Now that lying author Margaret Seltzer has made the New York Times look like useful idiots for printing a fawning profile of her in which she spouted her stock lies about her ties to the hood, the paper is pushing for some changes. Standards Editor Craig Whitney emails the newsroom today that they shouldn't run any more single-source profiles of people who aren't well known, because they could turn out to be lying schmucks like Margaret Seltzer and make the paper look stupid all over again. Makes sense. Points to the Times for doing some kinda thing, at least! The full internal email, reprinted below.

We could make the typical cutesy gay jokes about this clip of Anderson Cooper watching clips of streakers getting taken down, but we're more bemused by his use of phrases like "tally ho" and "sticky wicket." And his bizarre insistence on calling genitals "bits and pieces." Watch along with Anderson as nude men are violently tackled! [CNN]

Ziff Davis Media, the publisher of PC Magazine and other tech magazines and websites, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy late yesterday. Its revenue from print has nosedived since the end of the tech boom, and it hasn't been able to make up for it yet online—like most other publishers. "We feel like we're in a position poised for wonderful growth," said ZD CEO Jason Young, being disingenuous to a heroic degree. "We just need to solve this issue." The issue being your whole business! Some perspective: Print revenue for ZD fell from $215 million in 2001 to $40 million in 07. Now they owe creditors about $200 million more than they have. In PR terms this known as a "restructuring." In real terms, a long and painful death. [AP, Paid Content]

The attached clip shows local news at its absolute finest: a hothouse of over-serious but under-talented egos, squabbling with each other over the responsibility of real journalists to cover broken elevator stories as thoroughly as possible. The anchor, venerable old Jim Ryan, forced into retirement from WNYW in 2005. The reporter, former New York Daily News assistant managing editor Dick Oliver. They have a bit of a history. Clip after the jump.

The LA Times is trying to slow its inevitable decline with a bunch of futuristic digital billboard ads across Los Angeles, which will show a series of news, sports, and entertainment stories, along with promos for local events, on an eight-second rotation. When drivers rubberneck at the new billboards and crash their cars, the paper will cover that, as well. [Ad Age]

George W. Bush has a special relationship with the press: he threatens them with prosecution, pressures them to withhold damaging stories, and accuses them of treason in order to drum up anti-media sentiment among the masses. But he also gives them funny nicknames, so they like him. John McCain, the Republican nominee for President, enjoys taking the press to barbecues and having friendly chats with journalists about how much he hates "gooks." And as this clip from Bush's endorsement of McCain earlier today shows, once he is elected he will not suffer their "questions" bullshit either.

Despite early promises that Rupert Murdoch didn't want to "cheapen" the Wall Street Journal by associating it with other News Corp. brands, vendors were doing exactly that at City Hall today, selling the Post and the Journal together for $1, devaluing the Wall Street Journal's street value and its brand 30 percent. [via Alex Balk]

Last night was the television news magazine 48 Hours 20 Year anniversary party, or we like to call it, the 175,320 Hours party. Dan Rather, the show's original host, was not invited, which makes sense since he's suing the network for wrongful termination. Seriously, it would have been way more awkward if he went. [NYMag]

In late January, a widowed man asked Slate's "Dear Prudence" about his prudish gal-friend: he wanted to sleep "in the nude" with her, citing the "intimacy" of said experience. She, on the other hand, felt the exact opposite. Today, in the Chicago Tribune's "Ask Amy" column, the exact same question was posed — this time, from the woman's perspective! Is each half of this couple reaching out, through an advice column? Or is someone pulling a fast one on the Tribune? (Based on the nearly-identical wording, we think that's the case!) Click for matching his n' hers letters.

Argentinian actor Juan Pablo di Pace is furious over an old Royal Opera House advertisement he appeared in, telling the Daily Mail that not only was he not being compensated for the use of his image, but "a crucial part of his anatomy has been air-brushed unflatteringly, making it appear much smaller than it is in real life." Well, we all know where this is headed: click on the image to enlarge (heh) and judge for yourself.

Is Firebrand.com, the "advertainment" website funded by a multimillion-dollar investment from Microsoft, NBC Universal, and GE, going to be shut down? [UPDATE: Another tipster tells us that Firebrand was shut down yesterday, and that all employees have been told to hand in their Blackberries and not return to the company's headquarters]. [UPDATE 2: An hour and eleven minutes later, the NYT makes it official]. And regarding yesterday's rumor that Saatchi & Saatchi X might get folded into its parent company, the agency's CEO Andy Murray says it isn't true; "This is not the kind of operation you just fold into another agency. A very weird rumor with absolutely no merit," he writes.

For some reason, Jeremy Piven and other Entourage people were hanging out last night at a party for Microsoft's new Office Live Workspace product. A CNET reporter went "hoping to find some people willing to talk about whether Office Live Workspace really is a formidable answer to the Google Docs that I've found myself using pretty frequently," but instead found a bunch of models there. Way to screw up a good Microsoft gathering, Jeremy Piven. [CNET]

"Power lawyer" Bob Bennett (not to be confused with his gambling-addict moralizing Conservative pundit brother Bill, as we sometimes do) uses his memoir to pretend to be a half-Indian South-Central Blood who—no, sorry, he just uses it to trash New York Times editor Arthur Sulzberger, for not helping Bennett's defense of former Times star Judith Miller when she was under indictment for refusing to name which member of the Bush administration leaked CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to the journo. You see, Pinch Sulzberger planned a big party for Judy the night she got out of jail! But Judy had to testify the next day, and attending a fancy party would perhaps be considered bad form. A short time later, Pinch and Bill Keller cut Judy loose (a couple years too late to save face for the paper). If that's the worst the anti-Pinch dirt gets, you are advised to skip the book. [NYDN]

PageSix.com: a name that carries weight not only in the corridors of gossipdom, but in the virtual corridors of the internet blog-o-world. The Post's gossip site knows that it needs to spread its influence throughout the online realm in order to remain competitive. But they're not so clear on what a blog is. The following email from Page Six was sent to a MAGAZINE—NOT A BLOG—which really undermines its call for solidarity amongst gossip bloggers:

Break Media just bought WallStreetFighter.com for an undisclosed sum, which must be a tidy one because of the words "Wall Street" in the site's name. Apparently Wall Street Fighter gets half a million visitors per month [TVWeek]. Who knew? Break decided its mix of simplified finance posts mixed with "check out this cool thing" content would be a good addition to its portfolio of guy-targeted sites, which includes venerable paste-jobs like HolyTaco.com and Chickipedia.com. Unimportant in appealing to guys: punctuation.

Tonight, Vermont and Rhode Island decide the fate of the Democratic Party, and perhaps the nation. Texas and Ohio are maybe involved too, but we can't confirm. WHAT WILL HAPPEN? Hillary will see her shadow and we'll have seven more weeks of campaigning. Ohio is hers to lose. If it's close enough, there's no reason for her to drop out. All the calls to the contrary are from members of the press desperate to move on to the next story. Don't say we didn't warn you! [Slate]

Tomorrow, primary elections will be held in Ohio, Texas, Vermont, and Rhode Island. This is basically the last important contest in the race for the Democratic nomination until late April so journalists, exhausted by covering the same story for so long and eager to get to the next chapter they all have more or less written out already in their heads, will be praying for a quick, painless end to Hillary Clinton's campaign. And Bill said, a few weeks ago, that if Hillary loses tomorrow, she can't be President! Unfortunately tomorrow's contests will probably end up being as decisive as Super Tuesday (remember that? the night everyone won!). Then there will be more than a month of treading water and rehashing the same storylines over and over again. And the storylines likely to be advanced and debated every night on cable and blogs and in magazines are pretty likely to resemble these Hillary-friendly narratives:

AngryJournalist.com, the rant-based site that is the most accurate window into the journalism profession, now has some competition: HappyJournalist.com! The happy site has been up and running for less than a week, but so far the results are not encouraging; it has 14 total posts, compared to more than 1,300 at its angry brother. A helpful point-counterpoint comparison of the two sites' content reveals that, hey, you can both be right:

Hillary Clinton is never, ever, ever going to stop campaigning. If she wins Ohio and Texas, she will obviously soldier on. If she wins Ohio but not Texas, she will slightly less obviously soldier on. If she wins neither, she will probably still soldier on. Meanwhile she's getting all punchy in her speeches, she's thrilled that everyone is making fun of her 3 a.m. phone ad, and she's getting friendly with the press again. Even the members of the press who have written or are in the process of writing embarrassing books about her! According to the New York Times, Hillary even pretended to be happy to see Gail Sheehy, a woman who has made Senator Clinton's public life miserable almost since she entered public life.