In your rainy Monday media column: God tries to kill celebrity news using the weather, the New York Times is a totally great newspaper!, and USA Today arrives in Starbucks.

Bauer Publishing—the company responsible for sophisticated fare like Life & Style—was closed today, a tipster tell us. "Bauer Publishing is closed due to no power and no water. And it's closing day for In Touch and Life & Style—will Brangelina news make it out by Wednesday?" The culprit, we presume, is the nasty storm that hit the Northeast over the weekend. Why couldn't Gawker HQ get hit?


The Wall Street Journal plans to compete with the New York Times for the local news market beginning next month. But the Times isn't standing idly by. It's launched a fancy new website — NYTaudience.com — featuring a man dressed in a tuxedo explaining why advertisers should think twice before shifting their ad dollars over to the Journal. We fear that Rupert Murdoch will be more convincing.


The Times' exclusive deal with Starbucks has come to an end, so USA Today readers will finally have a place to go for coffee. From the press release: "Research has shown that Starbucks core customers enjoy getting their news from national newspapers. Additionally, trends show that people prefer to get their news from more sources. The offering of USA TODAY in stores not only serves to enhance the customer experience by providing more reading opportunities, but also is a direct response to consumers' trends of news consumption." In other words, if you're stupid enough to pay $7 for coffee and milk, you're stupid enough to read USA Today.


ABC News has offered George Stephanopoulos' old chair at This Week to Christiane Amanpour, who has a "50/50" chance of taking it. If she doesn't, that would be kind of embarrassing for ABC News, right?


The National Magazine Awards have become as boring as the magazines that compete for them.