post.

It was published on November 14th, 1999.

Thanks again, mate.

MY FONDEST 'AFFAIR': WHEN WE WERE TABLOID-TV KINGS
By STEVE DUNLEAVY

JOHNNY Lester had just gotten out of the slammer after 13 years for canceling the ticket of a guy who insulted his wife.

He wasn't a victim of nightmares in his cell, but he thought he was witnessing a miracle when Rafael Abromovitz appeared at the bar room door.

"My God," Johnny exclaimed. "That must have been some operation to get Raf back on his feet."

On the television show "A Current Affair," Raf was always pictured sitting down at a word processor in various parts of the country.

"All the guys in prison thought he was disabled. We all felt sorry for him because we didn't know he could walk."

Johnny was typical of the crowd that surrounded "A Current Affair." Con men, criminals, celebrities, politicians - all seemed to remain part of the show's extended family, even when we beat them up.

Burt Kearns, in his new book "Tabloid Baby," takes us on a delightful and raucous romp through that world.

It was a world that will never be seen again. The wildest bunch of pirates imaginable. I know because I was there.

In eloquent if sometimes brutal prose, Kearns, a senior producer on the show, unmasks all the usual suspects, which would guarantee that Tom Brokaw wouldn't let himself be buried in the same cemetery as any of us.

Kearns sums up the spin when he describes being offered a job at CBS:

"There was something about CBS that didn't smell right.

"Something cultish in the way employees saw themselves upholding a sacred tradition, carrying out some grand mission to spread the CBS orthodoxy."

Well, Dan Rather we weren't, but more like a brazen bunch of bandits who ambushed, conned, begged, borrowed, bought and charmed to grab that story.

"We'd taken television to a delirious and dangerous edge," Kearns writes.

In varying doses of scandal, celebrity, crime, politics and morality, the tabloid television tales riveted a nation for a decade and Kearns grabs it all in print.

Like stories of the exclusive video of Robert Chambers, the "Preppy Killer," secured by Abromovitz, which wiped the networks' clocks.

And the sex tapes of brat-packer Rob Lowe, which bewitched millions although Kearns admits to hijacking the tape.

But if the elite networks turned their noses up at the menu, then shrieks of silence followed when they saw the "A Current Affair" SWAT team in action when the Berlin Wall came down.

The team, led by Kearns, consisted in part of Maury Povich, a class act, the giant Gordon Elliott, and scrappy reporter David Miller.

When the Rathers, Jennings and Brokaws saw Gordon Elliott climb the wall and then start chipping away with a pick ax as the cameras rolled, the networks knew who was doing the driving.

Kearns actually admits to a borderline kidnapping of a German from New York and a forced reunion with a brother in East Germany, who hated his guts.

"We were the f-ing champions of the world," Kearns exults in the book.

At the helm of the hysterical high-tension hijinx was the gentle genius producer Peter Brennan and executive producer Ian Rae. They were ably aided and abetted by a marvelous maniac called Wayne Darwen. Also on board was Scotsman Dick McWilliams.

The news room resembled something out of a rerun of Hildy Johnson's "Front Page."

The air was blue with language, political incorrectness and cigarette smoke. And while there may not have been a whiskey bottle in the bottom drawer, there was plenty of the stuff at the bottom of the stairs and across the road at The Racing Club.

The title of the book, "Tabloid Baby," tells you how it all went full circle until Kearns goes respectable, marries beautiful British TV anchor Alison Holloway and has a lovely son called Sam. All wrapped up in Los Angeles suburbia.

Those wedding bells are breaking up that old gang of mine.

Of course, I normally would have sued the son-of-a-gun for what he wrote about me, but I can't - it's all doggone true.

Steve Dunleavy's Last Column

October 3, 2008
The New York Post

I MAY BE GOING -
BUT I WON'T BE GONE

REAL men don't cry, but on Wednesday night if my eyes were dry, there was a Niagara cascading from my heart.

It was the occasion of my retirement at a monster bash at the Bourbon Street Bar and Grille in Midtown.

Perhaps I have made bigger decisions in my life, it's just that I can't remember when.

But when the bones get a bit creaky, you can't stay at the dance too long. So with a thousand moments of doubt, I regretfully decided to put my cue in the rack.

When you are 55 years in the business, 41 of those years working for the greatest news organization in the world, parting is not just sweet sorrow. It can be bloody torture.

Sure, when I made the final decision, I was awash in self-pity and doubt - that is, for just about a nanosecond.

Suddenly, you compile the camaraderie, the laughs, the exhilaration (with a few spills along the way), and you scold yourself for not realizing that you are not completing- but beginning - another chapter in a wonderfully happy life.

This company has sent me from Bogota to Baghdad, Lima to London, Kentucky to Kabul, Tampa to Tel Aviv.

How lucky can one guy be? How lucky to go into retirement with all that behind you.

I never spent a single hour at Columbia School of Journalism, except when I gave a lecture to journalism students - and I was about as popular as a fire hydrant at the Westchester dog show.

It's only those who are lucky enough to work for Rupert Murdoch who know what I am talking about.

This organization is filled with news hounds, young and old, guys and gals who take their jobs pathologically seriously - but, heaven forbid, don't take themselves seriously.

In my day, a misguided era in which the job was consumed by booze, tobacco and carousing, perhaps we were a little (little?) wilder, but the result of victory in the pages of the newspaper was the same.

Of course, then to atone for our sins, my friend and colleague Piers Akerman in Sydney says, "Forgive us our press passes." All of it has made me a pretty happy fellow.

Oh, yeah, I will miss those great cops and firefighters, the nutty judges and politicians and the criminal lawyers who were more colorful than an explosion in a paint factory.

And, of course, I will miss that great crew of the media militia - the reporters at The Post. And the leader of this wonderful far-flung empire, the boss.

Now I promise you, this is not goodbye. I promise you I'll be around to continue doing what I do best, being a pain in the rear end.

New York Post editorial honors Steve Dunleavy

The New York Post
October 3, 2008

THE DUNLEAVY DIFFERENCE

After a newspaper and television career spanning 55 years, including some three decades at The Post, our friend and colleague Steve Dunleavy has hung up his notebook.

Not that the hyperkinetic Dunleavy hasn't earned a rest - though a truly retired Steve is hard to imagine.

Joining The Post in 1977, he's been a reporter, an editor and a columnist.

Readers across the five boroughs came to love his no-nonsense columns - but none more so than the members of New York's uniformed services, especially its cops and firefighters.

He did more than cheer them on in print: He raised money for the families of officers killed in the line of duty. Indeed, as Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said at a packed farewell bash Wednesday night, "He was always there."

Dunleavy never talked down to his readers, nor did he lecture them.

All he ever wanted to do was tell a story. And that he did - simply, clearly and effectively.

Which is why he was always able to do what too few in this profession can: He connected with his readers.

So Steve Dunleavy's colleagues wish him a long and happy retirement.

He had a hell of a ride.

Video: New York Post covers Dunleavy send-off

The New York Post
October 3, 2008

A NIGHT OF POMP-ADORE
SENDOFF FOR POST'S DUNLEAVY

By CLEMENTE LISI

Cheers, mate!

Some 400 friends and colleagues of legendary Post columnist Steve Dunleavy marked the retirement of the tabloid titan at a big bash in the Theater District - calling him a "man of the people" who'd do anything to score a scoop.

Dunleavy, famous for his oversized pompadour and trademark cigarette, called it quits following a 55-year career that included chronicling the famous and infamous while collecting big bar tabs and even bigger stories. "I'll miss you all," Dunleavy, 70, told the crowd packed inside Bourbon Street Bar and Grille on Wednesday night.

Those who honored Dunleavy included News Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch, Post Editor-in-Chief Col Allan, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, Uniformed Firefighters Association President Steve Cassidy and former "A Current Affair" host Maury Povich, accompanied by his wife, Connie Chung.

"Your dedication to your work, your inspiration to others and loyalty to the paper defies description," Murdoch said as Dunleavy and wife Gloria looked on. "It's exceptional. I've never seen anything like it my whole life."

A defender of cops and firefighters, the Australian-born scribe famously arrived in New York on New Year's Eve 1966 with 10 bucks in his pocket and joined The Post a decade later.

Although he covered presidents and dictators, Dunleavy made a name for himself as the defender of the little guy. In his columns, Dunleavy pulled no punches - lambasting liberals and sticking up for cops. "He's larger than life," Kelly said of Dunleavy. "Everyone in uniform loves him."

Dunleavy, who traded newsprint for TV in 1986 to work as a reporter for "A Current Affair," returned to The Post in 1995.

Cassidy, who presented Dunleavy with a fire helmet, said, "your success is related to the fact that you've never forgotten the common man."

clisi@nypost.com

Dancing in the Dark a highlight of Dunleavy bash

The retirement party for journalism legend and culture icon Steve Dunleavy was an affair crowded with the greatest figures in modern-day journalism, from Rupert Murdoch to The National Enquirer's Barry Levine, Jim Brady to Peter Brennan. And Murdoch, Levine and Brennan spoke tribute to the legendary Dunleavy, at the bar of the Bourbon Street Bar & Grille on West 46th Street, along with New York City police commissioner Ray Kelly, a fireman, a priest, Maury Povich and Col Allan, editor of the New York Post. The entire two-floor establishment was packed with journos who'd journeyed from as far as London, Hong Kong, Los Angeles and Sydney to be there to pay tribute to their mate while he was still standing.

The highlight of the evening was a special video tribute including comic bits from the likes of Maury and wife Connie Chung, and greatest hits of Dunleavy's storied career. And who would have thought the finale of the video tribute was our own video tribute Dancing in The Dark, that was received with loud cheers, and later played on its own on flatscreen sets around the restaurant.

Dunleavy's dancing on the video was so graceful and athletic that more than one attendee, including Page Six editor Richard Johnson, asked whether a stunt double had been used.

Steve Dunleavy retirement party hosted by Rupert Murdoch last night at the Bourbon Street Bar & Grille on West 46th Street in Manhattan

Steve Dunleavy Tabloid Master Class Part 6: What can be learned from his infamous TV brawl with Michelle Cassone

Journalism legend and cultural icon Steve Dunleavy wrestled a bear on A Current Affair.

He also wrestled Michelle Cassone, who implicated Sen. Edward Kennedy in his nephew Willie's 1991 rape case in Palm Beach, Florida.

Steve talks about the story behind fracas above.

(From the Tabloid Baby-Frozen Pictures production: Steve Dunleavy: The Man and His Music.)

Steve Dunleavy Tabloid Master Class Part 5

On the occasion of his retirement, journalism legend and cultural icon Steve Dunleavy will be feted by Rupert Murdoch, friends, colleagues, admirers and competitors at a party in Manhattan this evening.

In celebration of his influential career, we continue with Steve Dunleavy's master class on tabloid journalism.

This morning's lecture is entitled:

"All's Fair in Love, War & Newsgathering."

More to follow. Stay tuned here.

(From the Tabloid Baby-Frozen Pictures production: Steve Dunleavy: The Man and His Music.)

Sydney's Daily Telegraph honors Steve Dunleavy

The Daily Telegraph

Steve Dunleavy,
hard-nosed legend
with ink in his veins

By Piers Akerman
September 30, 2008 12:00am

LATER this week a special edition of The New York Post will mark the retirement of the last of the great journalists of the pre-electronic era - the Australian Steve Dunleavy.

Dunleavy, or as he occasionally introduced himself, Steven Patrick Francis Aloysius Dunleavy, is that rare thing in these times of five-second celebrities, a genuine legend.

To put his 70-year-life and 55-year career into some perspective, Dunleavy's name was known from Hong Kong to Halifax, Melbourne to Miami, in a period pre-dated computers and fax machines and the now ubiquitous mobile phone.

When he began as a cadet on the old Sydney Sun, many homes didn't even have a telephone, and calls were made from coin-operated telephones found in quaint weatherproof boxes generally located on street corners.

Interstate telephone calls had to be booked in advance from operators who worked for the Postmaster-General's department in each capital and newspapers relied on banks of telex machines for their national and international news stories.

Reporters didn't go to Google looking for stories, or to idiot-traps like Wikipedia for their "facts".

Newsrooms were packed with experienced professionals who had learnt their craft after progressing through a series of rounds designed to instil in them a love of words and a reverence for truth.

The sub-editors' desk was a repository of collective memory and institutional wisdom, experts could be found there on almost every topic, and most were willing to take likely beginners through their stories, word by word, paragraph by paragraph to help them get it right.

Good editors knew what a story was, knew how to campaign, and didn't need to sit behind one-way glass listening to focus groups fantasise about visions and perfect worlds.

There were no media studies degrees and no courses in journalism in Australia, and when they did emerge, they were largely staffed by those who hadn't been able to make it in a professional news organisation.

If anyone did appear with a qualification in journalism, it was assumed they had not made their name on the road.

There was probably the same ratio of misfits and malcontents attracted to the media as there is today, and the bars near newsrooms had their share of psychologically damaged souls who had never heard of stress counselling. Alcohol and mateship carried those who had seen scenes they would never wish upon anyone through their torment.

In this world of clattering typewriters, ringing telephones, and cigarette-etched desks, Dunleavy was king.

He had a nose (quite a feature of his handsome face, actually) for a story. He had charm and personality to spare.

If he could get through on a telephone, he had the story half-written, if he could get his foot in a door and speak face-to-face with his subject, the story was on its way to the presses.

While some reporters began their day with a prayer which started: "Lord, forgive us our press passes", Dunleavy's began with cold beer.

He would pounce on a telephone as soon as it rang, in case there was someone with a story to tell. He was a great listener, and a great charmer, and the stories of his extraordinary success with women are all true.

He did have his ankle broken by a passing mini-van when he was making love on a drift of snow formed between some parked cars (he spread his coat on the snow as a blanket for his friend) across from Elaine's nightclub during a New York blizzard, and such was his devotion to the moment that he didn't realise what had happened till he was dancing later that evening.

He did romance one of Ted Kennedy's "boiler-room" girls to get the inside story on the events that led to Mary Jo Kopechne's tragic death in Ted Kennedy's car at Chappaquiddick in 1969, and his then-wife, Yvonne, did co-author The Happy Hooker with Dutch madam Xaviera Hollander.


While he graduated from the university of hard knocks, he knew his way around enough to guide me on my first visit to Harvard more than 30 years ago. That we were en route to the maximum security Walpole prison to visit the Boston Strangler, Albert de Salvo (above), is another story.

He later wrote a weekly column, This I Believe, which ushered in the Reagan era and the restoration of American pride, and he became a star of a tabloid television show produced by another old Sydney reporter, Peter Brennan.

He stood up for cops and firemen and servicemen and women, and he wrote of his pride and tears when his own son, US Army Captain Peter Dunleavy, went to Iraq in 2004.

Tomorrow night, Australia's global media giant Rupert Murdoch, the editor-in-chief of the NY Post, Col Allan, and a galaxy of media greats will stand up for Steve as he turns in his NYPD press card.

Big drinks will be taken, even bigger stories will be told, and the final paragraph will be written on the reporting days of a man who fiercely burnt the candle at both ends and in the middle, living the life he loved.

Steve Dunleavy Tabloid Master Class Part 4

We continue our special presentation of journalism legend and cultural icon Steve Dunleavy's master class on tabloid journalism.

This morning's lesson:

Aussie rhyming slang.

Steve's being feted by Rupert Murdoch at a retirement party tomorrow night.

This is the place where we're cutting through the jealousies and politics show why Dunleavy is so influential. And so good.

More lessons to follow. Stay tuned here.

(From the Tabloid Baby-Frozen Pictures production: Steve Dunleavy: The Man and His Music).

Steve Dunleavy Tabloid Master Class Part 3

Journalism legend and cultural icon Steve Dunleavy talks about objectivity in this special master class on tabloid journalism.

Rupert Murdoch and The New York Post are throwing Dunleavy a retirement party on Wednesday.

More lessons to follow. Stay tuned here.

(From the Tabloid Baby-Frozen Pictures production: Steve Dunleavy: The Man and His Music).

Steve Dunleavy Tabloid Master Class Part 2

Journalism legend and cultural icon Steve Dunleavy continues his master class on tabloid journalism with his thoughts on the elements of a good story.

More lessons to follow.

Stay tuned here.

(From the Tabloid Baby-Frozen Pictures production: Steve Dunleavy: The Man and His Music).

Steve Dunleavy Tabloid Master Class Part 1

They're throwing Steve Dunleavy a retirement party in a saloon on West 46th Street Wednesday night. Time to cut through all the spinners-- the snarky gawkerstalkers, hoity-toit print libs and twenty five-dollar-haircuts-on-twenty-five-cent heads who read the network Teleprompters-- and understand why the man who wrote Elvis What Happened? is so beloved, so important and so influential.

Heck, most of you only know Paul Newman from the supermarket shelves.

So begins a master class in tabloid journalism from the master.

More lessons to follow.

Stay tuned here.

(From the Tabloid Baby-Frozen Pictures production: Steve Dunleavy: The Man and His Music).

The New York Times praises Steve Dunleavy

In tomorrow's (Monday's) paper:

A 'Tabloid Guy' Calls It a Night
After 41 Year With Murdoch

By TIM ARANGO

Published: September 28, 2008

There are so many stories about the life and times of Steve Dunleavy, the longtime New York Post columnist and even longer-time Rupert Murdoch acolyte, that some, inevitably, have evolved over the years.

Many of the tales involve copious amounts of alcohol. But not this one. It goes like this: As a young copyboy in Australia 55 years ago, Mr. Dunleavy was so hungry for a story that he popped the tires of his father’s car at a murder scene. His father, a photographer at a rival paper, could not get to the post office to transmit photos, and Mr. Dunleavy, then about 15 years old, earned his paper a big scoop.

That is how Mr. Murdoch remembers it.

Mr. Dunleavy tells a different version. Yes, he punctured the tires of a car, but it was owned by his father’s newspaper and he did not know his dad was there. And it was not a murder but the story of a group of missing hikers.

“That story gets told and told, and each time it gets a little bit more whiskers on it,” Mr. Dunleavy said.

After 55 years in journalism — 41 of them spent working for Mr. Murdoch — Mr. Dunleavy is seeing the curtain come down on his career. He has been an unabashed friend to police officers, firefighters, civil servants and the occasional mobster and the scourge of polite society and liberals.

In his heyday, Mr. Dunleavy was the personification of Mr. Murdoch’s brand of tabloid journalism, both in print and, for 10 years beginning in the mid-1980s, on television. He was an on-air reporter for “A Current Affair,” a news magazine whose sensationalized mix of crime and celebrity inspired a lot of what is on television today, like TMZ.com, Court TV and Fox News Channel.

“Steve was very much involved in educating America about the joys and pleasures of tabloid journalism,” said Col Allan, editor in chief of The New York Post. “In many ways, Steve has represented the News Corp. culture — that is, hard work, hard play, laughing.”

Mr. Dunleavy also tweaked the political landscape of the city, proving that populism in New York City could come from the right and not just from the cadre of well-known left-leaning columnists of the time, men like Pete Hamill, Jimmy Breslin, Murray Kempton and Jack Newfield.

“Politically, the notion that there could be a populist, right-wing columnist in New York seemed almost inconceivable at the time, but that’s exactly what he was,” said Jonathan Mahler, author of “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning,” a chronicle of New York City’s turbulent times in 1977, and a contributor to The New York Times Magazine. “All of the iconic New York columnists were liberal, and Dunleavy was like the party crasher.”

There were times when his political instincts seemed to lead him astray, such as his championing of Wayne DuMond, who had been convicted in Arkansas of raping a distant cousin of former President Bill Clinton, who was governor of Arkansas at the time of the rape.

Mr. Dunleavy wrote a series of columns defending Mr. DuMond, who was eventually paroled, only to be convicted of murder in Missouri. And of course, Mr. Dunleavy has steadfastly refused to accept any criticism of the police — perhaps most notably by supporting the officers who were convicted in the case of Abner Louima, who was assaulted in the bathroom of a Brooklyn precinct in 1997.

But Mr. Murdoch has always liked party crashers, being one himself. Long before the News Corporation, his media conglomerate, conquered the world with cable news, movies and satellite television, it was an Australian newspaper company looking for a toehold in the United States. In the mid-1960s, Mr. Dunleavy was working in New York for United Press International, the wire service, which had its office in a building that also housed the foreign correspondents for Mr. Murdoch’s newspapers. It was there that Mr. Dunleavy met Mr. Murdoch, whom he now refers to simply as “the boss.”

In a nearly three-hour chat last week at Mr. Dunleavy’s home in Long Island, where he lives with his wife of 37 years, Gloria — hours in which he drank just two cans of Budweiser — he was uncharacteristically contemplative, melancholy even, but funny all the same.

He is in frail health, he says, because of back problems, which prevent him from moving around easily — although he insisted on fetching his second beer himself. Mr. Dunleavy and his wife have two sons, one a police officer, the other a soldier who has served in Iraq.

“I always had dreams of dying at the desk,” he said. “It’s frustrating not doing what I love best, and serving, I know it sounds corny, the one who I admire the most. Murdoch. The boss.”

It is a relationship that has spanned more than four decades, one that put Mr. Dunleavy, now 70, at Mr. Murdoch’s side as he popularized tabloid journalism.

“He was livelier than Solomon, and he was always the most entertaining reporter,” Mr. Murdoch recalled in a telephone interview last week.

Of Mr. Murdoch, Mr. Dunleavy says, “even though he’s done so well in TV and movies, I think if you asked him, he’d say he’s first a newspaperman.”

After working for several years as a correspondent in New York for Mr. Murdoch’s Australian and British papers, Mr. Dunleavy was tapped for a Murdoch start-up business in New York, The Star, a supermarket tabloid to compete with The National Enquirer. In 1976, Mr. Murdoch bought The New York Post, which was then a liberal newspaper.

“Murdoch took it over and Murdoch-ized it,” said Mr. Mahler. “And Dunleavy was at the center of it.”

In 1977, Mr. Dunleavy’s reporting on the infamous Son of Sam serial murder case reinvigorated The Post. Before Mr. Dunleavy hopped on the story, The Post had basically conceded it to The Daily News’s Jimmy Breslin.

“They kept spiking his copy,” said Mr. Murdoch, “while Breslin was leading every day. It was just killing The Post and killing Dunleavy. So I made a change because of that.” Mr. Murdoch brought in new editors, and Mr. Dunleavy began earning his own scoops — in one instance by sneaking into a hospital, dressed in clothes that looked like hospital scrubs, to interview a victim’s family.

“Steve is one of the three people in America who loves Rupert Murdoch,” said Mr. Breslin. “In a time of listless reporting, he climbed stairs. And he wrote simple declarative sentences that people could read, as opposed to these 52-word gems that moan, ‘I went to college! I went to graduate school college! Where do I put the period?’ ”

Mr. Hamill used to drink with Mr. Dunleavy at Costello’s, an old Manhattan saloon favored by reporters.

“He always had this energy,” Mr. Hamill said. “I always thought he was writing his columns like he was double-parked. He was a tabloid guy in every fiber of his body. If it didn’t have conflict, he didn’t want to write it.”

In 1988, the federal government forced Mr. Murdoch to sell The Post because he had bought a television station in New York, WNYW-Channel 5 (five years later, he reacquired the newspaper out of bankruptcy). It was around this time that Mr. Dunleavy’s television career was born on “A Current Affair.”

Recently, invitations went out to a slew of New York city journalists, police officers, lawyers, firefighters — and who knows who else — inviting them to a party given by Mr. Murdoch this week to celebrate Mr. Dunleavy’s retirement. Note that the party is not being held at Langan’s, the Midtown Manhattan bar around the corner from The New York Post’s newsroom that for years served as Mr. Dunleavy’s office.

He had a routine, normally arriving at Langan’s around lunchtime for a day of reporting. “You’d always know if he was hung over from the night before because he would have a cold beer right away,” said Des O’Brien, the owner of Langan’s. “He’d work the phone all day and various people would come in and out. He’d put in a full workday.”

If Mr. Dunleavy seems like a character out of a movie — the gruff, hard-drinking troublemaking journalist — that is because he is. Robert Downey Jr.’s role as an Australian TV reporter in Oliver Stone’s “Natural Born Killers” is said to have been based on Mr. Dunleavy. He was also a character in “The Bronx Is Burning,” which was made into a mini-series on ESPN.

“When I first came around, there was some very good newspapermen in New York,” Mr. Dunleavy said. “But increasingly, they started leaning on this Columbia School of Journalism thing. That you wanted your mom to be proud. That it was a profession.

“Journalism is a craft, like being a master plumber. We wore white collars, but we were blue collar.”

This generational clash became evident to Mr. Dunleavy years ago when he was on the campaign plane for Robert Dole, the former senator who ran for president in 1996, and saw younger reporters heading off to health clubs at the end of the day.

“As soon as we’d stop, we’d go have a gargle,” he says. “I think the younger generation is far better served going to the gym rather than the gin mill. No question about it. But we learned from our elders.”

Mr. Dunleavy gets to Manhattan infrequently nowadays, usually only when he has to see doctors at Mount Sinai Hospital, leaving voids at Langan’s, The Post’s newsroom and Elaine’s, the Upper East Side restaurant that was Mr. Dunleavy’s other favorite nightspot.

One night last week at Elaine’s, Elaine Kaufman, the proprietor, recounted the time that Mr. Dunleavy left the bar with a woman during a snowstorm and was hit by a truck. “He didn’t want to go the hospital,” recalled Ms. Kaufman. “And then there he was on the gurney.”

Mr. Dunleavy has not written much lately — he has been in a sort of unofficial retirement while he tends to his health. If he never writes again, his last byline was a tribute to his friend Tim Russert, the late NBC newsman.

“I laugh easily and loudly, but like so many of us, sometimes not sincerely,” Mr. Dunleavy wrote in June. “But with Tim, you responded with more than just a belly laugh — you’d end up in hysterics with tears streaming down your face.”

Probably more than a few can say the same about Mr. Dunleavy. “He’s a legend in his time,” said Mr. Murdoch.

Video: Sarah Palin shows off her ass in pageant

The 1984 Miss Alaska pageant.

Pop quiz for tabloid fans: What goes on behind the scenes at backwoods beauty pageants?

Now find those photos and video for an October surprise...

Sarah Palin saved from witchcraft by witch hunter

Sarah Palin takes part in a 2005 service at the Wasilla Assembly of God Pentecostal church in Alaska, in which preacher and "witch hunter" Thomas Muthee calls for witches and other Palin enemies to be defeated.

"In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, every form of witchcraft is what you rebuke. In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, father make away now.

"Come on, talk to God about this woman. We declare, save her from Satan. Make her way, my God. Bring finances her way even for the campaign in the name of Jesus. Use her to turn this nation the other way around."

He didn't protect her from Katie Couric now, did he?

Dr. Ruehl stars in Ed McMahon's rap video

Reports in recent days that beleaguered TV icon Ed McMahon is making the most of his recent financial troubles by appearing in a "rap" video ad for a credit reporting company left out the most important part of the story: Tabloid Baby pal, contributor and columnist Dr. Franklin Ruehl, Ph.D. is McMahon's co-star in the clip!

The good doctor, wjo along with his genius and tabloid work is very much in demand as an actor in TV, movie and music videos, tells us:

"I portray a street preacher in Ed McMahon's new internet segment, an ad for Freecreditreport.com entitled 'McGangster,' in which he sings a rap song about his financial problerms, rides a pit bull and two hotties, dances with several folks, is in a barber shop, and is yelled at by a street corner preacher--portrayed by yours truly!

"Ed shot the ad over a two-day period (Sept.22 & 23) in Los Angeles, including scenes in many "gangsta" neighborhoods.

"He was quite congenial, shaking all of the cast members' hands.

"In one dance scene in a motel room,where everyone was dancing around him as he rapped, he asked that cast members endeavor not to bump into him as he did not want to fall, considering that he broke his neck during his last fall.

"I portrayed the soapbox preacher(actually,on a street corner on a soapbox with my Bible, waving a 'REPENT' sign and wearing my 3-tailed raccoon Stetson hat."