In your finally Friday media column: The Daily's culture desk evaporates, the grim outlook for journalism jobs, WaPo staffers mildly object to workplace wage inequality, Kathie Lee and Hoda's drinking roots revealed, and the NYT's story-stealing guidelines.

  • Culture reporter Molly Young is leaving The Daily to be a freelancer. She's the fourth staffer to leave The (young) Daily, and the third from the Sasha Frere-Jones' culture desk. Which raises two thoughts: 1) Man, we knew people were gonna flee The Daily fast. And they are. 2) What are you doing to your people, Sasha?
  • God, here's a depressing thought: one of the biggest growth areas for journalism jobs may be in covering Congress for niche DC political publications like The Hill, Roll Call, or even Politico. Or, just kill yourself now.
  • Oooo, Washington Post staffers are gently criticizing their publisher's multimillion-dollar payday on the Twitter. In the old days they punched each other in the face for much less than that. You're getting soft, Posties.
  • Kathie Lee and Hoda Kotb say that it was Chelsea Handler who first started them drinking on the air. And hey, now they do it every day, all day, as soon as they wake up, nonstop. Cool.
  • The NYT wanted to shut down the Twitter feed @freeNYTimes, which was tweeting links to the paper's stories so that people could read them without paying to get around the new online pay wall. But they tell Jeff Bercovici that the real problem was that its "use of the Times's stylized 'T' logo was a trademark violation." So hey, jack the stories all you want, just don't use the logo. Noted.

[Photo: AP]