Sorry, But I’m a Sucker for Good Media Gossip…

Perhaps you are aware that People made a boo-boo with an alleged photo of Jen and Vince that actually featured Jen’s stand-in.

The New York Daily News’ coverage of the snafu annoyed People‘s managing editor, who complained to the News‘ editorial director.

Which is where today’s story, reported gloatingly in the New York Post, picks up:

“Lloyd Grove is a [bleep]ing idiot. His page is stupid.” Those were the stinging words in an e-mail sent Friday by the Daily News columnist’s boss, deputy publisher and editorial director Martin Dunn, who was replying to a complaint from People magazine managing editor Larry Hackett.

Hackett, who worked at the News for many years and is good friends with Dunn, was ticked over a report in Grove’s column that People had to stop the presses last week because a cover photo supposedly of Jennifer Aniston was really her stand-in. A source told us: “In a management faux pas, Dunn, who wanted to forward Hackett’s original e-mail [complaint] to Grove, forwarded his unpleasant response as well. Imagine reading those words about yourself from your boss.”

Dunn denied he copied Grove by accident, but claimed he didn’t really mean what he said about him. “I was trying to convince Larry I was really mad at Lloyd. It was duplicitous diplomacy,” he says. Hackett declined to comment. Grove told us: “We all have our bad days. I consider Martin to be a friend of mine and he has expressed his regret to me over the whole thing.”

“Duplicitous diplomacy” — that’s brilliant! I’ll have to tuck that one away in my excuse arsenal.

Tags: Journalism, journalist, news