Former MSNBC host Dan Abrams is a popular guy, because it's been rumored that he has jobs to give out. Abrams, you'll recall, is starting a ridiculous, conflict-of-interest-riddled PR firm that will distinguish itself by selling corporate clients (or just moguls) the advice of current journalists, bloggers, and other media types. The Observer spoke to Abrams, and he says he's gotten 650 applications already—"the bulk of whom are freelance journalists, people who are writing books and individuals who have recently been laid off or walked away from jobs in the media industry." Are we missing something here? The whole reason that people got upset about Abrams' business plan in the first place is that he says he's going to offer the consulting services of current, not former, media people. Former journalists work for damn near every PR firm in America. That's nothing new. Here's Abrams' offended quote today:

"It is highly embarrassing and, sadly, someone will probably be fired." [Page Six]

At left is a picture the Times is running on A1 this morning, the day before Thanksgiving. It depicts a Florida mom showing off all the useless crap she was able to scrounge for daughter McKenna (!), like a fake plastic kitchen, thanks to a "noble sacrifice" this year: The mom will bravely go without this season's new designer jeans, according to the accompanying story. Notice that she seems to be nicely up-to-date with last season's pricey denim; that she is standing in a garage larger than many apartments; that it seems to be furnished with an operative extra refrigerator; and that discarded toys (from prior Christmases?) are plainly visible in plastic boxes in the background. This typifies sacrifice in America today? The coming depression is so going to eat the nation alive, and the world will laugh, because we deserve it.

Web publishing zealot Jeff Jarvis like to yell Darwinian slogans at print journalists . "There is no divine right for newsroom jobs," he wrote earlier this month. "Nor is printing and trucking an eternal verity of the field." It was surprising, then, to hear the media futurist's complaint about today's cover story on him in the Observer: The paper didn't promote his new dead-trees book! And after he gave the reporter so much of his precious time:

Citigroup is a pathetic loser of a corporation having needed three bailouts in as many decades. "Another large exposure for uncertain benefits," the corporate apologists at the Wall Street Journal editorial page declared of the latest Citi rescue. But the global banking giant is one of the largest tenants of Mort Zuckerman, the owner of Citigroup's world headquarters and of the nearby 59-story Citigroup Center, which Citi partly occupies. Why is NBC News allowing Zuckerman to pimp a rescue for Citi?

The odd mini-profile on Prince that ran in the most recent New Yorker's "Talk of the Town" section made a big splash, mostly because of Prince's religious pronouncements of going door-to-door as a Jehovah's witness and remarks concluding that being gay was wrong. However, his flack went to Perez Hilton and said that Prince had been "grossly misquoted" and accused the writer of the piece, Claire Hoffman, of not using a tape recorder. ("How unprofessional!" Perez squealed.) The New Yorker stood by their story in a confirmation to Wired. But turns out there was a very good reason the interview wasn't recorded: Hoffman explains in an interview that Prince "wouldn’t let me use a tape recorder or my notepad."The quote that got Prince in trouble was, in response to a question about gay marriage and abortion, “God came to earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever, and he just cleared it all out." So, how did Hoffman get that? She explains, "I walked out and sat in my car and wrote for an hour. I don’t have long chunks of dialogue, but I was able to remember stuff." Forbidding a writer of making any record of an interview is a pretty canny move for a celebrity—he can claim to be "misquoted" on anything he didn't like. It's her recollection against his. And given that the Prince version (via Perez) — "What His Purpleness actually did was gesture to the Bible and said he follows what it teaches, referring mainly to the parts about loving everyone and refraining from judgment." — sounds like P.R. puffery, we're going with Hoffman here and Prince is, as usual, DOING IT RONG. [Via Emdashes]

Ted Koppel, the impressively-haired former ABC newsman, is parting ways with the Discovery network six months before his contract is up. You may or may not have been aware that he's been working with them since 2006. Not the greatest tragedy in history, but it does point to the sad plight of the former big-time news anchor. There's nowhere to go but down from the heights of the network news desk. Where are all those famous former anchors today?

Back in 1996, cable news was still innocent, and even an evil Republican genius like Roger Ailes had to make a pretense of political objectivity. So Fox News Channel was careful to seek a token "Liberal To Be Determined" to balance Sean Hannity when the conservative pundit helped anchor the network's debut. These days CNN, MSNBC and Fox all carry unabashedly slanted shows on their lineups, so Fox apparently feels no compunction about giving Hannity formal title to the show he's always had his way with: The host will go it alone following co-host Alan Colmes' previously-announced departure, two sources told the Times.

Chuck Philips: "They deceived Pellicano and his lawyers for six months, knowing it was a violation of his Constitutional rights .'" [Patterico]

Yesterday New York magazine laid off Gael Greene, a food critic there for the past 40 years. Apparently the recession is hurting New York like everyone else—not as drastically as everyone else, of course, but enough to have to pare down their fat roster of restaurant reviewers. So is this just a longtime employee being pushed out, or a sign of something worse under the surface?
New York is owned by billionaire Bruce Wasserstein, the CEO of investment bank Lazard. Does he have money problems? Well, let's see:

As a member of the vaunted Time Inc. magazine empire, People has always stood a cut or two above most celebrity magazines, ethically speaking. But Angelina Jolie is "scary smart," in the words of celeb-mag editor Bonnie Fuller, and the actress seems to have had little trouble corrupting People's soul. Set aside the now-common practice of paying for baby pictures. Judging from a Times exposé, Jolie also banished the word "Brangelina" from People's pages, dictated coverage of her charitable work in Cambodia and won from People the "positive" tone she demanded. She seems to have pulled this off with a little editor-source dance that gave People plausible deniability.

We're hearing from a good source that Tom Curley, the head of the Associated Press, just held a town hall meeting to tell employees that the AP "will lose 10% of its staff next year." At a current headcount of over 4,000 employees, that would translate to at least 400 jobs lost, which could theoretically come through either layoffs or voluntary buyouts. Several cash-strapped newspapers—including the entire Tribune Co.—have recently announced plans to drop their AP subscriptions. Still, this would be a massive cut for what has always been one of the steadiest possible realms of journalism. AP employees with more details on this, email us. UPDATE: The AP has sent us a statement, which doesn't contain any numbers but acknowledges that cuts may be coming—though mostly through attrition, they hope:

Greta Van Susteren and Matt Lauer were first out of the gate with lengthy Sarah Palin interviews after the election. The chats were slammed as softball jobs by some critics, and you can now add Katie Couric to that group, at least in one regard: She wishes someone had asked the former Republican vice presidential nominee why she didn't answer Couric's simple and ultimately devastating question about what newspapers and magazines Palin reads. Hopefully Lauer, who hosted Today with Couric for nine years, doesn't take the critique personally, particularly since Couric may very well end up back at NBC. Click the video icon to watch Couric explain her thoughts on David Letterman's Late Show.

Despite her repeated public pronouncements of devotion, it will come as no huge shock to anyone anywhere that Paris Hilton just broke up with her boyfriend of nine months, musician Benji Madden. Even if you weren't up to speed on the latest developments — she was spotted with her Greek, shipping-heir ex and rumored desperately flirty with British princes — you have to figure, well, it's Paris Hilton, whose thirst for attention requires not only the intimate affection of various men but also constant press coverage of how those affections fluctuate. But her breakup is worth noting because the mainstream media seems to buying into her psychodrama like never before!

Former MSNBC guy Dan Abrams seems to have noticed that his plan to start a PR firm made up of actively employed members of the media who will sell their consulting services to corporate clients is causing some uproar among people who believe that it would be a blatant conflict of interest for any journalist to be part of it. Which should include you, and anyone else who doesn't think members of the media should take outside pay for PR work. Abrams and his cohort in the project, former HuffPo media critic Rachel Sklar, offered long defenses of the idea to Daily Intel. Let's do some critical analysis, shall we?

Pirates are now the most important news in the world! Fox Business News is calling pirates "The New Face of Terrorism." The scary new face! But are they really new? The New York Times has written six dozen stories about Somalian pirates in the past ten years, and they're just picking up steam. We know the Somali pirate crew currently menacing African waters has a good PR man. Maybe he's to thank? We took a look back at a decade of pirate coverage and found that the raggedy scalawags have a long media history: [A mere sampling of the highlights]: New York Times: 2/3/99: "Murderous Pirate Attacks Are on the Rise" 9/12/01 (OMINOUS DATE!): "Pirate Militias From Somalia Spill Into the Gulf of Aden" 7/1/05: "Somalia: Pirates Seize Tsunami Aid Ship" 11/6/05: "Pirates Attack Liner Off Coast of Somalia" 12/4/05: "After Attack, Cruise Ships Rethink Security" 7/3/06: "Waters That Prompt Fear From the Toughest of Sailors" (The waters of Somalia, that is) 1/10/08: "Pirate Attacks Increased in 2007, Maritime Group Says" 9/27/08: "Somalia Pirates Capture Tanks And Unwanted Global Notice" That's the one that started this most recent wave of coverage. Everyone has been getting worried about these pirates for years! The Washington Post was late to the game, but they jumped on the story in 2005 when a cruise ship was attacked and have been covering it regularly ever since. Others saw it much earlier: USA TODAY: 2/2/01: "Pirates loot the fruits of 21st century trade 'There is no law' in certain waters of Southeast Asia" The Brits were on the case even earlier! The Guardian UK: 9/18/99: "Bizarre tale of Briton killed by pirates; Family's doubts about attack on yacht in lawless seas off Somalia" And later: 11/7/05: "Seamen call for UN piracy taskforce" HEH. So you see, it's not all fear and terror. Pirates inspire us! Many people would secretly love to be pirates. We only get serious about them if any other response seems inappropriate. The best evidence of that: New York Post: 11/6/05: "YO-HO-WHOA! PIRATES HIT CRUISE SHIP" (Funny) 4/12/08: "FRENCH NAB PIRATES & BOOTY" (Still funny) 10/1/08: "EXTERMINATE THAT PLAGUE OF PIRATES" (Now it's serious!)

"Hillary Clinton will be the next secretary of state, unless she’s not." That's what John Koblin wrote last night in The Observer. Has the story advanced since then? Nope. Obama offered—but not formally offered—Hillary the job. She's considering. They're vetting Bill. Bill promised to stop taking money from foreigners. Hillary hasn't accepted because it hasn't been offered formally. Ted Kennedy wants Hillary to stay in the Senate. And hey, the news-starved press dragged Obama into the Clinton drama machine! As we all remember, the Democratic primaries were way more fun than the general election. A black guy versus a woman! The Clinton Machine versus Hope! Jeremiah Wright! Shouty angry Bill! Snipers in Bosnia! Bittergate! Whee! Once Hillary conceded, the Democrats closed ranks and the Obama machine stopped playing with the press entirely. McCain's campaign didn't get interesting until Palin showed up and didn't get fun until they all began infighting. But just like everyone had to make up some news about Bill not loving Obama enough during the primaries, now everyone has to figure out what the Clintons are up to with this SecState nonsense. It's fun to speculate about which sneaky Clinton players are leaking what to whom, and is Bill's camp pushing it, and does Obama know what he's getting into? In truth, Obama probably just told Hillary the job was hers if she wanted it, depending on how Bill's vetting goes, and she's weighing her options now that Bill's seemingly acquiescing to Obama administration requests. Meanwhile, Tom Daschle just agreed to head Health and Human Services and act as Health Care czar and no one cares! As we've said, we've never been convinced that Hillary has any particular insight or expertise, foreign-policy-wise, or at least any more than any other Senate Democrat (and why pick from the Armed Services committee and not Foreign Relations?). We quite like her views on domestic policy. And with Ted Kennedy on the way out, it would be awesome if she spearheaded the Senate side of the upcoming sure-to-be-insane health care war. But she wouldn't be a bad Secretary of State, and she'd surely run a better State Department than Rice and Powell did. So sure, go for it. But on the whole, the media's going to need a new way to cover the Obama administration, as this has just been madness.

Two longtime reporters at Jersey's Star-Ledger have been reassigned to the mailroom—maybe because they had the audacity not to take a buyout. [Editor & Publisher via Romenesko]

It was odd, wasn't it, that Britain's Guardian, of all publications, was first to report Hillary Clinton planned to become Barack Obama'sSecretary of State? The paper's DC bureau chief, according to today's Observer, "said... his source said he could use the information as long as he didn’t source it." One tipster of ours, apparently speaking speculatively, is certain the source has to be Sidney Blumenthal, who was a senior unpaid campaign advisor to Clinton during her campaign, was an aide in Bill Clinton's White House and — key detail — has a column at the Guardian, presumably handled by the DC bureau, since that's where he lives.

Last year the SEC and New York attorney general's office opened investigations related to a novel business: a company that hired as "consultants" moonlighting workers with access to proprietary information of interest to hedge funds. Ethical questions will also be asked about the network of insider media consultants Dan Abrams has assembled after Rachel Maddow took the Elle Macpherson-dater's MSNBC slot. With advisors like former Us Weekly editor Bonnie Fuller, ex-Huffington Post writer Rachel Sklar and Lockhart Steele, once of Gawker Media, Abrams Research is meant to be simply a "mock jury of bloggers, TV personalities and newspaper or magazine editors," the Wall Street Journal reports. But it could get so much more thorny than that.