Finally, some intrepid journalists have infiltrated the Somali pirates'...dusty hangout area, with video cameras! 20/20 pals around with pirates tonight, on television. Watch this clip of America's new enemy, with guns, on a little boat!

In your springy Friday media column: a maybe-savior for the Boston Globe, traumatized journalists are everywhere, Newsweek bites HuffPo, and more!

Sara Nelson, who was recently laid off as the editor of Publishers Weekly, so she's freelancing. But one mystery publication's asshole editor gave her so much trouble she outed him, blind item-style. Guess:

• The first quarter wasn't such a hot one for NBC Universal: Earnings dropped 45 percent as the ad market continued its downward spiral. [WSJ, TVWeek]
• The world's largest newsprint maker has gone bankrupt. [NYT]
• Rolling Stone is closing up shop in San Francisco. [Portfolio]
• Ads sales figures at The New York Times Co. are looking pretty ugly. [E&P]
• Some good news, at least for impoverished porn addicts: Time Warner no longer plans to charge customers based on bandwidth usage. [Wired]

A 21 year-old Oakland man is pleading guilty to the murder of Oakland journalist Chauncey Bailey last August—a stupid, stupid murder that never would have happened in a just world.

In the war between video sites, Hulu might have the Daily Show, 30 Rock and 24, but YouTube just signed big studio deals to bring you... Harper's Island and The Addams Family. Oh, Google.

Us Weekly became the third magazine in a week reprimanded by the American Society of Magazine Editors for impure ads. It's as if Us, Entertainment Weekly and ESPN the Magazine don't care about purity!

The New Yorker is America's best magazine but their advertising revenue last quarter was down, let's see, 32% from a year ago. So everything is on sale, 80% off!!

In your fabulous Thursday media column: John Madden retires, newspapers just falling apart everywhere, Martha Stewart gets a fat contract, and Fiji's version of The Onion:

Patrician nerd George Will believes that blue jeans will be the downfall of this great country. Denim is only intended to be worn by "horny-handed sons of toil and the soil." What a prick. [Wonkette]

Esquire's ad revenue dropped 22% in the first quarter, which actually put it above average. But we hear that the magazine's staff, and its corporate overlords, are on edge. There was a meeting yesterday [UPDATED]...

• The Times is folding in several sections of the paper (City, Escapes); scrapping the weekly fashion spread in the New York Times Magazine, and cutting the budget for freelance writers. Grim times, indeed. [NYT, Gawker]
• NBC CEO Jeff Zucker is reportedly concerned that CNBC has become too conservative and is becoming "the anti-Obama network." [P6]
• The new Ben Silverman? That would be ABC's Stephen McPherson. [NYP]
• Bill O'Reilly tends to ambush liberals more often than he does conservatives. Could that mean he, like, has an agenda or something? How surprising! [NYT]
• Twitter on fire: Traffic is up 131 percent from February. [AdAge]
• Gannett Co. reported a 60 percent decline in first-quarter profit today. [AP]

Break out the confetti and American Flag sheet cakes, because the heroic crew of the ship jacked by pirates is back in the USA! A nation celebrates, on instinct. Meanwhile, the pirates are talking shit!

What happens when the prim self-satisfaction of New York's media elite meets the smug hubris of Silicon Valley's unblinking technocrats? Why, a Maureen Dowd profile of Google CEO Eric Schmidt, that's what happens.

Dan Abrams has hired FishbowlNY's Glynnis MacNicol for his new media site.

Consumer magazines as a whole lost nearly 26% of their ad pages in the first quarter. We broke out the numbers for Conde Nast, and they're just as bad. The biggest loser: Wired.

In your overflowing Wednesday media column: Sam Zell wakes up, alt-weekly censorship, Dan Abrams commiserates, Ben Affleck says words for some reason, Ann Moore doesn't expect to live long, and PRWeek goes monthly:

• More bad news for the magazine biz: Ad pages fell 26 percent during the first quarter, although you probably guessed that when you used last month's issue of any number of Condé Nast magazines to floss your teeth. [NYT]
• Steve Brill plans to save journalism! Or die trying, at least. [NYT]
• Sam Zell now says his acquisition of the parent company of the Chicago Tribune in 2007 was "a mistake." And a rather expensive one at that. [CT]
• Is NBC's long ratings slump over? Jeff Zucker sure is hoping so! [LAT]
• 20/20's Bob Brown has been dismissed after 30 years at the network. Insult to injury: He was told he could freelance for the network if he wants. [P6]

Why does the Washington Post want to tell children that their pirate fantasies are fake and evil?

It's a crazy new hipster character fond of criminal and sexual hijinks! Let's meet Kari Ferrell, the 22 year-old tattooed Utah girl who scammed her way through hipster Brooklyn. Sex, lies, cancer, and bands, yea!