Is iTunes helping the music industry—or destroying it? That's the dramatic question we will answer for you in this post. Itunes is the single largest retailer of music in the US, period. It sells nine out of every ten digital song downloads in the country. And since it helped put the Tower Records of the world out of business, lots of artists think there's nowhere to go except iTunes. But how much money are (even famous) bands really making off all those 99-cent singles? Here's, uh, one perspective:

It comes as no huge shock to hear that the on-air bickering that has characterized MSNBC's coverage of the Democratic convention has carried over into behind-the-scenes tension and backbiting. The reports poured in last night. Politico quoted a "high-ranking journalist" who said "the situation at our channel is about to blow up." Jossip reported that both staff and top brass believe network host Keith Olbermann is way out of bounds in bashing other anchors. And the Wall Street Journal quotes former MSNBC host Connie Chung thusly: "Grow up! They have to just grow up." Whose fault is all this? Probably MSNBC chief Phil Griffin, whose staff (judging from all the reports) have a hard a time trusting. Well, he is the fellow who keeps rather ridiculously insisting MSNBC isn't becoming the left-wing Fox News. But the Journal has found another guilty party: Tim Russert, who had to go and die:

"Phelps will host the sketch comedy series when it premieres Sept. 13, along with musical guest Lil Wayne." A trainwreck worth watching! [Live Feed]

We told you Joe Biden was going to say something inappropriate and crazy sooner or later, and he has proven us correct, spectacularly, very quickly. In his Democratic Convention address tonight, Biden almost referred to John McCain as "George W. Bush." before catching himself halfway. Not that the two men aren't politically similar, but there's not much point in taking potshots at the one who isn't running for anything. But here's what we didn't anticipate: Biden has put his foot into his mouth so many times that he's gotten really fast at recovery. In this case, Biden only needed a split second to apologize for his "Freudian slip," which is sufficiently clever that the gaffe almost looks pre-arranged. Now he gets the press frenzy that comes with a screwup plus the message control that comes with a carefully scripted statement! Crazy like a fox, this one. Also, clean. Click the icon for the video, which includes bonus footage of Barack Obama very nearly uttering the rock-star words, "HELLO DENVER!!"

The Bloomberg financial newswire decided to update its 17-page Steve Jobs obituary today — and inadvertently published it in the process. Some investors were undoubtedly rattled to see, as our tipster did late this afternoon, the Apple CEO's obit cross the wire and then suddenly disappear. Jobs's battle with pancreatic cancer, and speculation over his health, jarred Wall Street earlier this year and continues to be the subject of speculation. The Times weighed in on the matter as recently as last month, when columnist Joe Nocera spoke with the secretive tech executive. But news organizations routinely prepare obituaries in advance, even for the healthy. And if Bloomberg readers had seen the internal story slug, "testjobs," their jitters might have abated. The obit, which we've obtained and reprinted after the jump, is a bit macabre to read but should not scare you out of your Apple shares. (UPDATE: Bloomberg has "retracted" its obituary, and the retraction is also after the jump.) More interesting are the accompanying notes for Bloomberg reporters!

"A cigar-smoking Denver police sergeant, accompanied by a team of five other officers, first put his hands on Eslocker's neck, then twisted the producers arm behind him to put on handcuffs." [ABC]

There's no news in Denver. At least, no news that couldn't be reported by watching it on C-Span from the comfort of home. So what to do? Report on what all your fellow journalists are doing! So far, the single greatest example of this is HuffPo's constant reportage from their own "HuffPost Oasis" in Denver. At left, an unretouched screengrab from their front page today. The Oasis is remarkably popular with journalists, considering that we have no idea what goes on there but we don't think it involves free booze. Wait, maybe we do know what's going on there! "'I feel relaxed!' said a particularly refreshed Eric Alterman as he stepped away from a complimentary facial for a minute. 'I'll tell you this—everyone should add facials to their lives.'" Oh, wow. That quote is from John Koblin's piece in today's Observer. It's got more gems: Adam Nagourney couldn't find a seat at his own paper's workspace, then bitched about having to cover the convention with so many other, lesser reporters. Fox's Greta Van Susteren, though, was more than happy to be there.

Fox & Friends is not just a forum for Fox News to bash people who made fun of the network's bedbug infestation or wrote factual news stories; it's also an opportunity for the show's Beckham-loving hosts to get drunk in the morning, piss off Donald Trump, and issue warnings about Paris Hilton tossing dwarfs. Click to watch this montage of inexplicable clips, all taken from today's show. "What you need to knew..to do..to avoid a new VIRUS!"

Remember LonelyGirl15, that fake-ass scripted YouTube series that got really popular for a minute when everybody thought it was real and turned into a media phenomenon? Well it's coming back in a major way! Which means its rabid fans are still lurking out there, and have been doing who knows what for the last several weeks waiting for this. "LG15: The Resistance" (*chuckle*) will debut 12 new weekly episodes next month, produced by a CBS-funded firm and "integrated" with advertisements. Resist, yes. The show's promo—a total ripoff of those 'Anonymous' anti-scientology vids—after the jump.

The Huffington Post is decidedly not for sale, site founder Arianna Huffington announced yesterday in Denver. That means, most likely, that they still can't find any buyer willing to pony up anything close to that $200 million figure that got leaked to the Times. This year, the hard-working HuffPoors broke a couple political stories that decidedly altered the campaign, expanded into another city, and launched lifestyle sections with great fanfare, but let's be honest with ourselves: despite their fantastic skill with PR (thanks to Arianna's charm and moneyman Ken Lerer's experience working the press), the HuffPo is still not worth the paper it's not printed on. Click to viewHere are the two interpretations of The Huffington Post that Arianna and company would like you to forget: "left-wing Drudge Report" and "unedited celebrity Livejournal." The increasingly bloated HuffPo still is mostly an unhealthy mixture of those two things, of course, but their ambitions are higher. They have to be, to justify that ridiculous internal valuation. Hence HuffPo Chicago! And, more importantly, HuffPo Living, full of bullshit local-news quality health stories, "how to beat workplace stress" listicles (or often worse: links to those listicles posted elsewhere), alternative medicine quack-bloggers, and other "grab the apolitical old women" content. (To be fair, this shit does fit in well with Arianna's moony guru-filled California lifestyle, just as the media and political sections compliment her strident populism and personal hatred of the establishment press.) And with entertainment and style sections, HuffPo now calls itself "The Internet Newspaper." Real newspapers across the nation spiral into bankruptcy, but HuffPo's overhead costs are much lower, what with not paying most of their contributors. And also what with not having any original reporting. The site is still another damn aggregator, curating and linking real work done by traditional newsgatherers. With insane raving commenters, of course. And "blogs" from Nora Ephron. [Three years later and they still call each "post" a "blog." This still drives us insane.] This is the point L.A. Times media writer James Rainey makes in his slightly bitter piece on Arianna and the site. "I confess I'm as charmed and amused by the beguiling Ms. H as anyone," he says, "but also slightly queasy about whether her Huffington Post will ever offer original content and reporting that lives up to the hype and pretty packaging." What, you're not happy with featured content like "One Millenial Speaks Out: Why I'm Enrolling in Culinary School"? [Ed. note: we wuz wrong.] But, you know, they're still working on that whole original content that will make their site actually worth what they'd like to cash out thing!

The city of Vallejo, California—most famous for spawning robot-talking rapper E-40 and failing to solve the case of the Zodiac Killer—may not be the most nurturing place in the American marketplace of ideas. Surprise! The city filed for bankruptcy in May, and all of its employees must focus their attention, laser-like, on the task of restoring its finances to good working order. Which is why the city manager has banned them from accessing the local "rag of a newspaper's" website, or something!: Specifically, city manager Joseph Tanner added one widely-read local blog as well as the city paper to the list of sites inaccessible from city servers. Both of which like to write about how the stupid city manager has bankrupted the town, coincidentally:

The National Enquirer's John Edwards love child scoop turned out to have actually sold some extra issues! Funny how that works. The scandalous rag's August 11 issue claiming Edwards was paying $15k per month in hush money sold 738,000 issues—about 10% better than average. Unfortunately, the "tenfold increase in usual monthly traffic" to the Enquirer's website probably means that all their extra cash is going towards bandwidth payments—web advertising is pre-sold, and traffic spikes don't translate to immediate money. UNFORTUNATELY. [WWD]

Vogue editor Anna Wintour's fashion tyranny was satirized in the book and film The Devil Wears Prada—she's famously dictatorial about how her staff looks and dresses. Her stance, like her own helmet of hair, hasn't softened since: we hear from a salon gossip that the razorlike Wintour recently made a new 22-year-old assistant cut her Rapunzel-like long hair.It flowed all the way down her back, and Wintour requested directly that the girl chop it to below her shoulders. The assistant, who is probably making her age in yearly salary, ran immediatey to Bumble & Bumble. Despite the bitchiness of the request, the word is that Anna was right—the assistant looks much better this way. From Wintour's 2006 biography, Anna Wintour: the Hot Life and Cool Times of Vogue's Editor in Chief:

Childlike man Jay Mariotti has resigned as a sports columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times after 17 years. This was probably a wise move, because he is hated by Chicagoans, Cubs fans, White Sox fans, sports fans, athletes, his own colleagues, and readers in general. But no, he's not going into the hair care industry; he's had a revelation that sports journalism has become "entirely a Web site business." Oh. Lord:

The brain-tumor-having columnist left the hospital to blast Joe Lieberman as a running mate for John McCain. That's how awful Joe Lieberman is. [Novak via Wonkette]

Every convention needs a good catchphrase! Bill Clinton had "A place called Hope" in 1992. Michael Dukakis floated on the wings of Ann Richards' "Poor George" speech in 1988. And John Kerry to this day wakes up every morning in a cold sweat, screaming "Help is on the way!" Come to think of it, maybe memorable catchphrases aren't all that predictive of success. But this year's Democratic Convention already has two in as many days. There's "yes we can," the Obama theme that already feels like an old standby, because he's been campaigning for president for 12 years. And now there's the new one Hillary Clinton coined tonight, "No way, no how, no McCain." That one impressed everyone because Clinton's "PUMAs" are getting cozy with John McCain. The Democrats need to stop coining memorable slogans every day, or they'll end up with a library of mindless partisan sayings and talking points, and might just win the election. Click the video icon to watch Clinton try and push her supporters back into the party fold.

MSNBC's team at the Democratic National Convention needs to get more sleep and maybe also one of those massages that Arianna Huffington is giving out. The cable network's anchors are sniping at one another tonight, just like they did last night. About 20 minutes ago, ahead of Hillary Clinton's speech, Chris Matthews was talking about how some women feel disenfranchised within the party. It's a touchy subject for Matthews, who has been accused of sexist commentary against Clinton, and he did not appreciate a producer telling him to wrap up his ramble. He also didn't appreciate his sometime rival Keith Olbermann making one of those "talking" gestures with his hand. He, uh, let him know that. There's more real-life political drama and intrigue among MSNBC anchors than at the convention at this point. Click the icon for the video. More MSNBC internal fighting in our earlier roundup of Cable Feuds.

Sign of the times: Iowa-based publisher Thaddeus Computing is killing its 11-year-old Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine. In its place, the company will publish a new title, iPhone Life. Why the change? It's not about which phone is more popular. It's about advertisers.Publisher Hal Goldstein says that despite 20 million Windows Mobile phones sold in the past year, there's not enough of an ad market for Windows Mobile. Microsoft and cell-phone companies aren't willing to spend on ads in the mag. Moreover, he says, today's smartphone makers aren't like the old PDA companies — think HP — who were willing to bundle a magazine with their products. Goldstein has obviously sniffed out an iPhone accessories ad market to replace his no-longer-subsidized Pocket PC coverage.

Washington Post media regurgitator Howie Kurtz says that curator of all things journalistic Jim Romenesko was wrong when he said that Kurtz violated the WP's own policy by letting a Fox News flack attack Jon Stewart anonymously in response to Stewart's own (on-the-record) attack of Fox. Kurtz argues that since this was a spokesperson giving the network's official response, their name didn't matter. In the bowels of the Fox News headquarters, the PR department marked Kurtz's name off their enemies list, while finishing a Photoshop mockup of Romenesko morphing into a hyena. [WP, Previously]

You stuck in New York doing, like, real work while your colleagues party it up in Denver? You jealous? Well honestly, man up. Because you can just keep on partying like usual while they are all stuck going to lame sponsored bullshit parties in Denver. Our man in Denver reports that the Planned Parenthood party was massively overbooked, the GQ/Maker's Mark party was unexciting, and apparently the party featuring Bill Maher was lame. Yes, but what about the awesome schwag, you're probably not saying! According to Wonkette, it's dismal. Something called "Joint Juice" seems to be the highlight. But there's also hand sanitizer and a free ringtone card! Seriously, why do people go to this? Are journalists so bored and nerdy that the prospect of a hotel party in Denver excites them? It is like the School Band Trip of the National Press Corps, isn't it? We got a better schwag bag at some weird Time Out party we went to this month. It had condoms and Stuff White People Like. We have no use for either of those things but it's still better than Post-It notes!