Judith Regan shoulda been a New Yorker writer

I didn’t know quite what to make of the news Wednesday that former superpublisher Judith Regan was suing HarperCollins for being really mean to her. Happily, I’ve got Roger Parloff to think (and read the filing) for me:

Regan’s [complaint] reads like one of those humor pieces in The New Yorker, where it not-so-gradually dawns on the reader that the narrator is out of his gourd. Even though you’re hearing only one side of the story, that’s enough to make up your mind against the griper. …

Regan’s 70-page, 345-paragraph, 24-count complaint was filed in state court in Manhattan on Tuesday, and is available here. [Warning! Pdf!] It mainly alleges defamation and breach of contract, but, almost in passing, it throws in a couple counts of sex discrimination, too. “Under Jane Friedman’s direction,” she alleges, “there is . . . a pattern within HarperCollins of firing high-level women in order to surround herself with men.” (She gives no examples besides herself.)

The complaint is signed by attorney Brian Kerr, of New York’s 175-lawyer Dreier firm, but it has an astoundingly unfiltered quality to it. …

Apple CEO Cook Gives Up $75M in Stock Dividends

NEW YORK — Apple CEO Tim Cook is giving up $75 million in dividends on restricted stock that the company is awarding to all of its employees.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, Apple Inc. said that Cook requested that his restricted stock units not receive dividends. The dividends that Apple workers are getting amount to $2.65 per quarter for each restricted stock unit held. The shares are not normally eligible to receive dividends, so Apple’s decision is a perk for its employees.

jsmi

You need to know the connections between the players involved. The NewsVisual article on the class-action lawsuit against Quanta http://www.newsvisual.com/newsvisual/2007/11/could-questions.html illustrates the behind-the-scenes connection that really help to explain what probably transpired among the defendants in the case.
jsmi

Today’s NewsVisual story on the class-action lawsuit against Sunrise Senior Living http://www.newsvisual.com/newsvisual/2007/11/senior-executiv.html shows some interesting connections to the Bush Administration.
p_lukasiak

Parloff is right — Regan does come off as deranged in the filing.

But I think that Regan is “crazy like a fox.” The suit sends Murdoch a message — “I know exactly how to feed the media’s hunger for scandal, and I know what I need to say to get lots and lots of exposure, and I’m more than willing to say it.” The NewsCorp/Kerik/Giuliani conspiracy theory (as described by Regan) is absurd on its face — but the absurdity of the accusation didn’t stop every major media outlet from reporting it as if it were credible, because Regan understood that the larger issue (NewsCorps obvious pro-Rudy bias) was credible.

Perhaps more to the point, however, is that the media has, until this point, ignored the extremely cozy relationship between NewsCorps and Rudy…. and it wasn’t until Regan’s ridiculous lawsuit that the corporate media even bothered to suggest that there is something fishy going on.

So I’m not sure where the real insanity lies… with Judith Regan, or with the corporate media that ignores realities that are staring them in the face, but is willing to give credence to absurd accusations if they are juicy enough.