In your absurd Wednesday media column: a lawsuit against HuffPo proceeds, Amazon dives into book publishing, Bloomberg View is totally out there, the New York Times has a drug pusher's business strategy, and e-commerce is your future.

  • A judge in New York has declined to dismiss a lawsuit by a couple of Democratic political consultants who say that they were the ones who originally came up with the "plan" for the Huffington Post, and that they were wrongly cut out of the creation of the site. Oh, was that the "Just put up a bunch of news shit and liberal shit and celebrity shit" plan? They deserve millions, if not more.
  • Amazon is jumping big into the book publishing business. Why? What are they doing that for? Why would they want to get into that crappy business? All questions being asked now by people already in the book publishing business.
  • Huzzah, let us all celebrate the launch of billionaire media and political power player Mike Bloomberg's new opinion-writing operation, "Bloomberg View!" So is it worth a shit? "In our case, we hope that over time a general philosophy will emerge. Right now, we can't say precisely what that philosophy will be, only that it will be committed to transparency and tolerance, to nonpartisanship and intellectual honesty, to free markets and data-driven solutions to national and international problems — values embodied by Mike Bloomberg, the founder of Bloomberg LP." Well, that sounds pretty awful and uninteresting. But they have a pile of money and lots of smart people on staff, so we're keeping our hopes up. Even if they're centrist, they can easily be a thousand times better than the Washington Post op-ed page.
  • Pinch Sulzberger reveals the ace in the hole that will keep the New York Times solvent for at least another decade or two: "For core subscribers to print-and those are people who have received home delivery for two years or more-our studies show that if you are a home delivery subscriber to The New York Times for two years or more, we pretty much have you for life." He has you for life. You gonna take that, sheeple?
  • What happened to all that editorial talent set adrift in the Great Magazine Die-Off? Well, they're all in "e-commerce" now. That's just sad.