In your sad Monday media column: the New York Times will limp along a little longer, Iran locks up journalists while they're engrossed in Twitter, Tim Rutten is predictable, and the television industry loses a couple billion, no biggie.

A little while ago Michael Hirschorn wrote a piece in the Atlantic about the New York Times in which he pointed out that the paper could go out of business in May of 2009. This was a clearly hyperbolic statement, but now it's the chief thing that NYT "defenders" (as opposed to "impartial analysts") pick up and wave around: "Haha, look, we're still in business!" No shit. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Sorry, just had to get that off my chest. In Ad Age there's a piece suggesting that the Sulzbergers should be safely in charge of the NYT Co. until at least 2015, assuming a broader economic revival. Well, nothing to worry about, then. America's greatest paper won't be sold off to a heartless Mexican oligarch for pennies on the dollar for at least five or six more years. Once all the layoffs are done.

This whole Iran business has news outlets showing web videos and Twitter messages that they haven't even personally verified, if you can imagine. Nevertheless, Iran now has more journalists in jail than any other nation. Foolish government, leave the journalists out there to keep spreading unverified Twitter messages which will destroy journalistic integrity forever, bwahaha!

The Serious Media spent too much time and space covering Michael Jackson's death, says Tim Rutten in the most predictable column ever written. Stop writing about it then, Tim.

Ho hum, the US television industry is looking at a $2 billion decline in ad revenue over the next four years, according to a new report. They call this an "inflection point" but we call it a "you will never get that MTV VJ gig you used to practice with a hairbrush in front of your mirror for" point.