In your eye-watering Tuesday media column: Advertising plunges, newspapers fiddle and burn, The Onion's boss tells em why he's mad, son, and DC reporters are hopelessly Obama-crushing:

So, any promising signs in the advertising market for the media to cling to with wild-eyed hope? Nope. Ad spending overall fell more than 9% in the fourth quarter, which means the decline was gathering speed. On the one hand, we hate ads, but on the other hand, we like getting paid for our work. It's a quandary.


Dreary newspaper industry news roundup: Plunging revenue at Belo and Scripps; the dying Boston Globe goes back to negotiate with its journalists' union this afternoon; two top editors at the Hartford Courant are laid off/ resign in disgust (a little bit of both, I think); and no, the government is not bailing out newspapers, just forget it, -30-.


In his staff memo about the closure of the San Fran and LA print editions of The Onion, CEO Steve Hannah says "I read a bunch of the miscellaneous, blogospheric bullshit that ran on the web last night. As usual, it makes me embarrassed to have spent 18 years as a journalist: the stuff is speculative, stupid, inaccurate, sourced by people who know next to nothing about our company and can't pick up a telephone to call, dumb, irresponsible and, more than a little malicious." But in our case, true! Although we still harbor hopes of one day being called dumb by The Onion.


The biggest issue facing the DC press corps today: whether they are all IN THE TANK because they stand up when Obama comes in the briefing room, but they didn't do that so much when Bush came in the briefing room. 1. Yes they are in the tank. 2. Bush never came in the briefing room anyhow. 3. Ideally the DC press corps would greet all presidents with jeers and invective at all times. Work on that.