Could Caroline Kennedy have given us any clearer indication of her lack of qualifications for the Senate than her disastrous exit from the race? Here is the (new!) alleged timeline of her decisionmaking process:
• Sarah Palin has tapped lawyer/agent Robert Barnett, who has brokered book deals for Obama and both Clintons, to help her score a deal of her own. [THR]
• MSNBC is thinking about adding a third show during primetime. [NYT]
• ABC is furious that it spent $2 million for "exclusive" footage of the Obamas' first dance, only to find out other networks were covering it, too. [NYP]
• Rumor has it Playboy is combining the staff of its website and magazine and moving the entire editorial operation to Chicago. [Page Six]
• The white power sent to the Journal yesterday was harmless. [WSJ]
Mailing it in for Hamilton Nolan, who's, er, on assignment, I'm here with your post-inaugural, Nobama media column.
We'll excuse you if you forgot that the Sundance Film Festival is taking place right now. Whether it's because of the recession or those scene-stealers in Washington who've been hogging the spotlight this week, this year's fest will likely go down as one of the most low-profile in recent memory. The first batch of events this past weekend turned out to be a disappointment to celeb spotters (unless you count the occasional glimpse of people like Denise Richards and Ron Jeremy, that is). And the situation didn't improve yesterday when Park City turned into a ghost town as important people jumped on jets to head to Washington and the less fortunate had to make do with watching the historic event on TV. (Pity the photogs: The dearth of A-listers, reports VF, sent "errant packs of TMZ reporters scrambling for a celebrity sighting that was nowhere to be had.")
• The broadcast of yesterday's inauguration earned the highest ratings since Reagan took the oath in 1981. Early numbers from Nielsen indicate 29% of US households tuned in. That figure doesn't factor in the people who viewed it online, and the big event in DC yesterday set web traffic records, too. [THR, NYT]
• The Wall Street Journal received a dozen envelopes filled with a mysterious white powder today. [WSJ]
• Maria Bartiromo has signed a new contract with CNBC. [NYP]
• Newsday editor John Mancini has returned to work following a dispute with the paper's owner, Cablevision's Jim Dolan. [Newsday, E&P]
• Clear Channel is laying off 9% of its work force. [AdAge]
• People pushed back its Tuesday afternoon deadline to Wednesday so it could publish a special double issue with Obama on the cover. [WWD]
• North Korea's news agency didn't bother to report the inauguration until late yesterday afternoon. The article was three sentences long. [FB]
Obama's inaugural address was "a philosophic statement of high moral purpose," said Reverend Eugene Rivers on MSNBC just now. Everyone agrees: it was serious and somber.
With the recession taking a heavy toll on the magazine industry, it's nice to see that we aren't the only ones looking for a silver lining: "During the luxury boom, I grew accustomed to those hernia-busting periodicals that clogged my mail slot every month," writes Simon Doonan in his weekly Observer column. "Now, as I look for stuff to be glad about, I'm loving the fact that you can once again swat a fly or a cockroach with a folded fashion magazine." We can't picture too many cockroaches scurrying around the immaculate apartment Doonan shares with Jonathan Adler, but we get the point. And we couldn't agree more. [NYO]
Barack Obama is your new President, and we have liveblogged it. Enjoy.
• Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helù has pumped $250 million into the beleaguered New York Times Co. [NYT]
• Newsday's editor-in-chief and managing editor have been absent from the office the past few days and it's still unclear what exactly happened. [NYP]
• Matt Cooper has joined Talking Points Memo as editor-at-large. [Politico]
• For the first time, movie ads will appear during this year's Oscars. [AdAge]
• NBC says 90 percent of its Super Bowl ads have been sold. [AP]
• Jennifer Aniston on the cover of Vogue in December and GQ in January provided a nice boost to both titles. [WWD]
The Inauguration of Barack Obama is on every channel in the world, but there is a problem: nothing will "happen" for another hour or so! So which channel should you watch to kill time until change comes?
The top editors of Newsday: they're missing! From work. Or are they? Rumors say they've been fired! Other rumors say they haven't. One thing is for sure: Cablevision sucks a big one, managerially speaking.
Obama's inauguration is not just his star-studded debut; it's also his first chance for a PR disaster. After the jump, a brief look at all the things that could go wrong on Day One:
