Vanity Fair editor and Waverly Inn overlord Graydon Carter may be one of the most powerful forces in the magazine industry, but he'll have you know that he's not above starring in a funny little online video. Carter's self-mocking appearance in this clip promoting VF's Green Issue, in which he barks orders at a lowly minion, is hopefully not a sign of a trend of chief executives trying their hand at comedy. But at least his effort is much more bearable than NBC boss Jeff Zucker's recent grating appearance online. Click the video to see Graydon's acting skills in action.

A blogger put together a visual cloud of tags that pop up most frequently on AngryJournalist.com, the rant-laden site that is the most accurate current summation of the journalism industry. The visual illustration makes it very clear what reporters hate the most: fucking work! Click to enlarge. [Eric Ulken]

Cute li'l real-estate magnate and newspaper-owner Jared Kushner broke up with oddly attractive-despite-her-family Ivanka Trump! This is according to Page Six, who note that Ivanka has gone to parties by herself, which is irrefutable proof. They've been together for almost exactly one year, which is, if you ask us, suspicious. What's Jared up to? Why is he breaking up with his hot, brand-name girlfriend? Why is he pretending he's going to buy Newsday? Is he just toying with us??

Ben Bernanke tells Congress that the US economy may slip into recession. But the media is way ahead of the Fed Chairman. Media hysteria about the impending recession is even more intense than it was after the stockmarket bubble burst in 2000. Chart represents number of headlines each month including the word "recession" in major publications in the Nexis news database.

Be forwarned, youngsters: the magazine industry has no room for you any more. Also, it can't find you! You're all out there working on the blogs and not learning how to do real journalism. Which makes you suck! "These people don't leave their fucking laptops," says elderly writer Gay Talese. "It used to be, you would go outside." My, how things change for the Gay. The Observer's attempt to capture the magazine freelancing zeitgeist in article form is written by former Gawker blogger Doree Shafrir, a fact which does not seem to register with the irony-proof older generation quoted therein. So the aspirational young magazine crowd either succeeds quickly or withers away into bitterness at the closed doors of the industry, while old veterans of top-tier magazines grow increasingly out of touch and bemoan every little change since their golden days. Isn't this how things have always been?

Tribune Co owner Sam Zell is looking to unload Long Island tab Newsday, because Newsday is the saddest paper in his mostly sad stable. So far, rumors have flown that New York Post and Wall Street Journal owner Rupert Murdoch is interested, but the Journal reports today that junior real-estate magnate Jared Kushner "is among those who may be contemplating bids to buy or enter into a partnership with Newsday, according to a person familiar with the situation." Apparently owning the ailing Long Island tab would help keep down the costs of printing Kushner's first foray into vanity newspaper ownership, the New York Observer. [WSJ]

Every year, on April Fool's Day, the Vail Daily of Vail, CO, prints some funny fake stories in the paper, because no news happens in Vail anyway so no one really minds. This year, they printed an eight-page supplement of made-up bullshit. "It was also a money-maker, boasting numerous advertisements, including two full-pagers inside," according to Editor & Publisher. Printing entire sections of lies have long been profitable for newspapers, which is why so many of them have "Health" sections. But sometimes, truth slips through. After the jump, the UK Telegraph's list of April 1 stories that were actually true, no matter how much we wished they weren't.

Some AP photographer was roaming around Yankee stadium during the rain delay, and who did he stumble upon but overweight deceased SNL comedic maniac Chris Farley! Farley, who passed away in 1997, apparently assumed human form once again in order to take in the historic final opening day in the classic ballpark. The identity of his female companion remains unknown. Click to enlarge the pic, via the WSJ.

Robert Scoble and Mashable's Pete Cashmore sat down to discuss tabloid and traditional journalism in old media and new. Scoble: "Yellow journalism wasn't invented in the last ten years... College students... want to read Perez Hilton, they don't want to read about the war in Iraq... This has been a fight in newsrooms for years." Even better? We find at the end that Cashmore's most read feed in his Google Reader is Valleywag. The crush is mutual!

Word on "The Street" is that CNBC Reporter Michelle Caruso-Cabrera may be dating Gary Parr, deputy chairman of Lazard and a guy who is involved in finance stories Caruso-Cabrera could be covering [Radar]. It's reminiscent of CNBC Money Honey Maria Bartiromo's purported canoodling with Citigroup exec Todd Thompson. This raises an important issue: why do all the rich business guys go for the CNBC women? Haven't they heard of a little place called FOX BUSINESS NETWORK, which put in a lot of effort to hire its own stable of attractive female on-air personalities to lure male viewers? Can they get some love over there? We've decided to help them out; after the jump, five of Fox's foxy professional women, and a real item of interest about each one. Act now, Wall Street jerks!

Can you imagine if every video posted online had to be reviewed for propriety by a human before it went live? Can you even wrap your mind around the amount of effort that would take, for very little benefit? The people at YouTube can, and they're telling the British Parliament it's an incredibly horrible idea. England called YouTube on the carpet after someone posted a video of London woman getting gang raped in February, and it wasn't promptly removed [Telegraph UK]. That's a serious tragedy, but sometimes the cure can be worse than the malady. Google's lawyer compared the pre-screening idea to posting a policeman on every corner of every city. Bankrupt the treasury in pursuit of justice! It's doubtful the UK would descend into a US-style "We are so tough on crime that we will destroy everything" overreaction. But there is a group who is allowed to post a video titled "Genisis19:4 Gang Rape" on YouTube: Gays4Jesus!

The New York Observer, the fancypants pink paper read by the city's liberal elite, is about to roll out some changes. The two major ones: its cover price is going up to $2, and it's starting a full-on book review section, called the "Observer Review of Books," or "ORB." Recently laid off book reviewers of America, rejoice! This represents a big bet by the paper that its rarefied audience will be willing to pay more money for more literary coverage—and that the publishing industry, skittish as it is, will be willing to pour enough ad dollars into the Observer to make the new section viable. The NYO is no exception to every other print media outlet these days, in that it's trying to find a way to make its (vital) print product financially viable in the long term. Given all the papers across the country that have slashed their book review sections in the past year or two, it's not a bad niche to try to fill. This info courtesy of Observer President Bob Sommer. Contacted for reaction, former Gawker chief and current NYO gadfly Choire Sicha said—direct quote— "!!!."

Former wooden President-elect of the United States Al Gore was on 60 Minutes last night, being frumpy and endearing, as is his wont. His new project is promoting a huge $300 million ad campaign by the Alliance for Climate Protection, which is based on the (correct) theory that we Americans are such lazy, brainwashed zombies that we need a shiny, consumer-friendly ad campaign to convince us to stop choking ourselves with carbon dioxide. The 60 Minutes segment showed Gore visiting the ad agency, and even showed a clip of the ad, which is great free media exposure. Too bad its benefit was canceled out by the bitter taste left by the subsequent mutterings of Andy Rooney. Well, let's all hope this ad thing works so we don't die! After the jump, the first ad, which is Gore-like in its earnestness.

The Harvard Lampoon's soon-to-be-released April parody issue (click to enlarge) features none other than Harvard Lampoon Woman of the Year Paris Hilton! Not as good as the 1972 Cosmo parody, but still decent. When will those overeducated scamps stop with the humor and get down to business? [Faded Youth Blog]

Break out the picket signs, the corporate scabs, and the Woody Guthrie songs, because it's time for all the proletarians in the Time Warner building to unite for a good old-fashioned boycott! Of the exclusive, employee-only Park Cafe! According to a righteously angry email being passed among CNN employees on the 7th floor, "on April 1 (Next Tuesday) prices are going up, frequent diner cards are being eliminated and the place will now close an hour earlier at 2:30p every day. If ever a situation called for a BOYCOTT... THIS IS IT!" By god, I can almost hear Samuel Gompers and Big Bill Haywood clawing their way out of their graves to rush to these employees' assistance! So what are the workers fighting to protect? An inside tipster describes the Park Cafe's democratic atmosphere:

On March 23, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran an uplifting story about "Virginia Gillis," who had lost her perfect life when her husband started using methamphetamines, burned down their house, and attacked her with a straight razor, cutting her throat "almost all the way through." After a stint of homelessness, she slowly rebuilt her life, and now works as a chef at a homeless program, feeding hundreds of people a week who are stuck in the position that she once was. The paper compares her story to the resurrection of Jesus Christ—this was an Easter-themed feature. But further investigation revealed that, like Jesus, Virginia Gillis' story had a bit of mythology in it. Such as: her name, her age, her location, her outstanding warrants, and everything else about her story! It might have been easier if they just told us what was true in the original, rather than false. The entire, and truly epic, editor's note from page one of yesterday's paper [via Romenesko], after the jump.

There's nothing wrong, obviously, with saying "cotton-pickin'" when you are, say, Yosemite Sam. But "one cotton-pickin' minute," while best avoided, is still less of a faux-pas than saying how you're sick of "cotton-pickin'" black people telling you how you can and cannot talk about race, which is more or less what baby-headed CNN anchor Lou Dobbs said on the air the other day. The occasion? Condoleezza Rice said something rather mild about how the United States has a racial "birth defect" on account of how the nation was founded on the backs of African slave labor and it took a while to get all that sorted out. But Dobbs is sick of people telling him to stop being so racist! "We've got to be able to talk about it," he sputters in the attached clip, "and I can guarantee you this, not a single one of these cotton—just ridiculous politicians should be the moderator on the issue of race." Good thing you caught yourself there, Lou! Thankfully, the CNN transcript omits the almost-gaffe completely, so it's like it never happened! Except for that YouTube clip we've embedded below.

"Now demographers say Manhattan is increasingly a borough of babies, and more and more of them are white and well-off." We've been saying that for years! But these demographers are talking about the actual kind of babies, ones that drool, whine, and live in expensive apartments, but are not the full grown adult versions. The Washington Post, in the cute way that it always hops on NYC trend coverage several months or years after it becomes passé up here, finds that Manhattan is no longer "an island of adult vices," home to "hustlers, runaways, addicts, murderers." No, today this gritty island enclave is being overrun by wealthy Caucasian toddlers!

Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz takes on Rupert Murdoch and his Wall Street Journal today, in Kurtz's inimitable "not actually taking anything on" style. Some say Murdoch will push the paper to the right or destroy its essential character! Others say he won't! What's indisputable, though, is that Murdoch's Journal is trying to establish (or re-establish) itself as a national paper, maybe a tough sell in a media landscape where only the New York Times really holds that title. But Murdoch's got lots and lots and lots of money! Fun facts: the newsroom staff is up to 750, from 600 two years ago. They are adding Washington and foreign reporters. Madness! It's almost as if no one told Rupert that print is dead. But the irreparable damage to the paper's character! What about that?

Here we are in the fifth day of the Possible Spitzer Hooker #2 saga, and the tabloid accusations continue to fly back and forth like so many bullets made of sex. Kristin Davis, who everyone agrees ran several high-priced call girl rings, also stands accused by the Post of servicing Eliot Spitzer himself; the Daily News says she has no connection to the Love Guv. The latest developments: Daily News sez madam serviced big sports star; No way, sez Post. Plus: Is the Kristin Davis "Black Book" client list a hoax? The Post says yes, for some reason!