· Moguls and fellow NY mag bid-competitors Zuckerman and Wasserstein have lunch; people pretend to care. [Page Six]
· In a victory for profanity and hookers, Howard Stern gets his own ABC interview special. [Adrants]
· Newsweek hires college columnists: Mediabistro asks, "How did you learn Newsweek had selected you?" "I was on my way a Tuesday noon exam, and my cell phone rang with this weird number. I'm like, '212, what's that?'" God, this'll be fun. [Mediabistro]

· Janice Min is rocking the sales numbers at Us Weekly: perhaps a distinct absence of former editor Bonnie Fuller should get the credit. [Keith Kelly]
· Speaking of Bonnie: former execs and employees claim she's "the world's biggest whiner," is "high-maintenance," and after she left Us, it's reported, "the magazine's art department turned her "editor's letter" photo into a Halloween card by coloring her skin green and putting a witch's hat on her head." [Matthew Rose]
· Graydon Carter: needs a reality check on who's "rich" and who isn't, starting with his own bad self. [NYO editorial, last item]
· NBC cancelled "Dateline" piece on Michael Jackson in an sleazy attempt to get footage on and interview with him. [Sharon Waxman]

Yes: I have been bored to tears by the Lord Black/Hollinger scandal. But when a reader writes it all up like this, it makes me kind of hot and bothered:

I can barely keep my eyes open long enough to give you this idiot's guide to the Hollinger scandal. Summary: rich people shuffle money, want other rich people's money.

New York Social Diary mentions some of the gift bag items from Page Six's Richard Johnson's birthday party last week — the Song airline tickets, the David Barton gym memberships — but leaves some of the better items off the list. Like, for instance, the Axe Deodorant Body Spray, or, even more apropos: a complimentary anti-oxidant peel from Debra Jaliman, MD (along with $200 off any $450 or more procedure, including botox, collagen injections, and laser hair removal). Gossip columnists want you to be less ugly, by any means necessary.
Today's Social Diary [NY Social Diary, photo by Bobby Zeitler]

There are still 10 press passes unclaimed at the Martha Stewart trial. Hop downtown and get yerself one!

· Finally, a leftwing media conspiracy: journalists, news producers and the political candidates they've thrown money at. [Howard Kurtz]
· Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter totally hearts Mike Bloomberg. [Jennifer Steinhauer]
· Evidently there's some sort of national holiday today? Also some election thing is going on in Nebraska or Iowa or some flat state. I didn't really catch it.

Matt Haber at Low Culture gazes into his crystal ball to predict Bridget Harrison's dippy-party-girl-about-town Post column for this Sunday. Bridget's pre-Christmas column recounted the difficulties of judging if one should put out on the second date. (Waiting til the second date? Oh, my bad...) Matt's prediction:

· Us Weekly's Britney cover story has 16 reporter's bylines; the Star's Joe Dolce says "Britney is over," puts Mel Gibson on cover of second glossy issue of Star. [Paul Colford]
· Judith Newman to run big Bonnie Fuller feature in March Vanity Fair. [Greg Lindsay]
· Hello! files appeal against OK! in Zeta-Jones-Douglas wedding picture scandal. [Guardian]

· Jann Wenner and John Warnock pump 800K into Salon. In addition, Salon has hired Soho-House-hopping former presidential aide Sidney Blumenthal as a columnist. [David Carr]
· MSNBC's Ashleigh Banfield's contract expires today. [Michael Starr]
· The Michael Jackson trial media circus: tacky tacky tacky. [Peter Johnson]
· WSJ's Lawrence Ingrassia to be the new biz editor at the NYT. [Reuters]

It seems some of you young magazine ladies have some awfully sticky fingers. A memo went out at the end of day yesterday at Fairchild, home of W magazine. "During the last year," it begins, "Fairchild has experienced several very expensive losses of borrowed or consigned garments, accessories and jewelry from the fashion closets and/or shoot locations of our various publications." So sad: now the W fashion closet has its very own security camera, so quit your damn pilfering!

The Observer stalks wacky Living It Up! talk show hostess and Stephanopoulos wife Ali Wentworth, and stumbles into a critical catfight:

***************
Stolen from the password-protected Superior Court of Santa Barbara press info site: yes, parking will cost $250.00 a space. Furthermore, the indemnification waiver will undoubtedly assert that members of the press can be clubbed over the heads on the way to their cars and it wouldn't be the County's fault. Now we can only hope that Michael Jackson's trial will be as outlandish as the parking arrangements.

· Charles Townsend may be new CEO because Conde Nast ad sales are down; Townsend will motivate publishers. [Lindsay/Bernstein]
· SI Newhouse: Conde Nast "had probably the most successful year in the history of the company in ad pages and in stature [...] We never talk about profits." [Keith Kelly]
· Outgoing Conde Nast CEO Steve Florio gives advice: "This job is 24/7 and this is no joke. If you get a vacation, you'd better bring your BlackBerry with you." [Matthew Rose]
· Expect a Newhouse family shuffle in the future. [Keith Kelly]

Vogue's Anna Wintour, the New Yorker's David Remnick, and Lucky's Kim France receive orders from newly-appointed Conde Nast CEO Charles Townsend via his speakerphone. Under Charlie's direction, the three sexy editor-detectives wage war on magazines both tabloid and intellectual, all while exposing as much skin as possible — but in a really feminist way.

TMF TML, the anonymous media analyst of alcoholic choice, imagines the next chapter in departing Conde Nast CEO Steve Florio's career: "I parachuted in Tikrit under cover of night. I traveled light, like they taught us in Special Ops: a bottle of water, a triple-blade Swiss Army Knife, and my personal good luck charm, the Derringer my great-grandfather used to kill Stonewall Jackson in the Civil War (a story that still needs to be told).

Daniel Radosh posts his outtakes — less nicely put, all the crap his editors cut — from the Dubious Achievement Awards in this February's Esquire:

· Michael Wolff, lonely NY mag columnist, tries to befriend NYT token conservative columnist David Brooks." [Michael Wolff]
· Author and party fiend Jay McInerney hilariously rumored to be in running for NYT restaurant critic job. [Rush & Molloy, 6th item]
· Daniel Okrent, NYT's "public editor," annoys business section. [Deborah Schoeneman]
· NYT to hire WSJ's Larry Ingrassia as business editor? [Keith Kelly]
· Bonnie Fuller of Star hires former Us Weekly/Wenner Media spokesman, Stu Zakim, adding fuel to the alleged feud between the companies. [Jacob Bernstein]
· NYO's editor Peter Kaplan cross-pollinates with NY mag's Lisa Chase. Congrats! [Rush & Molloy, last item]

A Radar magazine subscriber writes:

Blogger Jason McIntyre does an interesting first quarter analysis of Tina Brown's Washington Post columns. Let's call it... a Tinalysis!