I've become something of a fan of the Daily News recently, ever since I stopped being able to access the Post. It's not as fun of a train wreck, of course, but they were the only paper to report that someone tried to blow up the Post the other day, which leads me to believe that they made it up. That sounds like the kind of thing I'd do. We have an affinity, you know? So I must say I'm saddened, slightly, to receive this unsubstantiated rumor:

Thursday Brain Teaser:
Letter to McSweeney's, or Letter to Romenesko?

Gannett Co., your source for information that occasionally bears a passing resemblance to "news," has appointed the head of its TV division to run the whole company. Craig Dubow's the name of the guy now in charge of one of the few companies that conveniently features a map of their world domination progress right on the corporate web site. What does this mean for USA Today and the newspaper biz as a whole? I have no clue, but I'm guessing it involves the word "digital," and possibly "revolutionary." What I do know (or rather, am about to make up) is that Mr. Dubow, brimming with brilliant ideas from a career running local tv stations, has some edgy plans for digitally revolutionizing the way we skim "news"papers. Here are a couple changes I expect to see coming soon to a graphics-heavy daily near you:

Click to enlarge.

It's official: We may be batshit insane, but Radar was not a figment of our imagination. Reader reports — flooding in by the threes and fours! — suggest that the magazine is slowly cream pieing its way across America, disappointing dozens of eager readers.

The Huffington Post sent a spy to Tuesday's World Magazine Congress at the Walforf-Astoria — little did other attendees know that this "Cable Neuhaus" fellow was actually a representative of an organization that will revolutionize and/or destroy magazines as we know them. As spies go, though, he's fairly benign — the only intelligence he managed to gather was that some German magazines have very funny names, and people in publishing still talk like Wired employees circa 1997.

Both of today's Times columnists, added together, do not equal one Maureen Dowd ($3.42). Someone's gotta do something about this, it's getting embarrassing.

After over a month of the Times' new Thursday Styles section, we've become more or less inured to its metrosexual spin — it's all a big, gay blur to us. That's why we've taken to using MSWord's AutoSummarize feature to condense the Styles' front page, telling us everything we need to know in 100 words or less:

Looks like we weren't the only ones having trouble with the Post's online login system.

· What does the future of magazines look like? Much like the present, but in space and with more ads for housework-handling robots. Mustaches still popular among professors of journalism. [Online Journalism Review]
· If you ask me, Matt Taibbi and Russ Smith are nearing the part of the romantic comedy where the barbed insults start masking growing attraction. [NYPress]
· Program[me]s about "sex with animals" given the all-clear. It may be — nay, is — time to move to England. [Guardian, reg. req'd]

Look, have you bought the damn magazine yet or what? You may ask about the coverage, the coverage of the coverage, and the analysis of the coverage of the coverage, but the story of Radar is really a profound modern tragedy. Maer Roshan is editing too close to the sun:

When your reporting is responsible for a riot, when hipsters start throwing bricks through your windows, when you're feelin' lowdown and mean, who do you turn to? If you're Newsweek (and I hope you're not), you bring in a man responsible for letting even worse reporting go through with even sloppier vetting: Donald Graham. The Observer reports:

Congratulations to John Tierney on making his first appearance on the prestigious most emailed list. Putting women in their place continues to pay off. -AP






Most Emailed List [NYT]
Off the Record [NYO]

A Virgin Megastore-employed reader sends along a brief but enlightening excerpt from last night's employee email:

Colorfully nicknamed bike messengers may file suit against Lincoln for allegedly using their (street) names and photos in an ad for the bike-crushing Lincoln Navigator. What remains unclear is why Lincoln thought skinny geeks in Bono glasses would help sell giant cars. Former messenger Bucky Turco says: "Messengers hate cars. It's like using vegetarians to sell furs, it don't work." We think he could've taken that further. It's like using Priests to sell condoms! It's like using bloggers to sell personal grooming products! It's like using Huey Newton to sell DVDs of "Blue Collar Comedy"! It's like using FDR to sell Social Security privatization! You get the idea.

Today the New York Times Company proudly announced a "targeted staff reduction" plan, in which 190 employees from the Times and the Boston Globe will be relieved of their cost-inducing positions. To our knowledge, this pink-slipping parade will have minimal impact on the papers' newsrooms, but we're more fascinated by the memo sent to shaking employees. Per usual, the email is sent from the "Arthur & Janet" account, which seems so genial — like they're inviting you over for pie or something, except that you're getting fired.

· Is NBC News prez Neal Shapiro on his way out? Allegedly, Jeff Zucker's been actively searching for a replacement — because, you know, constant restructuring is what'll really help the sorry state of television news. [Lowdown]
· Inside Lindsay Lohan's publicist's office: "We've got to distract people from her weight issue. Let's connect her with a new boy! Yes, yes, but who? Hmm... Oh! Jared Leto! Yeah, that'll work." [Page Six]
· UPN retard Britney Spears reportedly gave away her dog Lucky when the pet didn't get along with husband Kevin Federline. Fellow canine Bit Bit, however, is still in Britney's purse. [Scoop]
· Cannes rejects the new Madonna documentary, which the star saw as a follow-up to 1991's Truth or Dare. Unless you consider hours of Madonna forcibly demonstrating how Kabbalah has changed her life to be "compelling footage," the new film will have you longing for the days of bottle-fellating. [R&M]

You all think you're so smart with your BugMeNot and your fancy non-immediately-expiring cookies, but we're not the only ones having problems with the Post:

We hate to do this (no, really, we do), but it seems that a once-great alt-weekly is closing the gap with another wildly popular paper. An approximation:

Sure, it's easy to say "I'm not gonna pay a lot for this conventional wisdom" when the Times offers up their back bench, as they did yesterday. But today we've got a Pundit Phenom, he of the dapper mustache and the mixed metaphor, Thomas "$4.10" Friedman, a flat-Earther who likes his love like he likes his trade: free. Unfortunately for betting fans, a meaningful rating system for today's page is impossible with Dowd on the DL and unranked Matt Miller pinch-opining. If you want my opinion, Slate readers'll be cracking open their checkbooks by the time they finish their coffee this morning — everyone is so darn reasonable over on the OpEd page today. Trying to sweeten the deal with completely unobjectionable arguments, perhaps?