Washington Post legend Bob Woodward is now quietly working on a new book about the Obama White House. In the current issue of the New Republic, I have a piece that reports on Woodward’s new book project. In early May, the White House circulated a memo that told officials not to speak with authors before clearing the interview with the press office. The Obama White House, despite vaunted claims of “transparency,” is focused on controlling information just as every previous White House has been.
Woodward told me he’s not worried about the Obama team shutting him out. “People make their individual choices about what they’re going to do, even in the White House and in the government,” he said. “Over my four decades of working on books, you find that some people will help, some people won’t help, some will help at certain stages and not at others, some people won’t help at the beginning but will help later on. That’s reporting.”
Now the parlor game begins. Who in the Obama orbit will be cooperating…
My New York Magazine cover story, “Testing Horace Mann,” which investigated a series of scandals at the prestigious New York City prep school, was nominated for a 2008 Livingston Award for Young Journalists. The piece was published in the March, 30 2008 issue of New York. On March 15 2009, I published an exclusive interview with Charles Stam, who was given the pseudonym “Jeffrey Robbins” in my cover story.
Here’s a list of all the Livingston finalists. And you can read the full Horace Mann piece HERE
I have a New Republic piece out this week on the Howard Hughes life of Matt Drudge. In recent years, the mercurial operator of the Drudge Report has gone underground. According to one source, the only people Drudge still speaks with include Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. He’s spent a considerable time on the road, traveling to such locales as Tel Aviv, Geneva and South America.
From the piece:
Drudge owes both his stature and his accompanying fortune–sources believe he makes millions per year off his site–essentially to one thing: his appetite, during the Lewinsky era and afterward, for rummaging further into the lives of public figures than mainstream journalists were willing to go. And that’s ironic when you consider the reason that his appearance at the Clinton concession speech created such a frenzy: For the past few years, Matt Drudge has gone almost completely underground.
In this week’s New York Magazine, I report on the anger felt by many on Wall Street. Deprived of their bonuses and Master of the Universe status, there’s a deep resentment and woundedness on Wall Street. As hard as it might be to imagine sometimes, yes, rich people have feelings. From the piece:
In a witch hunt, the witches have feelings, too. As populist rage has erupted around the country, stoked by canny politicians, an opposite rage has built on Wall Street and other arenas where the wealthy hold sway. Its expression is more furtive and it’s often mixed with a kind of sublimated shame, but it can be every bit as vitriolic. “AIG pissed some people off, and now you’re gonna screw everyone on Wall Street?” rails a laid-off JPMorgan vice-president.”
I have a piece in the April issue of GQ on Barry Bonds. I report on his fate after leaving baseball and his experience being the target of baseball’s efforts to purge the steroids era from its past. The embattled former Giants slugger has been unsuccessful in his attempts to get back into the game. But more so, the piece is a portrait of a man whose life is at an inflection point, between his past and an uncertain future. And I also report on Bonds’ newfound passion: hunting. From the piece:
He pulls out his binoculars and surveys the field. Soon a giant whitetail emerges out of the woods, and Mogle gets excited. “This guy is big!”
“Oh, without question,” Bonds says as the camera remains fixed on the deer. “He’d be pretty tough to pass up right there.”
As he lifts his gun, his expression turns cold and clinical. Here’s a glimmer of the old Barry Bonds, the fearsome slugger who once wore this same look as he hulked over the batter’s box, daring pitchers to confront him head-on. He cradles the rifle in his shoulder and sights the deer through the scope. It’s strange, in one sense, that the most hunted man in baseball is now an avid hunter, but not so surprising that he still gets the jones to take aim at something. “He’s coming in, he’s coming in right now,” Bonds says as the whitetail approaches. “Okay, get ready.”
He puts his finger on the trigger. The image goes split screen—Bonds on the left, the buck on the right. The picture closes in and steadies on Bonds before suddenly turning dark. Silence. And then…CRACK!
I have a New York Magazinepiece out this week that revisits my March 2008 cover story on Horace Mann. The school continues to be buffeted by a crisis of authority. Students complain the faculty, led by the upper school head David Schiller, is clamping down on their rights. Schiller, for his part, was outraged earlier this year when the current student president and vice president attacked his plans to exert more control over student assemblies.
The issue burst into public last week when Charles Stam, the former student body president who is now a freshman at Columbia, wrote a letter to the entire Horace Mann student body and faculty that was leaked to Gawker. Charles, who I gave the pseudonym “Jeffrey Robbins” in my New York piece, wrote in his letter attacking Horace Mann’s newspaper, the Record, after he was informed they wouldn’t publish it on campus. Stam also defended the current student leadership and excoriated the administration for taking more control over student affairs.
Stam told me he still feels passionately about Horace Mann and said he’s not the conservative caricature that he feels Gawker and others make him out to be. For more on Stam’s first interview since my piece ran, read the full thing HERE
I have a feature in the upcoming New Republic that looks at Politico, the Washington-based political website/newspaper. As print media faces its biggest crisis ever, with readers and advertisers migrating increasingly online, Politico is thriving.
From the piece:
That Politico was helped by the collapse of print journalism goes without saying. That it was also helped by cable news’ insatiable appetite for the tabloid and the personal is also clear. But, two years into the Politico experiment, there is fascination around Washington with what could be considered the first Internet newspaper, and whether it represents a way to make a business out of political reporting. As traditional newspapers jettison staff, Politico is holding steady. This month, Allbritton told me the venture will turn a profit in six months. “We’re way ahead of budget,” he said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if the profit this year would count in the millions of dollars.”
I have a piece out this morning at Slate’s The Big Money that looks at the issue of micropayments for online content. Last week, former Time managing editor Walter Isaacson wrote a cover story in Time that argued that newspapers should adopt the micropayment model–charging readers pennies for individual articles or a nominal monthly subscription. The idea is to create an iTunes like service for news. In my piece, I explain why Steve Jobs isn’t going to come to the newspaper industry’s rescue anytime soon.
In this week’s New York Magazine, I report on the unfolding meltdown of the biggest real-estate deal in American history. In 2006, Tishman Speyer and BlackRock bought Stuy Town and Peter Cooper Village for $5.4 billion. It was the highest price ever paid for a single real-estate transaction. Now, the deal is being buffeted by a cratering market, crushing leverage and a brewing feud with thousands of rent-stabilized tenants.
From the piece:
But by 2006, the sun seemed to be setting on the middle class in Manhattan. The blasting real-estate scene gave a whole new meaning to “market rate” apartments, and fewer and fewer people in the city believed in rent stabilization as a core value. The complex seemed a kind of anachronism—and, to the Speyers, a huge opportunity. To start with, the phrase “80 acres of Manhattan” is, to real-estate men like Rob Speyer and his father, a talismanic incantation. But it was more than just the acreage. Rob had a vision. He believed that by adding amenities and remodeling apartments—and forcing out longtime tenants who held on to their apartments in violation of rent-stabilization law—they could make Stuy Town hospitable to the new armies that were increasingly populating Manhattan, the recent college graduates with jobs in marketing and finance who worked long hours and wanted a full-service experience (including even a putting green).
Michael Wolff changes his mind about Politico, and Politico's top foreign policy reporter David Cloud quits: http://tinyurl.com/nunvx34 days ago
Dawn patrol: will be on Morning Joe tomorrow around 7:15 to discuss my New Republic piece on Bob Woodward's new Obama book project 1 month ago
My TNR piece on Bob Woodward's Obama new book is out. White House trying to control access. Woodward isn't fazed. http://tinyurl.com/n9tg521 month ago
Feel good Friday! Michael Kinsley on news mags: making time for TIME mag dumb idea; Newsweek apes Harpers, Esquire http://tinyurl.com/rde4m81 month ago
Washington Post legend Bob Woodward is now quietly working on a new book about the Obama White House. In the current issue of the New Republic, I have a piece that reports on Woodward’s new book project. In early May, the White House circulated a memo that told officials not to speak with authors before clearing the interview with the press office. The Obama White House, despite vaunted claims of “transparency,” is focused on controlling information just as every previous White House has been.
My New York Magazine cover story, “Testing Horace Mann,” which investigated a series of scandals at the prestigious New York City prep school, was nominated for a 2008 Livingston Award for Young Journalists. The piece was published in the March, 30 2008 issue of New York. On March 15 2009, I published an exclusive 
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