Lynn Sweet is a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times who led the outraged howling over the Obama campaign charging the press extortionate prices to cover his election-night rally in Chicago. Yet even she has been brought in line by the Obama charm! During the just-completed press conference Sweet stood up with a broken arm and allowed that she had broken it covering his rally, and Obama gave a sweet answer and flashed the biggest smile ever and in one fell swoop made Lynn Sweet America's most famous reporter for a day and also a lady who probably would like to smooch Barack Obama right on the mouth. Click to watch the exchange. [UPDATE: Bonus Observer story on Sweet too!]

The news media has tracked failed VP candidate Sarah Palin to the wilds of Alaska to get her reaction to the LOL-legation that she thought Africa was a country rather than a continent. Her forceful rebuke of the charge can be summed up as: It, uh, sounds like some bitters are saying I maybe, uh, didn't know the answer to a question so, uh, who was it that said that, anyhow? Click to watch the mush-mouthed meanderings of a geographically challenged woman.

We hear that Neel Shah—former Gawker intern-turned prolific (and recently laid-off) Radar writer and occasional magical berry salesman—is joining the staff of ever-grinding gossip machine Page Six next week. Thus marks the completion of Neel's whirlwind full circuit through all of the stages of the gossip-based media, leaving spinning social vortexes in his wake that scientists assure us will not create universe-eating black holes. Upon reaching P6 he will receive a banana, a bottle of water, a blanket, a winner's ribbon, and the last media paycheck in New York.

O At Home—the quarterly magazine for those who liked Oprah but were exclusively concerned with her take on home furnishings—has folded. Its content will be absorbed back into the mothership, O magazine. Simultaneously, O At Home's former editor, Sarah Gray Miller, is becoming the editor-in-chief at Hearst knick-knack mag Country Living. Much of the rest of the magazine's staff will surely be laid off today. It's becoming quite clear that folding magazines is becoming the new favorite version of the Friday News Dump technique, so we reserve the right to tell you about more magazines folding later on today.

Times columnist Maureen Dowd spent a decent chunk of this campaign trying to paint Barack Obama as another effete faggy Democratic wuss, as she did to John Kerry and Al Gore, just because, hey, why not. OBambi was all her, remember? Also she called him a "butterfly." Now, today, she's thrilled Obama won, and certain he'll restore dignity and grandeur to Washington and the White House. Obama "has the chance to make the White House pristine again." Yes, because Washington DC and the White House were certainly pristine before all this, right? Dowd explains how rough the last 16 years have been:

♦ More pain at 4 Times Square: Condé Nast is shuttering Elegant Bride. [Jossip]
♦ Despite the fact Portfolio fired 32 staffers last week, a spokesperson confirms the mag is going ahead with a soirée at the 21 Club later this month. [Page Six]
♦ Not surprisingly, Fox News has landed the first post-election interview with Sarah Palin. Greta van Susteren will sit down with her in Alaska over the weekend; the interview will be broadcast on Monday. [THR]

The layoffs at Hearst this week have already hit Redbook and Good Housekeeping. So as not to be sexist, now they've come to Esquire. We hear the upscale men's mag laid off four editorial employees yesterday, including two editors, and decreed that another open assistant editor position won't be filled. "They gathered everyone together to tell them not to tell anyone the exact number cuz they don't want any media," says a tipster. That's somewhat embarrassing. But not as embarrassing as the spending habits of another layoff-happy mag, the recently decimated Conde Nast Portfolio: According to P6,

We've been following the development of Real World Brooklyn closely, watching as they cavort all over the gentrified parts of the borough. Now that the trailer's out, It may be the most melodramatic Real World yet: you have an ex-solider admitting to killing people, a virgin Mormon accused of being gay, somebody putting a rodent in someone's bed, a dude talking about getting beaten bloody by his dad, and another guy smashing a glass coffee table. And that's only the two-minute preview! Click to watch.Click to view

"They are all shitting on each other. . Let’s try to make some sense of it." [Wonkette]

Amy Rice and Alicia Sams' documentary on Barack Obama has been filming since summer 2006, before the president-elect was even seeking the Democratic nomination. But the directors were inspired by the Illinois senator's speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and thought he'd be worth following. Actor Ed Norton's Class 5 Films put up some money, the Obama camp provided inside access and now the bet is paying off, and not just because the candidate went all the way: HBO, it was just announced, is paying in the low seven-figures for the film, and theatrical rights are still available. Chalk it up as yet another Obama win against the Clintons!

A 67-year-old fella in Bellingham, Washington named Thomas Baldwin spent $1,700 buying up 10,000 copies of the Bellingham Herald's November 5 "Obama Wins" edition. Baldwin has a friend "who sells copies of newspapers that are decades old at trade shows," and he reckoned that there might be a profit in those there papers a few decades down the road. Let's leave aside the spectacle of the garage full of rotting copies of the Bellingham Herald that will inevitably be the inheritance of Baldwin's children and just point out to Mr. Baldwin—hey, the entire newspaper industry is on the phone for you with a very attractive price on several thousand copies of the March 26, 2003 "Troops trudge ahead" issue of the Anniston Star. Think about it. [Bellingham Herald via Romenesko]

Boy, CNN's election-night magic hologram technology was a hit! And all for the low, low price of $300,000 to $400,000. Money is no object in these times of plenty! Today, CNN boy wonder Anderson Cooper learns how the magic was made—and then is treated to the amazing sight of his colleague Erica Hill disappearing with a snap of her fingers! Too bad CNN moved AC's laptop in the jump cut, or it would have really looked convincing. Click to watch the poor trickery of cable news in action.

We hear that there were four editorial layoffs at Good Housekeeping today as part of the broader Hearst layoffs we mentioned yesterday. And FishbowlNY reports 20 layoffs at M. Shanken Communications, the publisher of Cigar Aficionado, Wine Spectator, and Food Arts. And Eric Schurenberg, the managing editor of Money, was laid off today as part of the Time Inc. layoffs.

Affluent urban professionals are so happy that Obama is our next president! They're educated and urbane and liberal and they are simply in love with our elected leader, for a change! But now that they've finally gotten over their election night party hangovers, they're starting to realize: whoa, these Democrats might not be so good for our beloved Fashion/ Advertising/ PR/ Entertainment industries, which give us affluent urban professionals our paychecks! After the jump, we take a brief look at how these industries of liberal elites really feel about the prospects of an Obama presidency:

Some dude in Hollywood named Todd Shemarya is getting sued by his ex-assistant, who claims that he sexually harassed her and was a big racist and walked around naked at work and several other unsavory things. The original story noted that Shemarya's firm " bills itself as the "number one" talent agency in the world" that claims to represent a slew of A-List stars like Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio. Naturally this snowballed, and yesterday Page Six called Shemarya "A TOP Hollywood talent agent - whose roster includes Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Aniston and Matthew McConaughey." But one brave writer at Variety had the balls to point out: Todd Shemarya is nobody:

President-elect Obama asked Illinois Congressman and hard-charging political attack dog Rahm Emanuel to be his Chief of Staff. Emanuel's brother is Ari Emanuel, the Hollywood agent who famously broke away from ICM to start his own agency. On the HBO series Entourage, Jeremy Piven plays an incredibly thinly veiled fictional version of Ari Emanuel, named Ari Gold. Ari Gold, in the new season of Entourage, was weighing an offer to leave his agency to head a studio. Meanwhile, Rahm Emanuel still hasn't decided if he wants to stay on as a powerful Congressional Democrat or move to a position of great power but less autonomy in the Obama White House. Above, watch fictional Ari struggle with the choice, and below, real-life Rahm hems and haws on television. Real life imitates fiction imitating the brother of real life.

♦ Michelle Obama may end up on the cover of Vogue in the next few months: "It's been a long-standing tradition to photograph the new first lady. So needless to say, we are very interested in working with Mrs. Obama." But Ebony may get there first. [WWD]
♦ Shares of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. plunged today following the company's announcement it's revising its 2009 forecast. [Bloomberg]
♦ New York television critic John Leonard has died. [Vulture]
♦ A round of layoffs have hit Hearst, although the exact numbers haven't been released. [Folio]

Pasty British expat writer Toby Young has news for you, America: your new president isn't "black," so stop acting all excited. "[Am] I the only person in the world who's noticed that Barak [sic] Obama isn't black?" he wonders. "Slaves were black. Barak [sic] Oboma [sic] isn't descended from slaves. He was born in Hawaii and raised by two white people." Can you school us any more on the intricacies of the blacks, Mr. Nilla?

The job of the White House press secretary is a ridiculous one—DCs most overpaid "journalists" toss out leading questions they know the answer to, the press secretary replies with stonewalling, outright lying, or repetition of talking points, and everyone files the same information-free report—so it's fitting that President-elect Obama's probable pick for the job has extensive experience on the world's most ridiculous cable news network, Fox. During the campaign, Gibbs specialized in neutralizing and befuddling the dimmer bulbs of Fox, like Sean Hannity and the crew of buffoons at Fox & Friends. Want a preview of the theatrical arguments of 2009's White House press briefings? Click through for Gibbs in action. First, Gibbs spins circles around Steve Doocy and Fox's resident morons on the subject of EVIL BILL AYERS:

Yesterday's gigantic New York Times headline—"OBAMA"—was only the fourth time in history that the newspaper has used the 96-point type. (The others, in case you're curious: "MEN WALK ON MOON," "NIXON RESIGNS," and "U.S. ATTACKED.") Also: Copies of the paper are now going for as much as $100 on Ebay. [E&P via kottke]