Clark Hoyt, the former Knight Ridder D.C. bureau chief who once publicly sparred with the New York Times second ombudsman, Barney Calame, has been appointed as the Times' third ombudsman. This is going to sound a little mean, because supposedly Barney's the nicest guy in the world—but we really hope Clark won't be the total mealy-mouthed, overly-cautious, eggshell-walking, "and-on-the-other-hand"-using and "to be fair"-sayin' kindergarten-teacher-style total wuss-biscuit that Barney almost always was. Lotsa luck, Clark!

• Byron "Barney" Calame's term as Times ombudsman will not be that paper's last. No word yet on a successor, but we understand that this guy is not in the running. [WWD]
  

• Jacob Bernstein reports that ineffectual Times public editor Barney Calame is considered either: "[L]ike Kenneth Starr," unable "to step back and ask what any of it means"; unable to see the forest for the trees; like a "mosquito," always biting but never wounding; an "umpire," merely calling balls and strikes; or "a judge, not a prosecutor." None of these are compliments. [WWD]
• CBS Evening News wasn't in third place last week for the first time in years. To reward Bob Schieffer for this significant accomplishment, naturally they're replacing him. [USAT]
• Bids are in to buy Knight Ridder's two Philadelphia papers from McClatchy, and Mort Zuckerman and his Daily News crew are among them. [NYT]
• Alessandra Stanley is no more accurate when covering politics than when covering television. [Wonkette]
• AMI loses a top exec, and faces circ trouble across its titles. Fun! [NYP]
• Jack Shafer is tired of magazines' anniversary issues. [Slate]
• To be clear: Endeavor agent Ari Emmanuel is not backing Radar. [WWD (last item)]

• Does the one-two punch of Time 100 and the National Magazine Awards underscore the uselessness of the newsweeklies? Scocca says yes. [NYO]
• Yes, Barney Calame sucks. No, that doesn't mean the Times should scrap the public editor experiment. [Slate]
• What readers will want in a news website, circa 2016. Surprisingly not on the list: Life lessons from Bonnie Fuller. [WSJ]
• Three staffers, including co-executive editor Mark Coleman, leave Star for Life & Style. Uh-oh. [WWD]
• Writers like soap operas. [NYO]

As we weren't reading Times public editor Barney Calame yesterday — does anyone read insufferably boring and continually irrelevant Times public editor Barney Calame anymore? — we happened across Carl Swanson's Q&A with former public editor Dan Okrent in the new New York mag. It's a discussion of Okrent's new collection of his public-editor columns, which apparently his fans demanded. A highlight:

• The New Republic has its first "bloodless transition" of editors in many years, as nebbishy-novelist-brother Franklin Foer takes over for incumbent Peter Beinart, on whose watch the magazine lost 40 percent of its circ. [NYT/NYO]
• Sale of Spin closes today for "well under $5 million." In 1997, it was sold for $42 million. [Ad Age]
• Jack Shafer is bored with Barney Calame now, too. [Slate]
• NBC's Winter Olympics coverage had worst ratings in nearly 20 years. [USAT]
• Online ads are getting more expensive. Which is a trend we can only endorse. [NYP]

Jim Romenesko provides a nice roundup today of how most of the nation's newspaper ombudsmen weighed in on the major media-ethics question of whether papers should stand up for free-speech rights and publish the Danish Mohammed cartoons that have sparked worldwide protests or respect religious sensitivities and refrain from publishing them. Some of the dozen columns highlighted included: