Jet to put the brakes on print edition
Also in Tattle: a Chaplin museum, The Bosss lyrics, Clay Aiken hanging in and more.
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JET MAGAZINE, which first hit newsstands in 1951 to cover issues impacting African-Americans, is ceasing regular print publication and going all digital.
Johnson Publishing, which owns both Jet and Ebony, says the switch will occur at the end of next month. The Chicago-based company says the move is a proactive effort to adapt to its readers' growing desires for quicker and easier access to information.
Jet, conceived by Johnson Publishing founder John Johnson, publishes every three weeks, but will soon be able to update every three seconds.
"We are not saying goodbye to Jet," said Linda Johnson Rice, chairwoman of Johnson Publishing, and daughter of John. "We are embracing the future as my father did in 1951 and taking it to the next level."
The new weekly digital magazine app will include video interviews and other digital elements. Breaking news will be updated daily and the company will publish an annual special print edition.
According to its website, Jet is the No. 3 magazine in the African-American market and has about 720,000 subscribers, which leads Tattle to believe the Jet app will not be free.
Tramp gets museum
Memories of Charlie Chaplin will live on above the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, where new generations will get a chance to be introduced to one of movies' greatest comic geniuses.
Chaplin spent his last 25 years on his 35-acre estate along the Swiss Riviera, where he could surround himself with family and walk into town or drive in the countryside without drawing unwanted attention. He died at the 18th-century Swiss mansion on Christmas Day in 1977.
Now, after 14 years of planning, Chaplin's family, investors and supporters are ready to convert the rundown Manoir de Ban and its property into a museum.
Three of his children - Michael, Eugene and Victoria - and their business partners in the nearly $69 million project said yesterday that they are on track to open the museum early in 2016.
The mansion, with its view of the Alps, is stripped bare and will be refurbished as it was when Chaplin lived there. It has gardens, service buildings and a pool, and plans call for a new building with recreated sets from Chaplin's movies.
Perhaps you too can ride through the gears of "Modern Times" or mock Adolf Hitler as "The Great Dictator."
Born to graduate
Bruce Springsteen's first draft of lyrics for "Born to Run" will make its public debut this week at Duke University.
The 30 lines, written in pen on a piece of 8.5.-by-11-inch lined paper, were purchased last December at a Sotheby's auction by Floyd Bradley, a retired California software marketer whose daughter graduates this weekend from Duke, as does Springsteen's daughter.
Bradley paid $160,000 plus a commission, bringing the total to $197,000. "It was a lot. I was embarrassed to tell my children," he said. "But they were very supportive after I told them."
He bought the lyrics as an investment, he said. "It's a piece of Americana, I think."
About $197,000 is probably close to what Bradley also paid to send his daughter to Duke. It will be interesting to see which turns out to be the better investment.
TATTBITS * As of yesterday afternoon, former "American Idol" runner-up Clay Aiken was barely leading opponent Keith Crisco in the Democratic primary for Congress in North Carolina's 2nd District. Before declaring Clay the winner, networks are waiting to see how Paula, Randy and Simon voted. * Terry Crews is going in for Cedric the Entertainer as new host of "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire." Crews, an actor, former NFL player and Old Spice pitchman, will join the weekday game show starting this fall. * Former TV judge Joe Brown could become the top prosecutor in Tennessee's largest county if voters elect him over the incumbent in August. Brown, a Democrat, and incumbent Amy Weirich, a Republican, ran unopposed in Tuesday's primary. * Seventeen years after "Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie" bombed so badly at the box office it left a mushroom cloud, Hollywood is going back to the well. Lionsgate says it's partnering with Saban Entertainment to produce a live-action feature film based on the spandex-wearing, martial-arts superheroes who are usually called upon to save the world. Saban said in a statement yesterday that Lionsgate, the maker of "Twilight" and "The Hunger Games," was the "perfect home" for the Power Rangers. * Following protests from celebrities urging a boycott of the Beverly Hills Hotel, Beverly Hills officials have condemned Brunei's strict new Islamic criminal laws and want its government to separate itself from the iconic resort. The city council's unanimous resolution calls for the tiny Southeast Asian nation to change its laws or divest its ownership of the hotel, once owned by Merv Griffin. The hotel is owned by Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah. Under Brunei's new law, flogging and stoning are punishments for serious offenses like adultery and same-sex relationships, otherwise known as the type of offenses that take place nightly at the Beverly Hills Hotel. - Daily News wire services contributed to this report.
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