by Call this meta. Call this inside baseball. But it's interesting to note when The New York Times decides to let one of Rupert Murdoch's employees review an NYT reporter's book and publish it in the NYT, when Murdoch's publication isn't even a publication yet.
And yet, it's about comedy, and about the late-night TV wars, part whatever, so I don't think you'll mind me mentioning it here.
Today's edition of the Times includes a review of Times reporter Bill Carter's latest book on the late-night TV skirmishes, "The War For Late Night." Nothing particularly revelatory in the review. Except, perhaps, about the person writing the review. It's Heather Havrilesky, listed in the tagline as "staff critic at The Daily." The Daily? That's Rupert Murdoch's new iPad-only publication which hasn't even debuted yet, and won't until 2011! Murdoch owns both the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal, and stands as a key rival of the Times. So are we to presume that the Times is offering an olive branch to him and his new project by letting one of his newest employees (Havrilesky wrote her farewell to Salon.com readers only yesterday)? Or are they merely trying to prove their lack of bias by letting an outsider critique an insider's book? Either way, it's very curious.
And unless I missed it, this might be the first print byline by anyone from The Daily, which isn't going to be a print publication. So there's that bit of trivia.
