Rupert Murdoch has wanted to throttle the gasping corpse of the New York Times ever since the day he overpaid for the Wall Street Journal. This is his passion. His first solid step is his previously announced New York local news hires at the WSJ. Today, John Koblin reports that he's not just grabbing a dozen reporters to put out a metro section; he is, in effect, building a competing local paper—complete with three dozen reporters, a $15 million budget, and a boatload of New York Sun veterans.

Well sometimes anyway. That news, and previews of Obama's speech later today dominate the front pages. Our friend John Edwards also gets a look in, as do those pesky Republican kids who got arrested yesterday.

• How many people have signed up for Newsday.com since the newspaper put up a pay wall three months ago? A grand total of 35, believe it or not. [NYO]
• Following in Oprah's footsteps, Martha Stewart announced she's moving her syndicated TV show to cable (the Hallmark Channel) next fall. [Reuters, WSJ]
• NBC honcho Jeff Gaspin says he "underestimated the level of emotion" that would follow the decision to change up NBC's late-night schedule. Fortunately, the Olympics are here, which he says will be "a cleansing moment." [NYT, AP]
• Ratings are up at Fox News: The network was ranked No. 1 in primetime cable last week. Strangely, Fox News was also ranked "the most trusted name in news," according to a national survey released today. Seriously. [NYT, PD]
• There's lots of anxiety in the air over at CNN, not surprisingly. [Politico]
• Yet another Post staffer is suing the paper for discrimination. [Gawker]
• Roger Hodge, the editor of Harper's, has been let go. [NYT]
• More than 83 million people tuned in on Friday for the Haiti telethon. [LAT]
• Who's going to replace Simon Cowell on AI? Possibly one of these guys. [NYM]
• Nancy Grace loves cameras in courtrooms. Except when she's the one doing the testifying, in which case they can cause "embarrassment." [AP]

While the New York Times is taking a full year to get its online paywall right, Newsday—an immeasurably crappier paper—just went ahead and did that shit. How's that working out for them?

In your terrifying Tuesday media column: Nancy Grace is unstoppable, Robert Thomson is strangely attractive, a British newspaper editor is wrong, and Mississippi is king of journalism states!

Sexy cowboy Roger Hodge, editor of Harper's for the past four years, is leaving the magazine (for unexplained reasons). His replacement is Ellen Rosenbush, who's been managing editor there for more than 20 years. The full press release, below.

The plaintiffs smell blood now. The New York Post—already the subject of multiple lawsuits claiming racist discrimination—is now being sued for sexism and ageism. Also, one Post editor allegedly has his own "harem" of hot sexxxy underlings.

Michael Mineo is a 25 year-old tattooed former gangbanger who says the NYPD sodomized him with a nightstick. The NYT's account: Chilling and poignant. The Daily News' account: Matter-of-fact. The Post: 'Victim,' in scare quotes. Choose your own adventure!

• Is Fox about to "swoop in" and sign Conan O'Brien to host a late-night show on the network? That's the rumor. In other, not-at-all-surprising Conan news, his final Tonight Show on Friday generated huge ratings. [NYP, NYDN, LAT]
• News networks are preparing to scale back their operations in Haiti. [NYT]
• The "Hope For Haiti Now" album will debut at No. 1 this week. [Reuters]
• Diane Sawyer's ratings are up 8% since taking over World News. [NYDN]
• Avatar was No. 1 at the box office for a sixth weekend in a row; it bypassed Titanic today to become the highest-grossing movie of all time. [LAT, THR]
• The Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger has been given the go-ahead . [DF]
• The grim ad climate for fashion magazines seems to be improving. [WWD]
• Comcast's acquisition of NBC will face a few hurdles in Washington. [AP]
• Oprah was "America's favorite TV personality" in 2009, according to a new poll. Frighteningly, Glenn Beck and Jay Leno were No. 2 and 3. [Reuters]

In your soaking Monday media column: a religion writer does god's work against crappy press releases, a public Chicago media sobriety fight, McClatchy just misses being car bombed, and the first wearable magazine, allegedly.

Barack Obama is a BIG FAN of the blogs! "Offbeat" blogs, even! OMG. So exciting. Shadowy White House spinmasters have finally leaked to the Washington Post the big Obama Fave Offbeat Blog List!

The Haiti earthquake: Sad, right? Especially for the media—our heroes on the front line, right there in dirty Haiti. Now, the media must start coming home, as heroes. Most are leaving gradually; one network's leaving fast as hell.

The Washington Post, reeling from a takedown in The New Republic last week, has a peerless front page today — and reveals the real, terrorist, dangers of botox.

It was announced last week that the well-reputed paint-huffing punks of VICE were partnering up to share their VBS.TV content with CNN—the 30 year-old broadcast news network, America's first all-news channel—on their website. Does it mean anything?

• NBC Universal's profits tumbled 30 percent in the fourth quarter and dropped 28 percent in 2009. And that was before The Tonight Show mess and the money-losing Olympics were factored in. Good work, Zucker. [THR, LAT]
• More on Conan's departure (and his big ratings this week); Jay Leno's attempt at damage control; his sure-to-be-awkward appearance at the White House Correspondents Dinner; and the "explosion of incivility" on late-night TV.
• More on Air America's meltdown and the aftermath. [NYT, AdAge, Politico]
• How the "Hope for Haiti Now" telethon came together (Clooney made a call) and who will be taking part (140 celebs around the world). [LAT, AP, People]
• The 2010 Sundance Film Festival is in full swing. [LAT, Wrap, MTV]
• Roman Polanski has to return to the U.S. for sentencing, per a judge. [AP]
• Jon Stewart slams Keith Olbermann; Olbermann snipes back. [HP]
• The SAG Awards go down in LA tomorrow night, in case you care. [AP, NYM]
• Jim Cameron is the most important man in the world! Allegedly! [BN]

This is Conan O'Brien's last day at NBC, as you've probably heard. Unfortunately, the person who should be packing up his giant office today isn't: Jeff Zucker, NBC's ruinous president and CEO, who has pretty much destroyed everything he's touched over the past decade, from comedy (remember when Thursday night was "Must See TV"?) to drama (remember when ER and The West Wing were big hits?) to late-night (no explanation necessary). What happens to Zucker in the end is anybody's guess and ultimately up to his new bosses at Comcast, who gave him a new contract recently that will keep him in place through 2013. But given the events of the past couple of weeks—and the sense of panic that probably pervades Comcast HQ right now—it wouldn't be a bad idea for Zucker to polish up the ol' résumé. With that in mind—and because Zucker is a busy man and fully consumed with damage control right now—we took the liberty of getting things started. Why not, right? He's going to need some help, though. After all, he's spent his entire career at NBC (he joined the company as a lowly researcher way back in '86), so it's unlikely he's given his résumé any thought in two decades. But we're here to help. Below, Jeff's starter-kit résumé—along with a few instructions and suggestions—so he can get to work as soon as this weekend.

They clearly just realized it was screwed anyway, what with all the bizarre levers of power. So today the front pages are dominated by their ruling that corporations can weigh into elections with tons of special-interest money. Great.

Air America Media, the liberal radio network (and, increasingly, political website) has filed for Chapter 7 and will cease broadcasting this evening. All employees have been let go.

• As if this hasn't already been a crappy week for liberals thanks to the election results in Massachusetts, Air America announced today that it's shutting down effective immediately and filing for bankruptcy protection. [AP, WP]
• More on the conclusion of l'affaire Coco, what's in store for O'Brien (unclear), and what NBC can look forward to in the months ahead (lackluster ratings for Leno, mammoth losses, continued shame, etc). [NYT, TW, WSJ, NYT]
• CNN has been pulling out all the stops to cover the crisis in Haiti (not to mention invested in hundreds of tight t-shirts for Andy Cooper). And yet Fox News, which has sorta ignored the earthquake (and typically avoids covering stories involving poor black people) is still out in front in the ratings. [LAT]
• Kitty Kelley's tell-all about Oprah hits bookstores on Apr. 13. [AP]
• A Pulitzer for the National Enquirer? Stranger things have happened. [WP]
• HGTV and Food Network have returned to Cablevision customers. [NYT]
• Thanks to Lionel Richie and Quincy Jones, you'll be hearing "We Are the World" (Haiti 2010 edition) again in the near future. [Showbiz411]
• Madonna and Beyoncé have joined Team Clooney, FYI. [Reuters]
• So much for free content: Hulu may start charging its users to watch popular TV shows in the future; and YouTube is introducing pay-per-view videos.
• Is the Wall Street Journal really launching a travel agency? Yes. [E&P]
• Say goodbye (arrivederci?) to MTV's Jersey Shore. [NYM, Gawker, MTV]

In your cool-person Thursday media column: Neel Shah's style secrets exposed, a job appears in the media(!), the NYT's web delay explained, and Donald Graham doesn't give a fuck about your hit pieces.