Yesterday, the brilliant and inimitable Paul Ford published a 38,000-word article in Bloomberg Businessweek, all about code. Which probably seems daunting, but every word of it is delightful, engaging, and will inevitably make you just a little bit smarter when it’s all over. I sat down with Ford to talk about coding, culture, Kinja, and with the prayer that some of his good sense would rub off on me.
Maybe you haven't seen Bloomberg BusinessWeek's very edgy and risque new cover? With two airplanes having sex to symbolize airline mergers (-"cockpit" joke here-) ? Well if you haven't it's after the jump, along with an in-depth look at the creative process behind this artwork.
• Rolling Stone is opening a theme restaurant in LA, believe it or not. [LAT]
• The first issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek hit newsstands today. [NYO]
• MTV's Jersey Shore is off to a very solid start, not surprisingly. [Wrap]
• Entourage has two more seasons left, and then a movie will follow. [THR]
• The NBC-Comcast deal turned into comedy fodder for Conan this week. [NYT]
• Editors at Golf Digest are a bit embarrassed. The headline on the cover of the January issue: "The Top 10 Tips Obama Can Take From Tiger." [NYP]
• The new issue of Vogue Italia is totally dedicated to Twitter. [R29, TC]
• Tom Brokaw and his wife were almost killed in a car crash today, but escaped unharmed. A woman in another car died in the incident. [NYP]
• A big round of layoffs landed at the Associated Press today. [BI, NYT]
• Budget Travel isn't shutting down, contrary to rumors. But its owner is looking to sell the magazine or find new investors, however. [AdAge]
• Time.com's managing editor, Josh Tyrangiel, will become the editor of BusinessWeek when Bloomberg LP takes over next month. [BW, WWD]
• The NYPD raided four newspapers as part of a union corruption probe. [AP]
• Is Newsweek's new Sarah Palin cover sexist? Or just funny? [HP, Wrap]
• Because print media is booming and newspapers will be around forever, Mort Zuckerman's Daily News spent $150 million on a new printing plant. [NYT]
• A documentary about media reporters at the Times? Oh, yes, indeed. [NYO]
• Bonnie Fuller's new Web venture launched today. [HollywoodLife.com]
• TV: Oprah GBF Nate Berkus is getting his own daytime show; and Bob Saget will host an A&E reality series in which he'll "explore strange subcultures."
• Rupert Murdoch probably isn't very popular with the blind today. [Gawker]
• Oprah's interview with Sarah Palin aired today, as you know by now. [AP]
• The deal between GE and Comcast to give the cable giant control of NBC Universal could be finalized in the next few days/weeks, although approval from Washington could take some time. [DF, THR, WSJ]
• Lou Dobbs didn't walk away from $9 million when he departed CNN. He reportedly got paid $8 million in severance to walk out the door. [NYP]
• The largest gay newspaper publisher in the U.S. has shuttered. [NYT]
• Budget Travel may be the magazine to die. [Daily Intel]
• The cost-cutting McKinsey consultants have landed at Dow Jones. [Forbes]
• 2012 destroyed the box office this weekend, reeling in $65 million. [THR]
• John King will be replacing Lou Dobbs at 7pm on CNN. [WP, NYT]
• CNN execs had been looking to part ways with Dobbs for many months now, although CNN president Jon Klein is denying that all the anti-Dobbs fervor had anything to do with his leaving. Meanwhile, Dobbs' departure is expected to leave up to 30 people without jobs. [TDB, NYT, AP]
• Dobbs' first post-CNN interview will be with Bill O'Reilly. Naturally. [DF]
• Iconix, the apparel company that owns Candie's, Badgley Mischka, and Rocawear, among other brands, is in talks to buy Playboy Enterprises. [BN]
• Bloomberg LP is ducking out of paying severance to BW staffers. [AdAge]
• A dozen staffers were laid off at Newsweek today. [Gawker]
• Martin Scorsese will receive the DeMille award at the Golden Globes. [LAT]
• Katie Couric is assembling media power lists now, apparently. [Forbes]
• Is Oprah preparing to leave her syndicated show behind and take her act to OWN, her long-delayed cable network? That's the rumor anyway. [DH]
• The new editor of the Observer is Kyle Pope, formerly of Portfolio. [NYO]
• Cable meets kindergarten: Fox News will stop being mean to MSNBC only if MSNBC first stops being mean to Fox News, reports Rupert Murdoch. [NYT]
• Fortune and Time are expected to be hardest hit by layoffs at Time Inc. [NYP]
• Scripps has beat out News Corp. for control of the Travel Channel. [BN]
• Susan Plagemann has been named the new publisher of Vogue. Meanwhile, Tom Florio will now oversee Vogue, Bon Appétit and Traveler. [WWD]
• Bloomberg BusinessWeek (or BBW for short) has its new team in place. [NYT]
• There may be other suitors for NBC in addition to Comcast. Like News Corp. And Liberty Media. And Time Warner. Or maybe not. Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, for one, says he isn't interested. [THR, DHD, Gawker, AdAge]
• More on the sale of BusinessWeek: "Knowledgeable sources" say Bloomberg is paying $2-$5 million in cash for the mag. And another source reports the mag will be changing its name to Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Naturally. [BW, NYT]
• The war between the White House and Fox News goes on. [NYDN, ABC, CJR]
• If you notice TV commercials seem more upbeat than usual, it's because the advertising world has decided to be cheerful and optimistic again. [NYT]
• The Atlantic has determined that NBC CEO Jeff Zucker and New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. are "Brave Thinkers," for some reason. [NYO]
