STUFF MAGAZINE'S JIMMY JELLINEK.
"This business attracts assholes like flies flock to poop. Most of us are just frustrated high school newspaper geeks who spent our teen years rubbing our hands, going, "I'll show you." So when it comes time to actually show somebody something you have to wring the most you can from the sponge. So you have all these dickheads whose sense of purpose and power derives from where they sit on a masthead. What else you going to brag about, the pay?"

LOS ANGELES TIMES' JOEL STEIN.
"I gave up feeling bad about selling out long ago. I'm looking to buy in. The worst part is, I ask all these obnoxious Stuttering John questions on the phone so I'm afraid they'll hang up on me. Then HBO cuts it so I look like a kiss-up. Plus, they bumped me to Cinemax. I thought I'd meet those naked women that way, but no luck."

TED CASABLANCA, E!
"I sleep great. No regrets. Never. Blind items are fucking fun, dude, get with it. I would be happy to write a blind on a blind. Got one?"

GREG GUTFELD, UK MAXIM.
"Stars are exactly like children, in that they play all day and never buy stuff like light bulbs. And that makes them susceptible to destructive stuff like new age religions and Michael Moore movies. It's why stars give their kids such funny names. Those are EXACTLY the names you'd give your kid, if you were, say, a kid! Naming a kid, to them, is like naming a turtle. A box turtle."

JON FRIEDMAN, MARKETWATCH.COM.
"Are the media better or worse now than it was 10 years ago? Ah, the key question. After giving this a LOT of thought, I can answer resoundingly, I dunno. I think, thanks to the Web, the writing is more personal and clever than ever, which is, obviously, a great development. I suspect that the blogging movement will free writers even more. But I'm sorry to say that I also think that young journalists are frequently cutting corners."

JARED PAUL STERN, NEW YORK POST.
"When I first came here after college I decided it was better to be known as "that asshole in the hat" then not known at all. (I'm wiser now.) But I also discovered why those old dudes used to wear 'em -- keeps the head warm. So the hat stays. The older I get the less ridiculous it looks is the plan. Sinatra said "A hat looks right when no-one laughs." And if anyone does laugh, kick their ass."

LARRY PLATT, PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINE.
"We have a young writer here named Sasha Issenberg who is also kind of the magazine mascot. Since we're both Jewish, we've taken to calling each other, "My kike," as in, "You my kike" -- borrowing from the way African-Americans have appropriated the n-word and applied it to themselves as a term of affection. But Sasha really is a kike."

A.J. BENZA, AUTHOR & TALKING HEAD.
"I will write again for the people of New York City. At this point in my life, I'd come back for a gardening column. And, let me tell you, I know my fuckin peonies. Seriously ... I still have the itch to write a gossip/society column. I know too much. I haven't filed a column in close to eight years, but I still hear and see everything. I break stories before they even hit the papers. The bottom line is ... after 42 years on this Earth the thing I am best at is writing a column about what's going on in Hollywood."

TOM SCOCCA, NEW YORK OBSERVER.
"It's kind of a downer to have to confront the rank hypocrisy in your own line of work every single week -- the editors who send reporters out to ask civilians questions about their business, then won't talk to reporters about their own business. The spokespeople have this really cute line these days: "Thanks, but he/she's going to pass on this one." Like I'm coming around with a fucking tray of bacon-wrapped scallops on toothpicks. Chicken satay. I'm not offering you an hors d'ouevre, asswipe, I'm trying to get the answer to a fucking question."

LLOYD GROVE, N.Y. DAILY NEWS.
"I don't hate Howard Stern at all, but I fear for his emotional well being. I know his various neuroses are a big part of his show -- to which I have listened every so often with great enjoyment (at least when he's not doing farting contests or transsexual strippers) -- but now, after having met him in person, I sense that he is genuinely neurotic."

JEFF KOYEN, NEW YORK PRESS.
"The alt-weekly model is dead or dying. Look through the country's other free weeklies, and you'll find the same unimaginative swill not just across the markets, but from within any given paper's own lifespan. They're recycling each other and themselves, which is just a heart-breaking waste of print."

JASON BLAIR, PARIAH.
"When I was young and living in Houston, so it had to be in the early 80s, I stole a dollar out of the church offering plate when it was being passed around. I was confronted and taken to the minister's office with my parents and given a chance to come clean. I lied, I lied and I lied some more. Then they told me that they saw me do it and asked me to empty my pocket. I then admitted I did it."

SETH MNOOKIN, MEDIA REPORTER.
"The main impact my addiction had on my career was that I wasted a few years before I got serious about my writing. Besides that, I don't think the fact that I'm a recovering drug addict has really affected my career one way or another. And I know it hasn't given me any kind of cachet -- it's not like I've been writing for Vice or something. Steve Brill certainly didn't say, "Well, here's this guy who wants to cover the presidential campaign. He's not very good, but shit, he used to shoot dope. Let's hire him!"

SAVAS ABADSIDIS, A&F QUARTERLY.
"The fact of the matter is there were no simulated orgies. I think the pics were really sexy, fun and healthy images. The worst thing we did was make boys feel insecure about their bodies and it should have been more diverse but I had no control over that aspect. I wish we had a chance to print the spring break issue. It was really awesome. We shot the whole thing in Rome.".

STU BYKOFSKY, THE PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS.
"I have to deal with too many assholes. Like yourself, for instance. Every freakin' goofball in Philly calls ME to ask what's Patti LaBelle's shoe size and what drugs did Pink take in high school and does Will Smith have a tattoo near his rectum?"

BILL BASTONE, THE SMOKING GUN.
"When it comes to covering the entertainment industry, I'd say most of those journalists couldn't report their way out of a paper bag. Too much finagling with publicists, talent managers and other members of the industry's permanent government over who's going to grant an interview/appear on a cover."

MICHAEL MUSTO, THE VILLAGE VOICE.
"Greg Louganis doesn't pop his gay cork for just anyone that swivels along (and kindly note my discretion in not using that ridiculous nickname, Greg Loose-anus). Steve [Kmetko] is tantalizingly hot and for many years put the EEEEAT ME! back in E!"

IAN SPIEGELMAN, PAGE SIX.
"[Dave] Eggers might very well have a larger package than I but he'd probably riff in a woman's ear about Duran Duran while he was mildly pumping away, and if that's your thing we shouldn't be together anyway. Wait, that's not right. He wouldn't utter a sound in bed, not one word. It would be cold clinical silence -- you could hear molecules colliding, icecaps melting. He'd hold his breath."

ELIZABETH SPIERS, GAWKER.
"Blogging took off in a way that plain vanilla personal websites never did because it's fairly standardized and short form and the social conventions encourage some sort of interactivity with other sites. I'm sorry. I really have to stop now before I bore myself into a complete stupor. I hate talking blogs. Most people that read it don't even realize Gawker is a blog. Do *you* really care what a blog is? No, I didn't think so."

JESSE PEARSON, VICE MAGAZINE.
"When you commit a horrible act, there are two things to deal with. The initial hell of committing the act, and then the emotional scars of remembering it. With [fucking the] dead baby, all you have after the act is the emotional scars. With [smashing your] ball [with a hammer] you have: The same hell during the act; the emotional scars of remembering said act AND you only have one ball. So I'd rather do the baby. It is literally half as bad as doing the ball thing."