"Our prayers are with the families of those injured in this tragic incident," said Ronn Torossian, a spokesman for the "Girls Gone Wild" flasher-video franchise. [Boston Herald]

Hillary Clinton strategist Harold Ickes and spokesman Phil Singer had breakfast with the Christian Science Monitor, David Broder, Maureen Dowd, Mark Sheilds, and other "eminences grises of the Washington Press Corps" yesterday, and the Washington Post's Dana Milbank wrote up a nice little summary of the contentious event. The Clintons are not very happy with how the press has treated them, you see, and Phil Singer is especially angry. Singer is mad that the newsmedia listened to that silly Matt Drudge when he ran that silly photo of Barack Obama in a terrorist apron that (Drudge says) was sent to him by a still unknown Clinton staffer, and then they made a big issue of this photo, except they made, in Singer's mind, the wrong issue out of it, as they all sort of used it as proof that the Clinton campaign is grasping at straws. Singer, quite sincerely, expressed his regret that the newsmedia did not instead take their cue from last weekend's new Saturday Night Live, which was on balance rather nicer to Senator Clinton.

Hey, New York Post: Was the Best Original Screenplay Oscar really the most important award of the night, and deserving of your cover shot? I mean, I know the Post is a strong supporter of the literary arts, but isn't that going a little overboard in terms of placement? Oh, right. The winner, Diablo Cody, has that big ass tattoo of a bikini-wearing stripper girl on her arm. Way to get it on the cover! And that other, oral sex-ish shot of her (after the jump) you got on the inside page—that's what makes you the leading entertainment news outlet that you are.

What journalism should be: a dogged, annoying reporter with a big microphone camped out in front of a fancy building harassing people about fake parking permits. We have to admit, we are suckers for this kinda thing. David Yurman can sell his crappy jewelry for thousands of dollars, but his employees need a fake court officer parking pass on their $60,000 Mercedes to avoid a $65 ticket? Tell that to the average American! We love it. Watch this entire Fox 5 clip, then call the Pulitzer committee.

For reasons fathomable only to the smart people who went to grad school, Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism And Other Minutiae is still in an uproar over J-school Dean John Lavine's use of some anonymous student quotes in a letter promoting the school. A letter in the freaking alumni magazine. And for god's sake these J-school people just CANNOT SHUT UP ABOUT IT. Allow us to whip off our green eyeshades, set down our press passes, and smack some book-learnin' outta these kids, after the jump.

HuffPo Political Journalist Extraordinaire Sam Stein wants to know why the New York Times ran their odd story on alleged lobbyist-fucker and MAVERICK presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain now, of all times. Popular conspiracy theories include: they wanted to wait until the story wouldn't affect McCain's stunning primary victory, because they love him, or hate Rudy Giuliani; they wanted to dump it when it would be least effective against McCain, in the long winter between the end of the GOP primaries and the start of the bloody general election battle, because they love McCain; they wanted to wait until the Dems could use it against him and not maybe have to face a Republican candidate without an embarrassing cheat-y past, because they hate America and love Democrats; finally, they ran it now because after it had been killed twice, they finally cleaned it up and hedged its claims sufficiently to meet their standards of publication, just in time to beat a New Republic piece about how they killed the story. Our money, more or less, is on the last one.

somewhat edited to make it appear more exciting. The Village Voice sneaks into a taping and finds out that while the show is only one hour on TV, the taping takes several hours more. And the people don't run around nearly as much in the actual studio—some chefs were even seen stacking up spices, instead of throwing them around wildly as they rushed to complete their gourmet dish in time to bring it over to the celebrity judges. Kind of funny, though: the network uses body doubles for iron chefs Bobby Flay and Mario Batali, on the days they won't be competing. Well, no use dragging Batali out of bed for nothing. When the Voice's Robert Sietsema sees dishes being replaced before they get to the judges, he is outraged; when he feels the wrong guy wins the competition, he is dismayed. If you take "Iron Chef" much too seriously, this is the investigative piece you've been waiting for [VV]. If not, just check out this judge on the show saying "penis:"

So the ombudsman at the Chicago Tribune, in his role as Mr. Serious And Humorless, told gnomish, cussing old man/ billionaire Tribune owner Sam Zell that Zell's "profanity-laced remarks"—that would be "fuck you"— were causing some concern among staffers. Particularly the chicks! So Zell was like, I'll tell you what, ombudsman Timothy J. McNulty: Fuck you too, pansy! Get back to work! We're paraphrasing, of course. But that's the message!

Thank god that News Corp. bought the Wall Street Journal, so that it can use the paper as a platform to give voice to the voiceless in our society: News Corp. executives. Yesterday, the Journal ran an op-ed by William McGurn, who's back at News Corp. after spending the last three years writing speeches for noted speaker George W. Bush. In it, McGurn identifies our country's leading problem: Reporters who are "full of snark."

Malcom Gladwell was on precious radio program This American Life recently, telling some stories of his earliest days of "real" journalism at the Washington Post. He apparently had a bet with a colleague to determine which of them could be the first to insert a couple amusing phrases into the venerable paper. First was "new and troubling questions," which is surely already a journalistic cliche. Following that was the more amusing "perverse and often baffling"—a harder fit, but Gladwell managed it. Of course, Gladwell, easily one of the most charming one-trick ponies in media, has been dining out on this story for a dozen years. Despite that, it upset Jossip very very much, as it raises new and troubling questions about the state of respectable journalism. Audio clip attached.

Columbia Journalism School Dean Nick Lemann pulled a hilarious oopsy-daisy the other day when he mistakenly sent his personal evaluation of himself and the future of the entire school to all his students, rather than just to his boss. It would have been more hilarious if it was forwarded pictures of Ken Auletta in a tutu or something, but whatever. Lemann basically says that, yes, we have a ton of money and we are the most elite elitist journalism institution in the history of elitism, but it's not all good because, you know, at some point kids are gonna figure out you can't make any money doing this stuff, and they'll probably go to cheaper schools, so let's figure that one out pretty soon. The evaluation is essentially exactly the same as a New Yorker article by Lemann on the current state of Columbia J-school would be, except nobody would ever pay for such a thing. For a better understanding of what Lemann means when he says "mercifully brief," the entire memo reprinted [via Romenesko], after the jump.

The George Polk awards—described by blogger Will Bunch as the "Golden Globes of American journalism"—were announced early this morning. One of them went to a blogger who blogs! Far out! An army of Davids has stormed the gates! Joshua Micah Marshall of Talking Points Memo (a blog!!) won the Polk Award for Legal Reporting, for his role in exposing the US Attorneys scandal that eventually brought down Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. On a blog! A blog that follows the rather traditional journalistic model of "hiring" and "paying" "reporters." Brave new world! [E&P via Attytood]

Wrinkly News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch chose Natalie Bancroft, an inexperienced 27 year-old opera singer, for his company's board for very good reasons: He had to choose someone from her family, which controlled Dow Jones before selling to Murdoch last year; The people in the family who might actually be qualified for the board seat would also be a pain in Rupert's ass; and Natalie Bancroft has promised to work her "little butt off" in a quest to figure out what the hell she's doing!

As has been bemoaned by dozens of bloggers eager to write dirty words, many obituaries for the late former Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz politely elided the reason he was forced to quit. Butz said, in public: "I'll tell you what the coloreds want. It's three things: first, a tight pussy; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to shit." (A portion of that quote is also the name of a quite decent late-period Alex Chilton album, whose title was, of course, altered in its American release. Prudes!) Of course, most obits leave out the nastier sides of their subjects, but when a person is famous only for that nasty side, or one specific incident of nastiness, it's shitty, cunty, cocksucking journalism to not mention it.

AngryJournalist.com, an increasingly popular site that consists of nothing but rants from pissed-off reporters, is now the most accurate summation extant of journalism as an industry. "I'm angry at my coworker who thinks his awful high school basketball videos that lack basic storytelling are good enough, because they get the most 'clicks,'" says one. Don't we know THAT feeling! After the jump, videos of Nick Denton playing basketball. Wait, no. After the jump, two comments that encompass everything that is right and wrong with journalism in America today.

Newsweek put hope-monger's wife Michelle Obama on the cover this week, and they offer a lengthy interview and story that remind us all how Ms. Obama is very smart and outspoken, and also pretty sarcastic. In fact the cover story is basically identical to recent profiles in both the Times and the Wall Street Journal! But obviously there's a lengthy lead time for the newsweeklies, and hey, there are only so many ways to call a woman "sarcastic." This many ways:

Hey, you know what would make a great sports trend story? Something about how all that ultimate fighting stuff is getting really popular. Gee, what will it do to boxing? Did you know Senator John McCain once called it "human cockfighting?" But now it's really popular on pay-per-view and stuff? Oh, it all goes along with the rise of mixed martial arts, or MMA to people in-the-know. You could even let some fighter guy actually kick you! It'll be great. Yes, this story needs to be permanently retired until somebody can come up with a new angle for it. Because all people really want to see is ultimate fighters getting knockedafuckout. Like so:

With all the layoffs that just about every major newspaper has gone through over the past few years, reporting staffs have already been chopped to the bone. Or all the way through the bone and out the other side, in some cases. So when the next round of layoffs inevitably comes, where do the cuts come from? A provocative, insightful, and obvious idea: How about firing some more of those freaking editors? Or at least making them do a little more work.

Financial news network CNBC is in a tiff with the financial magazine Barron's, according to a ponderous but awesome story by the Columbia Journalism Review's Dean Starkman. Barron's decided to investigate CNBC meal ticket Jim Cramer, host of "Mad Money," and the network got pissed. The Barron's story began as a look into whether Cramer's stock picks might be leaking before broadcast somehow, which scared CNBC so much that it scurried around spending money on lawyers and sweating until that line of investigation was dropped. The final version of the piece didn't mention that, but it did say that Cramer's stock picks don't generally beat the overall market—not a stunning conclusion to financial types, but poison to Cramer's viewing audience, who watch him with hopes of getting rich. Now the TV network is so mad that it has mostly stopped inviting Barron's reporters onto shows. Starkman comes to the conclusion that both sides made some mistakes, but CNBC is almost totally wrong, while the Barron's story is mostly correct. So why the snippy move to ban the (innocent) reporters from the air? That's the most shine anybody at Barron's can hope for in their day-to-day life. End the embargo! [CJR] Remember: if you upset Jim Cramer, he goes PSYCHO like THIS:

The Dean of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, one of America's most [self] important J-schools, is starting to regret drilling that punctilious attention to "ethics" into students. The Dean, John Lavine, sent out a letter with quotes from anonymous students talking about how great all these new Medill programs are. But another cheeky young bastard-in-training there remembered that the school teaches students not to use anonymous quotes, and started trying to track down who those quotes came from. When he couldn't find them, he wrote a story questioning the almighty Dean. Now it's been picked up by the Chicago Tribune, and Lavine comes off like kind of a dick, especially with quotes like "I am not about to defend my veracity." The lesson: Never work at a J-school for any reason, because you'll suffer all the karmic payback for the time you spent as an annoying journalist yourself. Full version of Lavine's controversial letter after the jump.