"Newsweek galvanizes readers with several hard-hitting stories. The editors manage to eulogize William F. Buckley Jr. without lionizing him, making the case that the New Republic founder leaves behind an important political legacy." Most important legacy: founding the National Review, not founding the New Republic. The Post is supposed to know all this stuff about fellow conservatives. We expect more from a paper founded by William Kunstler. [NYP]

Harbinger Capital, the investment firm that is trying to BUY THE NEW YORK TIMES, has formally proposed adding four directors of their choosing to the paper's board. The Times is all "no thanks we have plenty of directors guys!" but Harbinger will probably point out to the SEC that they own 19% of the damn company, just as much as the Sulzbergers. One of Harbinger's candidates, NYU marketing professor Scott Galloway, founded online retailer RedEnvelope, shares of which recently "sank to an all-time low." [AP, Earlier]

There is a charming story that Malcolm Gladwell has told over and over again about how he used to try to sneak funny phrases into the newspaper he worked for, back when he was a journalist and not yet a personality. Turns out everyone's done it! Michael Scherer, currently with Time, explains that when he was working at an unnamed newspaper bureau in Easthampton, Mass, he and his "colleague" would try to sneak "obscure 10-dollar word[s]" into their copy. The best he ever did was "dun." But the dude who wrote noted Scrabble champion William F. Buckley's obit for the Times got his Roget's on and used "Sesquipedalian" in an A1 headline. Jesus, journalists need hobbies. What happened to drinking and fucking again? [Swampland]

If there is any lingering doubt that Rupert Murdoch is going to change the Wall Street Journal, consider The Far Eastern Economic Review. The small monthly became part of the Australian uber-mogul's empire in December. The magazine was planning to run a review of a tell-some book about Murdoch's time in China. When editors realized that the book wasn't a Fox News-esque glowing portrait of Murdoch, they ditched the piece.

More winners and losers from the writers strike! Winner: actor Rob Lowe, who proposed and sold his memoirs during the strike. Loser: Jonathan Karp, the Hachett publisher who placed the winning bid on them. Good thing the $1 mil didn't change hands, because once the strike was over, old Rob-O went back to work and no longer has the time to write the damn thing. For a moment during the strike, you could almost think otherwise, but the fact remains: most people would abandon books in a heartbeat for Hollywood. [NY Observer]

Attached, the intro to a recent story on Anderson Cooper 360 about the hate-motivated murder of an openly gay teenager. You may also recall that last month, Cooper was nominated for an award from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation for a story he did on the plight of homeless gay teens. The difficulties and discrimination faced by gay youths is clearly a subject that Cooper feels strongly about, and his dedication to fighting it is to be admired (and not, as we maybe occasionally are guilty of, mocked). So some might ask why Cooper himself still isn't public about his own sexual orientation, which might lead to him becoming a role model to the millions of young people struggling with discrimination who don't read Gawker. But Cooper might be on his way out of the closet! Sort of!

There's a war going on about proper bookshelf etiquette! Most people buy books (still), read them, and put them on a "shelf" for storage when they're done, writes Matt Selman in his Time blog. WRONG! If you're doing that, you're already way behind the cultural curve, Ezra Klein says in The American Prospect: "Bookshelves are not for displaying books you've read; those books go in your office, or near your bed, or on your Facebook profile. Rather, the books on your shelves are there to convey the type of person you would like to be." What does this learn us? That "bookshelves are a medium of social interaction... a format for the "performance of self," Inside Higher Ed concludes. Oh.

Attached, Nicole Richie's million dollar baby. As in one-million dollars, the price paid by People for the exclusive. Holy buckets, you say—what an expensive baby! You, sir, are naive. This is the bargain baby! Shiloh Jolie-Pitt was worth $4m. Jennifer Lopez's new twins went for more than $3m each! (How awesome would it have been, actually, if Jennifer had sold one twin to People and the other to OK!?) Even Christina Aguilera's loser baby was worth $1.5! And once Angelina has this next phantom baby the photo will probably cost some outlet enough to publicly finance the presidential election. Or like ten minutes of Iraq! This is the business model that will save the magazine industry. And keep our celebrities the way we like them: pregnant and complicit in the exploitation of their families. [Related]

Joanna Cutler, a rich real estate broker who lives in the opulent Plaza hotel, found herself trapped in a garbage room in the palatial building for seven hours last week, only steps away from her luxurious apartment. She had left her apartment unlocked, and the thought of someone walking in and stealing her precious Faberge egg tortured her during her accidental confinement. Sadly, none of the obvious universal, karmic, philosophical implications of this situation were recognized by the rich lady herself. Or the New York Post.

The San Francisco Chronicle must be shedding readers even faster than staff. Reportedly, it was losing $1 million a week before shedding 100 employees last May. In order to maintain circulation, the Chronicle is engaging in an extensive telemarketing campaign. For the last few weeks, I've been an unwilling target. I've been called almost daily by an incoherent newspaper peddler who greets me with the gruff demand, "Where do you live?" and offers either a six-week or six-month trial — the mumbling made it unclear. After the trial, the Chronicle is asking a measly $3/week for home delivery. Why not stop badgering me and drop the newspaper off at my door for free, like the Examiner? That seems easier.

The office manager of The Oxford American, the best totally unread magazine in America, embezzled $30,000 from the beleaguered publication, it was revealed earlier this month. (BREAKING: The Oxford American had $30,000!) [PW]

Yesterday we noted the death of Paul Mento, whose body was found gagged with duct tape in a bathtub at Bay Ridge's Best Western Gregory Hotel, site of another recent murder. We also mocked the fact that police were "investigating the death as suspicious." No shit, right? Well, it turns out that Mento's death was in fact a suicide. And that's not all—he was a former executive with the AP.

"It is a fact that corporate overlords working in secret collusion with the powers in Washington are intruding far too often in far too many newsrooms." -Dan Rather [After the jump, we play "this thing sounds like that thing!"]

Conservative author, essayist, columnist, pundit, smug asshole, gadabout, secret spook, and blue-blooded creep William F. Buckley is dead. Buckley, 82, suffered from diabetes and emphysema, though his cause of death is not yet known. And with him died respectable, intelligent, genteel-but-cut-throat New York Conservatism.

Professional doom-sayer and enjoyably shrill press critic Bob Somerby says he's been at this whole "internet political writing" thing since 1997 and he's kinda distressed that not only hasn't nutty original blogger Matt Drudge gone away, but he still holds sway over campaign narratives! Which he sorta does, though we'd argue not to the extent that he used to, but it is amusing to see all the liberal bloggers taking him so seriously after spending so many cycles trying to discredit and marginalize him. It's sad but true: when Drudge types, we listen. How else to explain the media's non-stop coverage of adorable kitties and killer robots bent on the destruction of humanity? [DailyHowler]

Michael Sands, publicist for Britney manager Sam Lutfi and man who can tell you something about cheesecake, is going to be deposed in Britney's custody case on March 5 [P6]. And he's very enthusiastic about it, because "the truth shall set you free!" Are you as excited about this development as we are? We've told you a bit about Sands' dessert skills, but it's time to roll out some key sections of the biography from his own website, a document full of unwitting double entendres about his own credibility that, we're sure, go totally unnoticed by Sands himself. Which just make them so much more fun.

[journo]: funny moment on a conf call just now
[journo]: it's Eliot Spitzer and govs of NJ and OH
[journo]: pluggign hillary to reporters
[journo]: and all the questions are from NY reporters to spitzer, and he sort of grumbles
[journo]: and then azi paybarah from the observer asks yet another
[journo]: question for eliot
[journo]: and spitzer says
[journo]: "you guys are owned by a new jersey real estate guy"

Writes the agent behind Pub Rants: "The adage couldn't be more true that no two editors are ever alike. I asked [editors] to name the top 5 things they don't want to see in a children's submission. One editor said 'no more vampires.' But the other editor said, 'I'm still good; send me the vampires' (but she says she is 'slightly tired' of trolls in middle grade fiction)." [Pub Rants]

The Moonie-owned right-wing-allied Washington Times has changed its editor, and now its styleguide. Some of the seriously loaded code languge is no longer the Times standard! So long "homosexual 'marriage'"! Farewell "illegal aliens"! We thought we'd be in the cold ground before the Washington Times recognized the term "moderate." Alas, times change. White supremacist-sympathetic editors-in-chief get ousted. Times newsroom email, via CQ, after the jump.

Yet more video has surfaced from Harry Shearer's magic satellite dish, the one that catches only feeds of television people engaging in embarrassing behavior just before they go on air. This installment begins and ends with brownshirt-friendly controversialist and faghag comedienne Ann Coulter politely requesting that someone cut up a line of Nicorette for her to snort, and in between we visit angry right-wing pundit Bill O'Reilly and scarf-obsessed network anchor Katie Couric. And more! Mildly unsettling clip embedded after the jump.