Us Weekly ate up Hills "stars" Spencer and Heidi's story that they got married on the spur of the moment while on vacation in Mexico. A photographer just happened to be there to capture their beautiful declarations of love! Heidi just happened to have a white, full-length Balenciaga sundress lying around that doubled perfectly as a wedding gown! But the AP is asking if they're actually now husband and wife or if the whole thing was just another elaborate Speidi photo op.The Us story, the AP notes, "does not address whether they obtained a marriage license or took part in a separate civil ceremony, which is required by Mexican law to make the union binding. A couple can register their marriage up to 10 days after a ceremony, but California does not recognize marriage ceremonies outside the United States." Could it have even happened in under an hour, like Speidi claimed? "Americans who wish to get married in Mexico must first go through a process that takes about five days, according to Mexico's foreign relations department Web site. They must obtain a health certificate, including blood test results from a local doctor; and provide official translations of legal documents, such as birth certificates." In a statement issued via Us (wtf?) the allegedly happy couple came pretty close to acknowledging that they hadn't done any of that, saying "like other elopements that happen outside the country, we'll take care of the legal details when we get home." Their publicist was all know-nothing about it, adding, " "If there was a wedding I wasn't invited ... Sorry!" We're sure the meticulously-documented event had nothing whatsoever to do with the next season of The Hills—even though MTV also just happened to be there, filming their vacation. They'd never exploit such a loving, personal moment.

The Fake New York Times that blanketed America last month was an impressive stunt. A vast coalition of liberal groups and assorted artistic types came together, worked for months, and managed to pull off the writing, production, and distribution of a faux newspaper without word leaking out beforehand. The general public was impressed. So how to put the cap on this classic work? With some good old-fashioned public ideological squabbling by those involved. It's just like the 1970s! Is Greater Than has an interview with Anne Elizabeth Moore, who was involved in the paper's production but bailed out prior to distribution day due to ideological differences. It's interesting! It also includes the following complaints:

Former MSNBC host Dan Abrams is a popular guy, because it's been rumored that he has jobs to give out. Abrams, you'll recall, is starting a ridiculous, conflict-of-interest-riddled PR firm that will distinguish itself by selling corporate clients (or just moguls) the advice of current journalists, bloggers, and other media types. The Observer spoke to Abrams, and he says he's gotten 650 applications already—"the bulk of whom are freelance journalists, people who are writing books and individuals who have recently been laid off or walked away from jobs in the media industry." Are we missing something here? The whole reason that people got upset about Abrams' business plan in the first place is that he says he's going to offer the consulting services of current, not former, media people. Former journalists work for damn near every PR firm in America. That's nothing new. Here's Abrams' offended quote today:

♦ CBS is expected to win November sweeps for the eighth straight year. [AP]
♦ Another victim of the recession: publishing industry lunches. [NYO]
♦ The Super Bowl isn't looking up for NBC. Sales of 30-second ads have slowed and there are rumors some companies are now asking for discounts. [AP]
♦ In an attempt to ride Barack Obama's coattails to relevancy, MTV is planning a "Rock 'N Roll Inaugural Ball" for January 20. [AdAge]
♦ Life & Style is on life support and is laying off staff. [NYP]
♦ Contenders to take over Meet the Press include David Gregory, Gwen Ifill, Andrea Mitchell, and NBC political director Chuck Todd. The news may be announced December 7th. [LAT]

Why was real estate developer and Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman so quick to come to Citigroup's defense with no less than four separate appearances on MSNBC yesterday? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the bank is one of his largest tenants? Wayne Barrett explains. [VV]

Sure, Barack Obama is saving the in-the-tank liberal media by lending his image to various tchotchkes, but did you know the president-elect is also going to reinvigorate the conservative media? Fox News expects to goose its ratings capitalizing on right-wing outrage, and conservative journal National Review is one step ahead: It's already running ads saying that if you sign up for a subscription now, you can stop the godless Democratic pinkos from raising your taxes next year. Staff are deserting the magazine right and left, but apparently it is still confident it can single-handedly foil the Democratic Congress! Watch the hilarious ad, seen on Fox News, after the jump.

The backlash against Somali pirates is already backlashing upon itself—proving that you just cannot fuck with pirates successfully! The Indian Navy thought it was being hardcore when it sunk an alleged pirate "mother ship" off the African coast last week. They must have forgotten that worldwide favor being heaped upon the Somali pirate lifestyle renders them invincible! Just click and watch the video clip above—the pirates are giving sympathetic interviews to CNN already. Casting themselves as freedom fighters, of a sort! More than you can say for the anti-pirate forces. Because the Indian Navy's big attack may not have gotten any pirates at all:

The odd mini-profile on Prince that ran in the most recent New Yorker's "Talk of the Town" section made a big splash, mostly because of Prince's religious pronouncements of going door-to-door as a Jehovah's witness and remarks concluding that being gay was wrong. However, his flack went to Perez Hilton and said that Prince had been "grossly misquoted" and accused the writer of the piece, Claire Hoffman, of not using a tape recorder. ("How unprofessional!" Perez squealed.) The New Yorker stood by their story in a confirmation to Wired. But turns out there was a very good reason the interview wasn't recorded: Hoffman explains in an interview that Prince "wouldn’t let me use a tape recorder or my notepad."The quote that got Prince in trouble was, in response to a question about gay marriage and abortion, “God came to earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever, and he just cleared it all out." So, how did Hoffman get that? She explains, "I walked out and sat in my car and wrote for an hour. I don’t have long chunks of dialogue, but I was able to remember stuff." Forbidding a writer of making any record of an interview is a pretty canny move for a celebrity—he can claim to be "misquoted" on anything he didn't like. It's her recollection against his. And given that the Prince version (via Perez) — "What His Purpleness actually did was gesture to the Bible and said he follows what it teaches, referring mainly to the parts about loving everyone and refraining from judgment." — sounds like P.R. puffery, we're going with Hoffman here and Prince is, as usual, DOING IT RONG. [Via Emdashes]

Ted Koppel, the impressively-haired former ABC newsman, is parting ways with the Discovery network six months before his contract is up. You may or may not have been aware that he's been working with them since 2006. Not the greatest tragedy in history, but it does point to the sad plight of the former big-time news anchor. There's nowhere to go but down from the heights of the network news desk. Where are all those famous former anchors today?

Do Barack Obama's "press conferences" and "podiums" and "fancy logos" lead you to believe that the president-elect actually has any power? Fox News has published an explosive expose revealing that the "'office of the president-elect holds no authority" under the Constitution!

♦ Graydon Carter says Vanity Fair plans to go ahead with its annual Oscar party, but "the party will be a much more intimate affair than in years past; we're going to scale back the guest list considerably." [DH]
♦ No replacement is planned for Alan Colmes: Fox News plans to have Sean Hannity serve as solo host of the nightly show. [NYT]
♦ Ted Koppel is parting ways with the Discovery Channel. [NYT]
♦ Looks like OK! has been cutting back on copy editors. The cover of the new issue misspells Ashlee Simpson's name. [HuffPo]

Oh we see how it is. First we make Republican ski bum and national bailout chief Neel Kashkari a total object of desire by showing you how Ferrari-tastic he was in high school. Then People magazine goes and names him one of the sexiest guys in the world. And now, Details has named Neel #2 on their "Power List," if you can imagine "Details" and "Power" together in the same sentence. Kashkari kopykats are going krazy! We saw him first. That means we're first in line for some of that sweet bailout money in 09, baby. [Details; pic by ineffable.me]

Hey, whoa, BLOW UP your television and get ready for DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT sound and visuals comin atcha from a WIDE SPECTRUM OF NEW HOOKS. This is the future, people. The Tribune Co.'s "Chief Innovation Officer" and craziest dude in the newspaper industry Lee Abrams has some new memo-fied ideas that will have you looking at TV weeded out of your mind a whole new way. Consider: "The old line 'Don't fix it if aint broke' makes no sense. It's like saying: Let it break...then we'll fix it." And that's just the beginning!:

Back in 1996, cable news was still innocent, and even an evil Republican genius like Roger Ailes had to make a pretense of political objectivity. So Fox News Channel was careful to seek a token "Liberal To Be Determined" to balance Sean Hannity when the conservative pundit helped anchor the network's debut. These days CNN, MSNBC and Fox all carry unabashedly slanted shows on their lineups, so Fox apparently feels no compunction about giving Hannity formal title to the show he's always had his way with: The host will go it alone following co-host Alan Colmes' previously-announced departure, two sources told the Times.

Embattled Porfolio editor Joanne Lipman interviewed embattled Tribune publisher Sam Zell recently, in a dynamic meeting of the embattleds! Zell is a well-known asshole, but kind of lovable too (if you don't work for him), because he tells the hard truth no matter what. He admits that newspapers' business model was screwy and outdated. He admits that newspapers will never again be able to "break news" in print on a regular basis. He talks shit to Arthur Sulzberger. And he charmingly scoffs at the expensive pursuit of Pulitzers by newspapers that can't even cover daily news in their own cities:

Fallen former newspaper mogul Conrad Black—Baron Black of Crossharbour, to you—is currently serving out a 78 month sentence in a Florida prison for fraud and obstruction of justice, related to his looting of his own company's funds for his personal use. Or so the government claims. The martyred Lord used to write editorials decrying the injustice of his convictions in the New York Sun, but they folded. Now he's writing the same damn thing in the Times of London. And the man who was once the world's third-biggest newspaper magnate sounds like the second coming of Eldridge Cleaver:

Floundering maker of autos GM got slammed for flying its executives to Washington on private jets to beg for a government bailout. They were denied, so now they've decided to cut back on every last unnecessary expense. And today, the company announced that it's going to end its $8 million per year endorsement contract with Tiger Woods. Though GM swears that, hey, this has nothing to do with their desperate quest for a bailout—"the timing...is purely coincidental." (Bullshit, judging purely on outward appearance). Where else is the company cutting costs? Everywhere, starting with the paper towels!:

The unabashed love for MSNBC normal-person liberal Rachel Maddow has spread from the liberal blogosphere to the mainstream blogosphere and now into the mainstream media. Maddowmania infection alert, America! Click to watch a clip of her telling Conan O'Brien that straight men send her fan mail, despite the fact that that makes them gay. Newsweek has a mythmaking (but good!) profile of Maddow out today that actually quotes her boss calling her "magic." And Marketwatch media person Jon Friedman says that he was in a restaurant when Maddow walked in—and everybody turned to look! "That is star quality at work." Instead of getting to work engineering the inevitable Maddow backlash—the internet's main job—we'll simply ask: How does Keith Olbermann feel about all this? Poor Keith was the voice of liberal America for a moment; now, he seems old and strident. Largely thanks to unflattering comparisons to Maddow—even though it was Keith who urged MSNBC to give her a show! Now everybody talks about Maddow, and it seems like forever since people gave Olbermann serious attention. He's been definitively upstaged, for the moment. But like we said, the Maddow backlash will come. It always does. Early fans will drop her now that she's popular, like hipsters giving up on bands. Her mistakes will draw more attention. Slate will run some piece about how terrible she is, per its contrarian mission statement. And the pendulum will swing back towards Keith for a while, before some time passes and both of them settle into "plain old liberal TV host" territory in the public mind. That's assuming that Olbermann doesn't fly into some jealous rage prematurely and say something snide about her, which would only serve to increase her popular period an make him an unsympathetic figure once viewers grow bored and go looking for an alternative. Just bide your time quietly, Keith; the internet which Maddow loves so much does not love anybody for an extended period of time. Although this will probably keep her neck deep in public sympathy for months:

Alan Colmes, television's most beloved representative of the liberal Lizard People, has finally decided to leave the Hannity and Ineffectual Lizard Person show behind. Colmes will abandon his longtime partner Sean Hannity, who probably won't notice that he's just bullying a mop in a suit now, and develop his own weekend show. Maybe on the weekend show he'll invite a rotating series of louder, more charismatic alpha conservatives to shout him down or ignore him outright? Otherwise it'll just be an hour of Colmes trying to get a word in edgewise against dead air. Beckettian, really. [TVNewser]

Forbes has "absolutely" denied last night's rumor that they were going to be bought by a Russian oligarch's private equity firm. They add that Forbes Russia isn't for sale to the firm, either. [Alley Insider]