PEOPLE TO FOLLOW: JASON KUSHNER

These were the headlines:

New York Observer sold to student

Why Rich Guys Buy Into Media

And this the message to the readers of The New York Observer, the 50,000-circulation salmon-colored newspaper

“The New York Observer has a new owner, Jared C. Kushner, of New York City.

The Observer was founded by Arthur L. Carter in 1987. This week, Mr. Carter agreed to sell the newspaper to Mr. Kushner, 25, a real-estate executive and student of business and law at New York University.

Mr. Carter will keep an interest in the newspaper, and will continue to participate in its publishing life.

For some time now, Jared Kushner has been involved in the real-estate business both through involvement with The Kushner Companies, of which his father is the owner, and in ventures of his own.

When he was 19 and an undergraduate student at Harvard University, his family put up half the equity for the purchase of a series of buildings in Somerville, Mass., which Jared rehabilitated and then sold.

Presently, Mr. Kushner has formed a group of investors that is purchasing over 20 buildings in Manhattan in a venture separate from his father’s business. He will remain active on a project-by project basis with his father's company.

Mr. Kushner further plans to complete degrees in law and business in the spring of 2007 even as he continues to conduct business in real-estate and begin acting as publisher of The Observer.

Mary Dixie Carter, Arthur Carter's daughter, will remain Publishing Director of the newspaper.”

Mr. Kushner sent an e-mail to the staff of The New York Observer at 7:39 PM on July 30, in which he announced his purchase.

“We find ourselves at a crossroads in the newspaper business," he said in part in the message.

"The balance of printed and online content is undergoing an unprecedented adjustment and the way we deliver our product—first-rate journalism—continues to evolve.

Together we will navigate this challenge with perseverance and innovation.

The only promise I will make on the business front is to keep a completely open mind.

At 25 and with only non-publishing related business experience, I am now equipped with two of the finest tools that a publisher could ever have; this fine staff, and the inquisitive energy needed to tackle convention.”

As for us, the editors, our gratitude to Arthur Carter is deep, our faith in Jared Kushner awakening.

We make a real promise to our readers: to provide you with The New York Observer as you have understood it, both in its nettlesome fairness and its sense of joy in the vitality, health and particular complications of life in New York City.

That is our pleasure, our preoccupation and our reason for publishing.

—The Editors"






And now, more facts:

Jason Kushner bought the New York Observer for $10 million.

It is a bargain price to acquire a seat at the prestigious media table.

The NY Observer is said to be losing $2 million a year.

A fourth-year New York University law and business student who has said he bought the controlling share in the paper with money he earned and inherited, Mr. Kushner made his first multimillion-dollar real estate purchase when he was a 19-year-old Harvard University sophomore.

His business strategy was to increase the value of the apartments through high-end building and renovations.

"We did significant upgrades, putting in new kitchen countertops, new floors, and better lighting," he said.

"These were very neglected buildings, and we turned them into places that people could go home, and be proud of."

His father, Charles Kushner, a philanthropist and Democratic fundraiser, was sentenced in March 2005 to two years in prison for assisting in the filing of false tax returns, making false statements to the Federal Election Commission, and retaliating against a witness in the case -- his sister.

According to AP, he hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, made a videotape of the encounter and then sent it to his sister, the man's wife, in retaliation for her cooperation with federal authorities who were looking into his business activities.

Unlike so many disgraced capitalists, he's not in jail for how he made his money, but how he spent it."

Among the secrets to the paper's success has been its voluminous and knowledgeable coverage of the press, New York power and politics, and real estate.

The typography and design makes the paper a joy to read.

The paper was founded in 1987 by former investment banker Arthur Carter

The NY Observer, which has never turned a profit, needs to broaden its presence on the Internet amid stiff competition from New York-based websites like mediabistro.com and Gawker.com, Kaplan said in an interview this year.

The paper is best known outside of New York as the title that was home to Candace Bushnell and her weekly column on the sex lives of Manhattanites, which gave rise to her book and the long-running TV series 'Sex and the City'.

Editor Peter Kaplan said that the new owner represented "the next generation of newspaper publishers."

New York magazine asked him: So, what’s all the drive about for you? Making money?

Yes, it’s making money. But having fun doing it. The goal is to do things that are exciting and respectable.

"A lot of people in their 20s write to me about their own business, or to say, ‘Do us proud.”

He said that was “working 20-hour days over at the paper.”

Well, here we have another young media tycoon, in the capital of the world media.

Bricks are boring.

Newspapering is always an amazing business.

This guy is going to have a great time.

And lot of work to make money from the paper.

But what else can you more fun when you are rich, 25 year-old and have a newspaper in New York?