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After five years, the national press has finally discovered it can stand up to the Bush White House. So when the journalists are getting all uppity, and when Scott McClellan's stonewalling just won't keep them in place anymore, what's a desperate administration to do? Biological warfare, of course. Or at least so a conspiracy theorist could be, from the evidence presented by a high-ranking editor at one of the nation's major news organizations in an IM conversation with a Gawker Operative last night:

Journo: for the first time in a year or so, i have to do some real hard work
Journo: half our staff has succumbed to this killer cold
GawkOp: killer cold?
GawkOp: affecting other papers too?
Journo: dunno
GawkOp: who's off?
Journo: it's a p1 bug
Journo: people at the times have it too
Journo: altho, i doubt it's a newspaper phenom... i mean journalists only ever spend time with other journalists, but surely this can't be avian flu for the inkstained set?

Or could it? We've heard rumors of this killer cold infecting parts of the Daily News and at least half of Gawker HQ. Are you feeling sick yet? Get epidemiologing, commenters.