We hear that Sheryl Berk, formerly editor of Life&Style, is coming in as the new top editorial person. We're not sure what her title will be, but the staff is supposedly being informed right now. Our tipster says that this was all finalized over the weekend by Paul Ashford, editorial director of Northern & Shell, the British publishing group that owns OK!.

How prestigious is this position? Well, we hear that Sheryl will be allowed to work from home. Because the competition for the gig wasn't too stiff. Among those who turned down the job, we hear: Dan Wakeford, current EIC at Life&Style; Alpha Kitty Atoosa Rubenstein; and In Touch editor Richard Spencer.

And Sheryl has a fun work environment to look forward to: We also hear that she doesn't get along with OK!'s Mark Pasetsky, who she used to work with at Life & Style. Allegedly, Berk once had an argument with him that ended with her vowing, "Karma is a bitch." She was right!

[Have any additions/ corrections/ denials? Email us.]

• So, what does Lindsay Lohan have to say about her disastrous Ungaro show in Paris? She just didn't have time to make a collection that didn't totally suck. And those pasties? She didn't even know about them! "I wasn't aware of the nipple tassels on the girls until they were walking out..." Don't worry, though, because the actress says she's "still learning," which gives us an iota of hope her next effort won't fall so flat. [People]
  
  
• A crazed "in love" fan waited in line five hours so that he could punch singer Leona Lewis at a book signing. She cried a bit, but has made a full recovery. [Daily Mail]
  
  
• Neither side will admit it, but Fox Business and MSNBC are both working double time to make sure their respective morning hosts — rivals Don Imus and Joe Scarborough — beat one another at the ratings game. Scarborough's winning, but newcomer Imus could still come up from behind. [Page Six]
  
  
• Here's something none of us could have ever predicted. Britney Spears, who once lost custody of her two tots, has been named "best celebrity mom" in a completely scientific poll put out by a Christmas savings company, the most important source on Earth. [Mirror]
  
  
• Hillary Swank will stop at nothing to have children — someday. [Showbiz Spy]
  
  
• We're really sorry to be the ones to tell you this, but we're sure you've predicted it, so here it goes: Jon Gosselin vowed to continue a career in television. [NYDN]
  
  
• All wait staff should be on high alert: Miley Cyrus does not tip well. You've been warned. [Splash News]
  
  
• A former bodyguard claimed Howard K. Stern helped Anna Nicole Smith shoot valium. Because, at that point, why not? [NYDN]
  
  
• The late Stephen Gately's Boyzone bandmates will sleep in the chapel with his body the night before his funeral because he wasn't fond of being alone. [Mirror]
  
  
• Eminem must be quite the diva: he refused to work with Madonna. Chump. [NYDN]
  
  
• Because domestic life no longer appeals to viewers, the fifth season of Tori Spelling and family's reality show will be a cross-country trip. Next season? Ultimate fighting. [ET]
  
  
• Rather than simply pleading insanity, one of the men accused of extorting John Travolta after the actor's son's death claims that Travolta's lawyer offered him the $15 million as "hush money." [NYDN]
  
  
• Former Seventeen editor Atoosa Rubenstein will appear at Baruch Barnard College today to discuss the trials and tribulations of Iranian... hair. [Page Six]
  
  
• It's officially official: Avril Lavigne has filed for divorce from Sum 41 singer Deryck Jason Whibley. Now perhaps we'll never have to hear those names again. [AP]
  
  
• Joe Francis recently boasted that if he saw rival Brody Jenner, Jenner was "dead." Then he ran into Brody and his friends and did nothing. What a cock. And a tease. [Page Six]

RapRadar: Elliot Wilson, former editor of hip hop magazine XXL, is launching what he hopes will become the Huffington Post of Hip Hop. Which is just a horrible slogan. Basically it'll be some HuffPo-ish mix of blogging, journalism, and hip hop celebrities writing guest columns. "If Jay-Z wants to express his feelings about Obama, there's not really a forum where he can do that right now," Wilson says. This is false.
Chance of Survival: Not great, but theoretically possible. XXL was a quality magazine. If he can replicate that online, he could build an audience. Problem: XXL already replicated itself online. Problem 2: Audience doesn't mean advertisers. See Vibe magazine, currently.

The Wrap: Ex-NYT correspondent and Gawker opponent Sharon Waxman launched this Hollywood/ entertainment news site thing last month. Bad timing, but hey.
Chance of Survival: Ehhh.... moderate? It'll have to get better. Waxman has some money at her back, which is good. But she has some very entrenched competition in Hollywood. If something happens to Nikki Finke, then... slightly less of a chance of failure.


BastardLife: This is Genre magazine editor Neal Boulton's "pansexual sex & relationships site for ALL men." No idea what that means. Is 'pansexual' different than 'bisexual?' It's a question you may be able to find the answer to at Bastardlife.com
Chance of Survival: As a forum for Neal Boulton's personal musings, decent. As a moneymaking venture, very low. Unless pansexuality takes off as a recession thing.


Alpha Kitty: Atoosa Rubenstein was a big shot editor at Seventeen magazine. Then she left to run this "Alpha Kitty" project. Which, as best we can tell, now consists of her Myspace page and a Youtube channel.
Chance of survival: Ummm.. good? But the chance of making money with this is nil, as far as we can tell. Although to be completely honest I'm still not sure what this thing really is.


The Daily Beast: I made up a little haiku about The Daily Beast, ready?:
Tina Brown glamour
Fancy online articles
No advertising

Chance of Survival: Unless Tina comes up with a brilliant plan to monetize this site, it will be a victim of its launch timing and its utter lack of urgency to come up with a workable business plan. She will burn through Barry Diller's millions, subsidizing many worthy writers in the process, then eventually fold. It will be a nice place to go back to and read the archives one day, though.

[Disclosure: Neal Boulton has owed me freelance money forever, so I may be biased.]

"Even though I left the magazine 5 years ago, I always thought of it as "my baby" since I created the original concept on my bedroom floor with markers, a glue stick and lots of tubes of lipstick around me (to create the "Girl" in the CosmoGIRL! logo). Until Friday, it felt like my baby was still out there being taken care of by another wonderful family. It felt weird but the way things needed to be. Now that baby is gone....and replaced in my life by this new real life CosmoGIRL! - Angelika.

...My mom was right. If you work hard now, you CAN have everything later. I worked my TAIL off for about 15 years and today I have just the life I always dreamed of and my new baby girl completes that picture. I didn't get here by accident - I designed this life and set the foundation with years of hard work. Yet I'm still pretty young - young enough to ENJOY the fruits of my labor."

This is the type of earnestness we have come to expect from the 36-year-old 'Toos. Unfortunately it is not as endearing as babies or alpha kitties.

[via Atoosa's AlphaKitty MySpace]

"Whatever! You're an animal, goodbye," the 'Toos trills at husband Ari after he says he thinks charging for celeb babypix is a perfectly OK practice. "I promise you we are not that hard up for cash!" she tells the camera.

[Huffington Post]

Consistency is the hobgoblin of Atoosa's small mind, however: "Chic boxes would be a great add-on to their wonderful offerings," she later says of Amazon.com's packaging. That didn't stop her from buying her husband a Kindle, however. One Kindle has been sold!

But the holiday season isn't just about buying friends and family completely useless luxuries wrapped in gaudy packaging from sites with some sort of "green component." "Drumroll please. ... The U.N. Refugee Agency is where I did 90% of my 'shopping.' As an immigrant, I realize how lucky I am to be in the United States and to be writing a column about 'luxury online shopping.' Giving this as my main gift is a way of showing my gratitude." Showing and showing and showing, yes.

Atoosa watched the film 'Million Dollar Baby,' "At the end, Hilary Swank is on resuscitators and asking them to unplug her. She was like, I don't need to live anymore. Everything I wanted to accomplish, I've already accomplished," Atoosa says. "And I sort of felt like that. All my energy had been going toward work and not my home life. It just wasn't fun anymore."

Soon after that, her husband (whom she'd met at party in 1995) had a really lucrative day at work. "He said to me, 'You know, you don't have to do this.' Because I was so unhappy at my job." That clinched it for her.

Another: guess what, the 'Toos was not fired from or forced out of her role as Seventeen editor in chief!

"I think there was this perception that nobody leaves that kind of job... And for me I left because I realized that I was stepping farther and farther away from the journey that was meaningful to me." You know, just in case you weren't paying attention any of the other twelve million times she's said that.

Anyway, viral videos on the Interweb are the future! The 'Toos thinks that advertisers will queue up to go alongside her YouTube musings on fame, inspired by Andy Warhol, or her thoughts on fashion trends. And, well, why wouldn't they want to be a part of the 'Toos's brand! For instance, this video about how she is obsessed with drag queens because all of the real girls whose style we've been "totally worshipping" are "self-destructing!" Enter the drag queen: "The right one's gonna come along and we're all gonna totally fall in love with her." She is so witty and self-deprecating.

The first incidence of the term "Alpha Kitty" we could find appeared in a 2000 article in the Cleveland Scene about Judas Priest singer Rob Halford's sexual orientation. Mentioned in passing was an upcoming show at the Beachland Ballroom where the bands "Lesbianmaker, Satan's Satellites, King Nixon, and Alpha Kitty" were to perform.

Hmm. No insight there.

The next usage of the phrase occurred in Life magazine in a 2005 review of a touring production of 'Little Women: The Musical.' "Jo (Kate Fisher) is the alpha kitty of the four Civil War-era sisters." Ah, like an "alpha dog," but female. Ok.

Atoosa's own first use of the phrase can be found in Jon Fine's BusinessWeek article from February 5th of this year, 'Say Hello To The Alpha Kitty." In it, we were introduced to the concept of Atoosa's "tribe": "This tribe is 13 to 30, female, thoroughly digital, and, in Rubenstein's view, lacking an 'alpha kitty' addressing their concerns and sensibility." This was also the article where she discussed launching "Psychic Kitty." a series of videos featuring her cat Thurston "spouting, in Rubenstein's electronically processed voice, brief inspirational tidbits."

Yikes.

Not everyone seems to have agreed with Jon Fine that Atoosa's ideas were "so bent as to be half-brilliant," and in her next assessment of what it means to be an AK, she was more measured. "Alpha kitties are girls that are powerful, but they're also fun, and they want to be cute, and they don't feel like in order to be powerful you have to be super serious," she told FishbowlNY at the Sassy book party.

For the real scoop on what it means to be an AK, though, we eventually had to turn to Atoosa's always enlightening MySpace blog.

I'm an Alpha Kitty: brave, intuitive, fierce, passionate and...well, yes, weird. Weird is the new normal, haven't you heard? After all, who wants to be cookie-cutter, anyway? B-O-R-I-N-G. "Le freak c'ést chic" is our motto in the world of Alpha Kitty. We are a celebration of being different...of being individuals...of self expression. To that point, we love fashion—but Alpha Kitties don't wear muzzles. (Not even when they're made of diamonds—that's so 20th century, dahling.) Alpha Kitties must be heard.

New York-based video production intern (Art Student preferred) needed for web project with Big Momma Productions. Project involves sourcing images and creating/prepping collages for animation.

Applicant must be detail-oriented and very proficient in Photoshop with some experience in After Effects. We are looking for a great illustrator with a unique, fierce, fun artistic style. Your role will be very hands on. The content is art, style, & pop-culture oriented.

Duration:

Month of August - looking for someone with the right qualifications asap.

Salary:

Stipend

Contact Info:

Message Bec Stupak at myspace.com/becstupak and put "Internship" in the subject line. I love you dahling, but please don't message me re: the internship. Bec is the best person to answer your questions as you will be working most directly with her.

Can you believe Lindsay has gotten in trouble again? Let me know your take on it.
Here's my take:
When you are in recovery for ANY addiction, you have to get yourself AWAY from all the things that triggered you. You can't just wear an alcohol monitor on your ankle and keep going out with your party friends.
Even with me - I realized I was a work addict and that even though I'd left my job, by being in NYC, I was still being triggered by all the same things that made me workaholic. That's why I've decided to spend the summer in the Hamptons.

The hiring of Sitrick proved that the Hiltons are taking this latest crisis involving Paris very seriously indeed. It's a problem that clearly could not be managed by Paris's longtime spokesman, Elliot Mintz, who is "more of a PR footman," snipes one entertainment journalist. (He was also not long ago off the job for a while, if the tabloids can be believed.) "It's not like Mintz really has a strategy or anything." Others expressed surprise that Sitrick was taking on Hilton as a client: "He usually works with people like Ron Burkle, not Paris Hilton," said one magazine journalist.

So just who is Mike Sitrick, whose fees are reportedly up to $700 per hour? And why did the Hiltons turn to him? Well, he's a PR pit bull, and even Howard Rubinstein gives him respect—though he seems to regard him warily. He's a master of spin (he wrote a well-regarded PR book in 1998, Spin: How to Turn the Power of the Press to Your Advantage). And he's known as someone who will stop at nothing to turn public opinion in his clients' favor.

Sitrick's Los Angeles-based "strategic communications" firm Sitrick & Company are known in the business and entertainment communities as the place to turn in the face of a potentially huge public relations disaster. Billionaire businessman Burkle is indeed a longtime client of his—Sitrick orchestrated the sting of Jared Paul Stern last year, then defended Burkle in the press when the whole thing threatened to blow up in his face—but his client list is staggeringly wide-ranging. He currently represents fired Wal-Mart marketer Julie Roehm. Atoosa Rubenstein hired him in October 2006 when items about departing staffers at Seventeen started appearing in Page Six. He represented Naomi Campbell when she was accused of assaulting her former housekeeper. He was retained by the law firm that represented the Archdiocese of Los Angeles when it was embroiled in the pedophile priest scandal. He helped Halle Berry when she was accused of a hit-and-run, and he was retained by Rush Limbaugh during his prescription pill addiction scandal. He's also represented people whose interests seem to be at odds; Ron Burkle sued former Disney chief Michael Ovitz over Internet ventures they were both involved in, but Sitrick reps both of them (and managed to get sympathetic coverage for both of them in the heat of the Anthony Pellicano scandal). Another longtime client of Sitrick's is Roy Disney, who, of course, has been at odds with Ovitz for several years.

His methods are aggressive and strategic. He uses what he calls "truth squads" to monitor the media (including blogs) to ferret out inaccuracies about his clients and "wheel-of-pain" tactics against his client's foes—a campaign of negative publicity intended to spur a quick settlement. Of course, to be effective, Sitrick employs a veritable public relations army. He's known for luring well-connected former journalists (presumably for a massive raise). Two of his more high-profile hires in the last couple years were Wall Street Journal reporter John Lippman, who wrote a weekly Hollywood column and had covered the TV business for the paper, and Los Angeles Times senior editor Mark Saylor. He's also fond of hiring corporate executives and lawyers.

So it's perhaps no surprise that the Hiltons hired Sitrick—Paris could certainly use some PR help. But the mere act of hiring Sitrick sends a strong signal that the Hiltons are spooked by the way Paris's sentencing and jail term were woefully mismanaged from a PR standpoint. The family lost control of the story in a major way, and the only way to start to try to fix it is with a big gun. Already it seems to be working—Hilton will go on Larry King Wednesday night after her release, and, so they say, won't be paid for her appearance—which seems to have given her just the tiniest bit of legitimacy back.

[Image via]