In your congratulatory Thursday media column: Jake Tapper wins the Game of TeeVee, News Corp cleans up its UK tabloid, Star and the National Enquirer merge newsrooms, a new Newsweek publisher, and a new job for Helen Thomas.

  • Self-satisfied human Jake Tapper got more minutes of airtime than any other network reporter last year. Good lord. How does he also find the time to be incredible on the Twitter?
  • News Corp's UK tabloid News of the World has suspended an assistant editor over allegations that the paper hacked into Sienna Miller's voicemail. All the other top guys at News Corp were not suspended, for some reason.
  • AMI's Star and National Enquirer are combining their LA reporting staffs, cutting four jobs along the way. But AMI says it's not related to the company's recent bankruptcy or anything. They just all write about the same celebrity crap, so, why not?
  • Ray Chelstowski, the former publisher of Rolling Stone and EW, is the new publisher of Tina Brown's NewsBeastWeekDaily. Good luck, dude.
  • Hey, famous old newspaper columnist Helen Thomas has a new gig, after being ignobly ridden out of Washington journalism on a rail for offending the sensibilities of Israel: weekly columnist for the Falls Church News-Press! Some might call that a step down from her last gig. But do not underestimate the power of a local newspaper columnist to awe and amaze.