In your buttermilk-battered Wednesday media column: the NYT cafeteria gets a sterling review, Jack Shafer is a night-wandering insomniac, Graydon Carter blackballs restaurateurs, and citizen journalism pays off (for somebody), and Hearst rents a fresh bachelor pad.

Check it out, some food blogger went and ate at the New York Times cafeteria and gave it a respectable two star rating. "It was an ok fried chicken, but honestly I prefer Popeyes because they have better skin," he says. "The pie was everything that you could ask for in a company cafeteria dessert." Something for the Hobo NYT to be proud of.


Slate media curmudgeon Jack Shafer reveals he's way crazy! "Blessed as I am with insomnia, I get up and read the front pages of the major dailies at about 2 a.m. every day." Does he go back to sleep afterwards? Does he stay up for six more hours and then go to work? Does he smoke lots of meth? Uppers, downers, an Elvis-like cycle? Tell us more about this bizarre wee hours news addiction. We like Jack Shafer, good fella!


Grub Street suggests the restaurateurs that should have been on Graydon Carter's annual New Establishment list, if not for the fact that Graydon Carter is himself a jealous restaurateur.


Media success story! Examiner.com has bought NowPublic, a "citizen journalism" site, for around $25 million. That is a lot of scratch, for citizen journalism! The citizen journalists will themselves receive $0.


Need to rent out a $20,000 penthouse in this ridiculously poor real estate market? Rent it out to a magazine! Hearst is renting a badass apartment in Soho for its Esquire "Ultimate Bachelor Pad," because money is no object when it comes to publishing brand extensions, or ultimate bachelors.