The New York Times story on David Paterson does not contain any scandal — it's hard to see how the rumors even started. Meanwhile there are nine new ways in which politics in DC is broken, and reports from Pakistan.

Last year saw a record number of reporters killed (70) or imprisoned (136) for their work in some of the loveliest hotspots around the world. The closure of bureaus and the rise of the internet may be contributing.

Long Island University gave out its prestigious George Polk Awards today. Among the winners: the New York Times' David Rohde, 60 Minutes' Steve Kroft, and the anonymous person who recorded the murder of Neda Agha-Soltan on a cellphone.

The person who filmed the death of Iranian protester Neda Soltan has become the first anonymous recipient of a Polk Award. Only the Pulitzer Prize committee can preserve the journalism priesthood now, by screwing the National Enquirer. (Via)

In your tenuous Tuesday media column: people get fired for crazy reasons, reporters doubling as models, a talking head maybe getting a new job, and journalistic kayak fail.

Writing on the internet is not committed to paper nor subjected to the same bureaucratic intercession of minders charged with protecting institutional reputations. For loathsome New Republic Leon Wieseltier, this makes the web suspect and newfangled and just annoying.

Indiana senator Evan Bayh stepping down is variously a catastrophe, a threat and a protest. There's also news from Afghanistan and Pakistan, and yet another debate about weight in fashion week.

Is The New York Post having a laugh? Has Rupert Murdoch gone soft? What is up with this insane editorial today apparently seriously endorsing a Mort Zuckerman Senate run?

The Associated Press has said it's "mad as hell" at internet portals. Yet the wire service's pandering to one major online client is said to be severely taxing reporters and undermining editorial quality.

Another day, another compelling argument for refusing to allow Mike Bloomberg back into the nation the next time he jets off to Bermuda for the weekend: now Mort Zuckerman wants to run for Senate.

How many discredited former Bush White House officials can one newspaper publish? Fred Hiatt is collecting them like Pokemon. Marc Thiessen, Bush speechwriter and torture enthusiast, will be writing a weekly column for The World's Worst Opinion Section.

Bloomberg News staffers no longer have the market on fear and loathing cornered: Informants tell us that high-stakes monitoring of reporters' performance has poisoned the atmosphere at Reuters and the Associated Press business desk, too.

• More layoffs at the New York Times may be on the way. Uh oh. [Wrap]
• NBC was planning to lose $250 mil. on the Olympics before the games even started. Now it's worried about low ratings/injured athletes, too. [LAT, NYP]
• More bad news for NBC: A poll finds that 69 percent of the people who used to watch Jay Leno have no plans to follow him back to The Tonight Show. [TVG]
• Two-in-one magazine/catalog Lucky has a new publisher. [WWD]
• Movies: The next Twilight installment will consist of two separate movies (everyone gets to pay twice!); Brittany Murphy's final film will hit theaters this summer; and Valentine's Day is expected to top the weekend box office.
• Related: Julia Roberts makes a six-minute appearance in Valentine's Day. That means she was paid about $500,000/minute for her services. [NYM]
• MySpace has clearly seen better times. (Like 2005.) [NYT, LAT, ATD]
• TV: The Ellen DeGeneres Show is staying on NBC, not going to ABC; evil empire Wal-Mart is planning to produce "family-friendly" television programming; and Sarah Palin's fave show, American Chopper, has been canceled, gosh darnit.

Today in America's Worst Opinion Section: lots of important thoughts about The Tea Parties, from confused old people who have been regurgitating blinkered DC consensus garbage for almost 200 years between them.

In your explosive Thursday media column: Iceland's bad bet, the wienermobile is the future of journalism, more hard times at USA Today, Conde Nast would like to be the new Wonkette, and a scary scene at Fashion Week.

The following email just went out to Time Inc. staffers, informing them that People StyleWatch publisher Michelle Meyers has quit, for unexplained reasons. Know more? Email us.

Except for the snow, which rules all. Even the Google, whose attempts to become an internet service provider make most of the front pages, cannot stop the mighty white stuff.

The Wrap has what appears to be a secondhand quote from NYT CFO James Follo about new layoffs: "I think we would expect that to be the case, yes." (It's like playing "telephone.") Bill Keller's December sigh of relief: Premature?

• The New York Times Co. actually turned a profit in 2009. Glory be! [NYT]
• Did you read (or hear about) Playboy's new interview with John Mayer, the one in which he managed to make himself look like even more of an idiot? Mayer's been busy today apologizing for his comments, not surprisingly.
• American Idol's ratings were up big last night. It's the Ellen effect. [TVG]
• Get ready to see ads on magazine covers; it's so happening. [AdAge]
• Another symptom of the times: While Gourmet didn't survive the great magazine meltdown, Food Network Magazine continues to be a big hit. [NYP]
• Since MTV no longer has any connection to music whatsoever, it's changed its logo. The "music television" bit is gone. And the logo has put on weight. [BC]
• The next Spider Man installment—coming July 3, 2012, just in case you happen to have your calendar in front of you—will be in 3D. Naturally. [THR]
• Speaking of things in the far-off future, Tom Cruise has signed on to star in Mission Impossible IV (coming May '11!). And in what will undoubtedly come as the best news you'll hear all week, Celine Dion returns to Las Vegas in '11.

The "SnOMGpocalypse of Death" today has us thinking of the BBC commentator's hilarious meta take on how the news networks report on disastrous weather—namely snow. It's a clever dissection of scare tactics, the word "treacherous," and people falling.