In your inexplicable Thursday media column: picturing the New York Times' printing presses, Porsche's CEO pays off old reporters, a 174-year-old newspaper folds, and Steve vs. Steve. Steve?

Everyone was terrible this week on The Real World. Everyone said and did awful things, spurred on by the white studio lights of their "house" and the ever-prodding cameras. This was a total head-in-hands episode of the ol' RW.

This is the cover for Madge's new greatest hits collection. Well, it's more like the greatest hits of Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol, and late-80s Madonna chewed together, swallowed, and puked back up again. Mother of reinvention our ass.

At this point, they're just baiting us, right? All conservatives do all day is dream up "funny" racist e-mails about the president to send around to their friends in a race to become Keith Olbermann's Worst Person in the World.

Martha Stewart is a frosty domestic diva, tyrant office manager and convicted Wall Street conniver. Not exactly a people person. Which is why, Stewart says, she loves the Twitter — it's perfect if you disdain the common man!

An article in the latest issue of Out says that more gay bars are popping up all over the country. That is very true, and it could be the worst thing to happen to gay culture since Judy Garland Died.

We asked, and you answered. After the jump, everything you need to know about how to survive a McKinsey & Co. visit to your company, without getting canned. This one's for you, Conde Nasties.

Stocks have been on the rise for the past 10 days or so. Today the Dow jumped 200 points, lifting it above 9,000 for the first time since January. Was it because of better-than-expected quarterly earnings? More encouraging unemployment and housing data? The result of increased confidence the recession is over and we're well on our way to economic recovery? Free free to take your pick. [WSJ, CNN]

Since the world's financial institutions have crumbled, the Wall Street Journal now has time to concern itself with more important things, like cankles, which has given rise to perhaps the best front-page hedcut (pictured) in the paper's storied history.

Since Barack Obama weighed in on the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, we thought it was worthwhile to do a close reading of the law and the arrest report to see just how stupid the Cambridge Police Department was.

Why did Lydia Hearst decide to get down and dirty in the music video for Miles Fisher's cover of the Talking Heads song "This Must Be the Place"? "Miles is a good friend so I was willing to be a part of it," she tells the Observer. In real life, I am very conservative." Just as you suspected! [NYO]

[Somehow, Tara Reid still has money to go to Saint Tropez; image via INF]

• BusinessWeek's Jon Fine reports that New York owner Bruce Wasserstein may be in the running to break out a dollar bill and buy BusinessWeek. [BW]
• ESPN banned New York Post employees from appearing on the network yesterday after the paper ran (blurry) pics of a nude Erin Andrews. [AP]
• Will will happen with McKinsey consultants now infiltrating Condé Nast? How should you behave if you work there? Some answers and tips. [NYM, Gawker]
• Martha Stewart loves Twitter, doesn't particularly care for Facebook. [TDB]
• Kate Major, the Jon Gosselin-loving, publicity-seeking reporter for publicity-seeking Star magazine, has resigned from the junky tabloid. [Star]
• Ad revenue fell precipitously, but the New York Times Co. reported second-quarter profits of $39.1 million, up from $21.1 million a year ago. [NYT]
• Related: Is the Times Co. planning to hang on to the Boston Globe? [E&P]
• America's most trusted newscaster? That would be Jon Stewart. [Time]

This has the suspicious whiff of a setup: Star reporter Kate Major and Octo-dad Jon Gosselin very publicly become an "item." Star trumpets this fact in a press release. Hours later, Kate Major resigns. Why?

We've always said Meg Whitman flip-flopping on gay rights would come back to haunt the former eBay CEO. And now, amid her campaign for California governor, it has. Whitman's reaction? Flip-flop again.

They walk the red carpet, they are stalked by the paparazzi, but no one knows their names or cares who they are. Yes, here are the lesser-known celebrity siblings—unlucky to not be famous, lucky to share fame's lifestyle.

The management at Conde Nast is well aware that lowly assistants—who are paid poverty wages in order to take order from high-strung self-important media assholes in $8,000 outfits all day—could snap at any time. Solution: divide, conquer.

It's been two months since the city closed off a section of Times Square so it could set up a little oasis of calm in the middle of Manhattan. And already the Day-Glo lawn chairs are falling apart. Even worse: Tourists who have attempted to sit down on them report that they've been injured in the process. But at least they'll get to return to wherever they came from with a generous settlement from the city, right? [WCBS via Gothamist]

Billionaire financier Carl Icahn started blogging to great fanfare in February 2008. But while he got off to a very solid start, posting regularly about "shareholder empowerment" and corporate governance, the last few months have been a big disappointment for loyal readers of The Icahn Report. Icahn—who, as far as we can tell, holds the title of America's wealthiest blogger—hasn't put up anything new since April 16, and it wasn't even an original post, since it had been copied and pasted from the Huffington Post. What's with deal? Has Icahn given up?

Speculation has abounded over whether Mike Steele, Janice Min's "acting" successor as editor-in-chief at Us Weekly, is the real deal, or just a temporary space-holder. Wenner Media boss Jann Wenner tried to clear it up in a staff memo yesterday.