Did loutish talking heads on cable news networks ruin Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign with the magic of "sexism?" They couldn't destroy Barack Obama with incessant repeats of racially-inflammatory sermons from Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but this "sexism" is said to be extra strong. On the CBS Evening News the other night, Katie Couric pulled out her mystical "notebook" and read a fable about sexism in which a blonde lady has her career ambitions destroyed by sexist men in the television industry. Mistaking this for a story about Clinton, America promptly got very scared and upset, and the Times sent two reporters out to ask everyone in the media if sexism shouldn't be stopped with "outrage." Here's what they found:

There was much consternation in the media world earlier this week when it emerged that Tribune's Los Angeles Times would take its Sunday magazine out of the hands of trained journalists and hand control over to the newspaper's sales staff. Editor Russ Stanton even insisted that the magazine's name be changed so readers didn't get the idea that it still had, you know, integrity. But journalists are as much to blame as the business side for the fact that their work increasingly sounds like catalog copy. Here's ink-stained wretch Rob Walker in his most recent "Consumed" column for New York Times Magazine:

After we linked to Vanity Fair's blog matrix graphic earlier today, our inbox filled up with links to other, similar grids. Not surprising, since the format has been around for years and has spread widely. New Republic, to take but one example, published a "Bush Apostate Matrix" earlier this week. New York runs them regularly, here's the May 19 "Approval Matrix." Where/when did the first one of these grids crawl out of the primordial media ooze? (At Spy, probably. Of course.) And is anyone keeping track of their numbers in the wild? With Google and the rest of the internet turning everyone into short-attention-span clickmonkeys, it's only a matter of time before these random-access smorgasbords steal the listicle's place in the hearts of magazine editors everywhere. UPDATE: Two possible answers on the origins of magazine grids below!

"Scott C. Smith is stepping down as publisher of The Chicago Tribune and president of Tribune Publishing as part of changes being made by Samuel Zell." [Times]

Ramiro Burr, a longtime music writer and columnist at the San Antonio Express-News, has resigned from the paper in the face of "allegations that he hired a ghost writer to produce more than 100 stories and columns since 2001." Wow. Didn't it used to be that only journalism's upper crust muckety-mucks hired ghost writers for their columns, like when Mort Zuckerman got Harry "Mr. Tina Brown" Evans to work on his columns in US News & World Report? That sort of thing is expected amongst the elites. But the Latin music critic in San Antonio? Where's the amusing elitism in that? The ghost writer came forward only looking for bylines, and gave a binder full of proof of how he would crank out columns and then pass them on to Burr. And Burr's half-ass non-denial on his own blog makes him sound pretty guilty:

Time's Mark Halperin, the most singularly irritating and negatively influential "reporter" in politics today, got a "mid- to high- six-fugre sum" to write a book about the ongoing presidential campaign with New York's John Heilemann. Hey, Mark already wrote a book about the 2008 campaign! It was called The Way To Win and it was about how "The Way To Win" was to emulate Karl Rove and suck Matt Drudge's cock. That book was sooo prescient and successful—remember how well that strategy worked for Hillary Clinton? Hell, remember how well that strategy worked for Mark's book sales? [NYP]

Whoa. We all know the Tribune Company and its biggest paper, the LA Times, are in trouble. But this seems drastic even for them: the paper is considering a plan to fire the entire editorial staff of its Sunday magazine, and turn the whole operation over to the business side of the paper. It would no longer even be an editorial product. (Just try to imagine what would happen if the NYT Magazine did this). The newsroom is pissed, with LAT editor Russ Stanton reportedly asking the publisher to change the magazine's name if the plan goes through, so it doesn't tarnish the newsroom's credibility. Gee, we remember another LAT Sunday magazine scandal in 1999, back when these types of things actually provoked outrage rather than resignation:

Old things are worthless in this computer world of the future! Look at old, venerable magazine titles. Life? Gone. The Saturday Evening Post? Ha. But the Sporting News—the throwback, stat-filled, serious sports magazine that started publishing in 1886—is trying to stage a comeback against the dominant glossies of today like ESPN Magazine. The Sporting News' three-pronged revival strategy: A digital newsletter; more (ghostwritten?) columns from retired sports stars (Troy Aikman speaks!); and a new column by the soon-to-be-former Deadspin.com cult figure Will Leitch. Hey, one of those might be beneficial!

Ah, Profnet—the easy-peasy electronic service that lets reporters put out requests for even the strangest sources. Then those requests are leaked to us, and we can all have a sympathetic laugh about the endlessly debasing things that freelancers have to go through just to pay the rent. Maybe you can help! Do you know much about smelly feet and/ or vaginas? Please get in touch at once!

On the safe-for-women news site WowoWow today, octogenarian Post gossip queen Liz Smith weighs in with her opinion of bosses: "My boss is an absolute total shit!" Goodness, Liz! "As I have a lot of bosses in this world just as newspaper, magazine-writing, TV-appearing, Internet-contributing souls all have, I will not identify just which particular boss this is," she adds. But of course, we know exactly who she's talking about.

Martin Bashir, the current Nightline broadcaster, just announced that he has a "potentially life-threatening" brain tumor. Bashir, who made his name with big, probing, salacious TV interviews of Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, said that he plans to "get on with his life" and continue working. In that, he is hardly unique; among many cancer victims, the urge to continue with one's career is a powerful one. And that goes double for those in entertainment and the media, where many personalities are so intimately tied to a very public line of work.

"The recordings, made by former Globe managing editor Jim Mitteager, capture him talking with his reporters and sources about stars who allegedly have undergone cosmetic surgery and abortions, as well as been treated for mental illness, bulimia and AIDS." [Daily News]

Tribune CEO Sam Zell famously cursed one of his journalists earlier this year when asked whether refocusing the company would undermine serious journalism. He called such thinking "classic... journalistic arrogance." But now Zell is struggling to service $12.8 billion in debt amid a weak economy, and he's planning what sounds like mass layoffs and newsprint reductions to meet the challenge. The cuts would fall hardest on the journalists who produce the least output — just the sort of emphasis on quantity over quality once-supportive reporters and editors at the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Orlando Sentinel are likely to abhor:

The birth of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's twins is, for celebrity tabloid editors and producers, like a presidential election night, the Superbowl and a moon landing all rolled into one, and the incredible pressure is destroying them one at a time. Bonnie Fuller was an early victim, losing all grip on reality at the end of March, when the magazine she then ran, Star, described a New Orleans wedding between the power couple that never took place. Then, earlier this month, Entertainment Tonight reported that Jolie had given birth to the twins in France, a story that was swiftly denied by reps for the couple and that is raising questions about the show's standards (apparently it was like the New Yorker of celebrity journalism). Now, Fuller's replacement at Star is also messing up the Brangelina story, cropping a month-old photo to make it look like Jolie "collapsed" in the south of France:

Does the New York Times have an intern who just reads copies of the Wall Street Journal from last year and suggests story ideas to steal? Has our explanation of the rules for stealing news stories legitimately had no impact on Times whatsoever? (No). Yesterday Anemona Hartocollis wrote a story for the Times about family-style therapy, largely focusing on the work of a Beth Israel treatment center. That's....been done:

Evangelists preaching the gospel of "hyperlocal" journalism were all atwitter when the Washington Post launched LoudounExtra.com last year, which focuses minutely on the happenings of Loudoun County, Virginia. But the paper's mission to "re-engage its local subscribers" has failed, and the site's audience is still small. Our theory as to why readers haven't flocked to LoudounExtra.com: nothing happens in Loudoun County, Virginia. [WSJ]

Now that the rules for stealing news stories have been revealed, people are seeing stolen stories everywhere! At the National Review, they're accusing the New Yorker's Jeff Toobin of ripping off the Weekly Standard's profile last year of Nixon-loving political hit man Roger Stone. We guess that's true, if you consider it plagiarism to quote the well-rehearsed quotes of a veteran quote whore:

Many of the print publications we used to read regularly we now keep track of online. And every now and then, when we pick up a print edition, we feel like a huge giant! Because everything—everything!—has shrunk. (Pretty sure the New York Press is printed on a cocktail napkin now?) The olde New York Times is now one measly foot wide. They've also added a useless "table of contents" that takes up three A section pages. Many readers naturally assume that they are paying more for less "news" and more "summaries of news" and "plugs for the website." Vanity Fair compared three copies of the paper from 2008, 2007, and 1998, and it turns out that there are just as many square inches of column space devoted to news in all three! Thanks, of course, to significantly less space devoted to advertising, which is why they are laying everyone off, again. [VF]

The media has lots of unwritten rules. Many of them are followed more closely than the written rules. After the Times ripped off a year-old Wall Street Journal story with no credit last week, we realized the need for a complete explanation of the powerful rules governing a time-honored and fundamental practice: Stealing stories. Every media outlet in the world does it—after all, there's much more space to fill every day than there are exclusives. Done the right way, it's perfectly acceptable; done the wrong way, it can be the start of an undercover war. After the jump, we explain everything you need to know to be an honorable, thieving hack. Memorize it: