The New York Times has given over an unusually large end-to-end box on its home page above its news content to Apple, for an ad [click to enlarge]. It's not the first time this has happened. Not only does this type of thing provoke journalism purists to wonder whether the paper of record is losing its perspective on the editorial/ advertising divide; it also makes Gov. Bill Richardson look like he's going to be crushed by a giant apple.

Middling designer Kenneth Cole is upset that tawdry media outlets these days spend all their time covering sensational stories, rather than important things like, you know, his blog, for which he is plastering ads all over NYC. It's not that his underlying point is wrong—the media does specialize in "fueling the paranoia." The problem is the cognitive dissonance involved in being lectured by Kenneth Cole in a blog post titled, "Is Responsible Journalism an Oxymoron?" I'll tell you what's an oxymoron: "Kenneth Cole... good." Yea, score one for the media!

What could dislodge Steven Levy from his perch at Newsweek, the ever-diminishing magazine where he's been the main tech writer for 13 years? An offer from Wired, we hear. Levy has been contributing to Wired since before he joined Newsweek, and he regularly writes features for it on the side. Also in the works: another book. Could it be on Facebook, the subject of a rushed Newsweek cover story last year? (Photo by Teresa Carpenter)

We love the fact that Michael Eisner, the former Disney CEO and once one of the most feared men in the media business, was reduced to staking his claim for media influence with only his shitty little chat show on CNBC. It's almost as satisfying as when former New Yorker editor and dressed up gossip hound Tina Brown had to stake her claim for influence with a shitty little chat show on CNBC. Fantastic schadenfreude for the unsuccessful masses. In Eisner's latest hard-hitting, needle-moving interview, he tracks down designer Vera Wang and gets the scoop on her Olympic ice skating dreams, and her thoughts on wedding dresses. Hey Mike, work like this is why they RE-broadcast you at midnight!

Fleishman-Hillard, one of the world's largest PR firms, seems pretty worried about that recent bedbug infestation at Fox News! Fleishman is sending out press releases for its client, Hot Shot insecticides, offering a free Hot Shot to anybody who's been a guest on Fox lately. So they don't bring the nasty Fox bugs back home! Funny thing is, most PR firms are painstakingly careful not to offend any media outlets, but here's a brave one that's willing to stand up and call Fox News—I'm really paraphrasing here—a den of dirty bloodsucking insects that has tainted anyone who set foot on its premises. Lots of people have said that before, but never a PR agency. Good show, Fleishman! Hope Fox doesn't get offended next time you're pitching them clients (such as Target, Motorola, Dow Chemical—email me for a longer list)! It's a good thing Fox News doesn't hold grudges, ha ha. Full pesticidal press release after the jump.

CNN Anchor and America's Boyfriend Anderson Cooper wrote on his show's blog today that he's been absent for a couple days because he was undergoing "minor surgery" to remove "a small spot of skin cancer" from under his left eye. He'll be back on the air tonight, and he is informing the public of the surgery only so that we don't suspect the stitches are the result of "a fist fight with Charlie Rose." Oh, Anderson. We wouldn't assume that. We'd dream it. [AC360 via HuffPo]

Even with the demise of print journalism and the so-called end of journalist watering holes, writers still drink quite a bit. Gridskipper has done pieces on blogger bars, and we've made references the New York Observer's predilection for Old Town Bar before, but I'm going for a full list of drinking places, so you, the media adoring public, can do a little casual stalking. A cursory Google search leads me to believe this hasn't been done before, but I could be wrong. Feel free to object to my ignorance in the comments. But after that, let me know where your staff drinks. The office is not an acceptable answer. Every writer drinks in the office.

Last year, the Times canceled take your daughter (or son, both genders enjoy a day off from school) to work day. But they had an excuse: Children are annoying. Just kidding, the company was moving. This year, the Times is once again pretending that children are the future. Full memo from one of the first beneficiaries of the program, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., after the jump.

Can we just say, the day after, that we're still totally impressed with Barack Obama's speech yesterday? Jon Stewart, after a whole routine about it that fell 90% flat, suddenly summed it up quite nicely: "and so," he said, "on a Tuesday at 11 a.m., a Presidential candidate actually spoke to Americans about race as though we were adults." That is actually unprecedented—since the 1960s, at the least. It was so odd, in fact, that it melted the brains of the people whose job it is to trivialize everything about the campaign. Times columnist Maureen Dowd filed a column last night that only barely resembles anything she's written in a decade.

The chattering classes continue to review Barack Obama's 45-minute speech today on race. The TV pundits' instant response was overwhelmingly positive, but it was almost certain to be. The current campaign narrative sort of required that response: they beat up on him for a week, then presented him the opportunity to redeem himself. Because Barack Obama is a brilliant writer, he did a good part of their work for him. Of course, the speech was, in this narrative, supposed to make everyone forget that he has a "nutty pastor." What Obama was trying to do with it was a little different, but that doesn't matter. As you can see in the Slate headline roundup above, people are still talking about the nutty pastor. So, the conventional wisdom, at the moment: it was an awe-inspiring, wonderful, magical speech, but it won't "work."

MSNBC.com streamed Obama's speech on race in America live on its website today. Naturally, MSNBC ran some advertising along with the stream, but it wasn't the smartest product placement. Have a look:

Former nightlife big shot and current honest blogger Steve Lewis reminisces today about his experiences with the clubland PR business. He starts out by saying, "When I used to hire PR it was for damage control." Not for strategic brand building outreach? Such a forthright man! Then he tells a story about a long-ago high profile stabbing incident that made its way onto Page Six; it sums up everything you need to know about spin, gossip, and the dangers of imaginary caviar forks:

GOP presidential nominee John McCain has a famously gross relationship with the press corps—they all fawn over him and he talks to them incessantly about everything and once he invited them to a barbecue at his house. The relationship is a bit of mixed bag for McCain of course, because it leads to situations like people reporting that he still, in his words, "hate[s] gooks." But the press generally doesn't spend weeks debating the meaning of McCain's friendship with nutcases like Rod Parsley. Maybe that'll change? NPR correspondent Scott Horsley is apparently sick of all this candidness: "They are an open book when it comes to their strategy, their tactics, their view of the race. It gets to the point where you just want them to shut up sometimes." [HuffPo]

Lil Wayne is the tattooed, drugged-out New Orleans rapper who, for some reason, causes spasms of hero worship among white internet rap critics. The extent of the enthusiasm for him has always been a total mystery to me, but it's almost comical watching rap nerds try to outdo each other with their verbose online praise for Wayne, who would certainly rather be drinking vast quantities of Robitussin and liquor than reading their bullshit. Anyways, he got booed off the stage at his recent concert in London, and then showered with bottles on his way out, for good measure. Guess the crowd didn't read all the right blogs before they went to the show. After the jump, two recent examples of internerd Wayne worship, and the video of his ill-fated exit in London. I must admit I find this highly enjoyable.

This crosslinked and multiplatform new social interactive online media world is causing actual respected media outlets to fuck up. No question about it. Exhibit one: The national paper of record has allowed its core purpose of covering the news to evolve and extend to the point that this totally incomprehensible short video featuring Josh Hartnett staggering through the snow can fall under the Times' content umbrella. It's truly a long tail of crap, or something. The press release explains that the "T Community online" is all about "discovering what is new and hot in stylized online storytelling." Journalistic! Anyone who can intuit the meaning of this video, and logically connect it with the core purpose of the financially beleaguered newspaper industry in any number of rational steps, wins our undying gratitude. Couldn't the money spent here be used to give Sewell Chan a raise? Click to watch the star-studded clip.

How is Fox News supposed to bring the REAL news to the American mainstream when they are busy fighting off a bug infestation of the newsroom? If only we were making a metaphorical joke about the network's tendency to employ cockroaches. We're not! A liberal media outlet, the New York Times, reports that Fox News discovered an infestation of the dreaded, disgusting BEDBUGS a few weeks ago "when an employee 'caught a bug and showed it to us.'" YUCK. But Fox News employees get even nastier than that: One of them brought the bugs in!

If you were falling, and you had the choice between protecting your face and your Macbook Air, which one would you choose? Let's just say that Charlie Rose now has a black eye. (Why wouldn't he use makeup, though? To prove a point about how much he luvs his new computer, maybe — or to show us how badass he is!) His producers report that the Air is doin' fine post-accident. [Engadget]

When Nick wrote about New York's cheeky Spitzer cover earlier today, I thought it looked like a ripoff of the work of legendary conceptual artist and designer Barbara Kruger. Turns out, per New York's Jesse Oxfeld, the cover is by Barbara Kruger. So between this and the high-minded smut of February's "Lindsay Lohan naked but photographed by Bert Stern," we have to wonder who else New York can employ to lend a classy sheen to baser-minded content. Maybe they can get Claes Oldenburg to make their next "sex and love" issue 50 feet long! [NYM]

Mallory Simon works for "the most trusted name in news." But she's working hard to make CNN also the most trusted name in news feeds. Simon gives CNN.com readers every detail of when and how Eliot Spitzer's call girl, Ashley Alexandra Dupré, changed her MySpace and Facebook profiles last week. But at 1,000-plus words, Simon overstays her welcome. Instead of paying writers by the word, why don't we pay them to leave? The 100-word version, below.

Roly-poly Republican strategist Karl Rove has a bit of a bad reputation, what with his mastery of quasi-legal dirty tricks, spearheading of underhanded whisper campaigns, and cut-throat dedication to enabling the most damaging presidential administration in living memory. So everyone basically thinks of him as a figure of cartoonish evil, like Dick Cheney. But now that he's on Fox News as a commentator, the liberals who run the rest of the media are shocked to find that they actually like Karl Rove!