Radio-talking Marlboro Man doppelganger Don Imus, a famous racist, has cancer. He announced it on his show this morning:

Good lord. New York Post columnist Braden Keil died Tuesday night. His funeral was held at 11:30 this morning. How long, do you think, before the first PR pitch pegged to his death came in?

College hires 50 laid-off journalists to "teach 'news literacy' to non-journalism majors." Good!

In your sunny Friday media column: Dan Peres has balls, high school reporters have dreams, Arthur Sulzberger has an honest moment, and the media at large has nothing to look forward to:

Yesterday we heard rumors that Viacom has introduced a new system for screwing its vendors out of getting paid on time. Today, more insight into the Kafka-esque world of "InvoiceWorks," from a real vendor!

Conventional wisdom says that smaller local papers are safer than bigger papers, because they have less competition. Then again, an amazing number of people do not give a fuck about their local papers.

• Jon Stewart's showdown with Jim Cramer is getting mixed reviews, mainly because both deviated from their typical personas: the normally brash Cramer was a wimp and Stewart wasn't funny. It "felt like a Senate subcommittee hearing," writes Alessandra Stanley. [NYT, Salon, Atlantic, ABC]
• TMZ and Extra have extended their coverage to the financial services industry! Isn't it ironic that TMZ has exposed more corporate misbehavior over the past few months than CNBC has? Because it sort of has. [NYT]
• Google sales chief Tim Armstrong is the new chairman and CEO of AOL. [WSJ]
• Jim Kelly is stepping down as managing editor of Time Inc. [NYP]
• Fox has dumped Peter Liguori in favor of Fox Searchlight's Peter Rice. [THR]
• More changes are ahead at the Peter Brant-owned Interview. [WWD]
• Mel Karmazin says Sirius's poor performance last quarter was due to "doom and gloom" rumors suggesting the company would go bankrupt. [WSJ]
• Jimmy Fallon finished his first week with solid ratings, beating out the numbers that Conan O'Brien typically generated. Depressing, huh? [Variety]

The swimming fella Michael Phelps was on the Today show this morning talking about his BONG SCANDAL, now that everyone has stopped caring. He's not saying what he did but he won't do it again*.

Thoroughly discredited PR man Mark Penn enjoys being dominated by Rachel Maddow, and charging outrageous fees to package common sense as insight for out-of-touch corporate mouthbreathers. Today: poor people like cheap things!

In your rumormongering Thursday media column: rumors of layoffs and shenanigans at Viacom and Sesame Street (updated), Felix Salmon jumps the Fort Polio ship, Jay Carney flackery, and a journalism grad is broken:

OK!'s cover this week shows Suri Cruise and Shiloh Jolie-Pitt on an adorable playdate! Now, let's look at the two separate photos they stitched together to create this Frankenstein-like Photoshop:

• Jim Cramer hits The Daily Show tonight. And in what can only be interpreted as an effort to dial down the ass-kicking headed his way, Cramer is now claiming Jon Stewart is "his idol." Good luck with that there, Jim. [HP]
• Should CNBC's Erin Burnett really be making appearances on Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice? Maybe not: "NBC keeps testing the limits between news and entertainment in pursuit of cross-promotional synergy." [NYT]
• "Sully" Sullenberger has scored a two-book deal worth $3 million. [TDB]
• Ann Coulter "has been especially noisy in her self-promotion lately," which may have something to do with the fact her book isn't selling. [Portfolio]
• More and more TV shows are working the recession into storylines. [ABC]
• These are dark days for the newspaper biz, as you've probably heard. [NYT]
• More on Ross Douthat, the conservative blogger who has been hired by The New York Times to take over Bill Kristol's Op-Ed column. [E&P]
• Post staffers reflect on the life and times of Braden Keil, the paper's real estate columnist who died on Tuesday and who will be very much missed. [NYO]

Best Life folded today. But it was just the latest of many magazines to die in this grim, anti-glossy era of dirt and mud. Here, 23 of the departed. [Montage by Jess Shaffer]

Hey, empathetic bald man Montel Williams is "getting his own national radio show through a multi-year deal with Air America Radio," which is kinda like Maury Povich getting a "national" column in Steppin Out.

Longtime New York Post real estate columnist Braden Keil died last night, after a battle with melanoma. He worked up until the very end, with his wife helping him write his last column.

Hah, someone fell asleep while Chip Reid asked Robert Gibbs a boring question during a White House press briefing.

OBEY artist Shepard Fairey preemptively sued the AP for the right to use their Obama photo, free; today the AP sued him back. Shep seemed more righteous before we knew he sues other artists. But!:

In your blustery Wednesday media column: the newspaper industry burns, News Corp can't handle hardcore music, NPR needs more black people, and the NYT sells a jet:

Rodale is folding the men's magazine Best Life. The May issue (out next month) will be its last. The move was just announced in a staff memo, copied below:

As long as college kids remain edgy, there will be college sex magazines. And as long as there are a few olds with no sense of mockery, they will be scandalized by them. Still!