In your monstrous Monday media column: TWITTERTWITTERTWITTER, a German plan to save newspapers, the shockingly democratized Portfolio.com, and Chicago sports writer wars. TWITTERTWITTERTWITTER.

The founders of Twitter are the 2009 "Media Person of the Year," according to IWantMedia.com. Their primary accomplishment: inspiring the Twitter song. Congrats, fellas!

Here is a plan to save newspapers, from the German publisher of the biggest daily paper in Europe: You can see links for free, but you pay for all the news content you read on the internet, either per-story or a flat subscription rate. Is not a bad idea! Now just put it into place and make it work before you go bankrupt. That's the trick.


This, then, is the only thing left of Conde Nast's $100 million investment in Portfolio: a repurposed Portfolio.com, with more news you can use, and an owner who "wants it to be a must-read site for small- and medium-size business owners." How declassé!


Last week the Chicago Sun-Times lost a sports columnist to the Chicago Tribune. This week, the Chicago Tribune lost a sports columnist to the Chicago Tribune. Next week, both papers will still be going broke, and all the Chicago sports teams will still be mediocre.