A long-brewing slap-fest between Topic A host Tina Brown and New York mag columnist Michael Wolff has escalated to DEFCON 3.

Embed, Baath and Beyond? Write and Wrong? FCC You Later? Lynching Party?

Ya know, I accuse the Times of constantly missing the real story behind the story. And this morning as I spread that dirty Gray Lady open, I found a prime example. This time, it's a big fluffy profile on Gawker Founding Editor Elizabeth Spiers, obviously planned during the New York mag sale to save her job in case the wrong regime made the coup.

I've been meaning to obsess over last week's sale of the website Daily Candy — $3.5 mil! — but got distracted by more interesting things. Red and green nail polish pedicures, etc. Thankfully, reporter and blogger Amy Langfield was getting all up in their candy:

The Christmas story slump is in full effect, so for today — and only today — we're not going to mock PR people. So, dear PR hacks: if you're pimping someone today, and you can get them on IM, we'll interview them. Unless they're REALLY hideous, in which case I'll just laugh at you.

· Joe Dolce to officially helm the Star — almost two months to the day after the Post's Keith Kelly reported that rumor. [NY Post]
· Supposedly for hatred of his taste in music, Entertainment Weekly editor Rick Tetzeli shuffles assistant managing editor John McCalley out the door. [WWD (second item)]
· Roger Cohen semi-leaves the NYT's foreign desk. [Romenesko memos]

Over at the Times, David Carr and Andrew Sorkin have been joined at the hip for the last 36 hours, tag-teaming the New York mag sale story. (It's probably not as sexy as it sounds. Strike that — it doesn't sound that sexy at all.) Today, the boys, by now surely sick of each other, slap up the interview with New York mag owner Bruce Wasserstein.

I Want Media asks CBS's MarketWatch media-dude Jon Friedman "Who is your choice for Media Person of the Year?":

New York editor Caroline Miller on the purchase of NY by Bruce Wasserstein:
· Hey, it's not 1968: "It s been a long, rather dramatic process and we re very comfortable we re going to be in great hands. We ve met with the Wasserstein people several times. We re delighted. They re very careful. They know what they re buying. They re not just buying the romance of a magazine in 1968. And they re serious about making some investments." [NYO]
· It's not 1968, but it is a guilty pleasure: "The magazine is never going to have the stage to itself the way it did in 1968 when Clay Felker invented it. But it still has a major role to play for New Yorkers: part provocateur, part essential handbook, and part guilty pleasure." [NYT]
· And hey, daddy's rich! "We're confident these will be very good owners for us. They're smart and seriously committed to investing in the magazine." [NYDN]
· Meanwhile, back at the ranch: "[Wasserstein] might as well have bought a cruise ship full of diseases" — Gay Talese [NYT]

While we wait out further words on the Wasserstein-buying-New York magazine announcement, let's just listen to the scurrying of little media feet: Keith Kelly! Sridhar Pappu! Jacob Bernstein! David Carr! Outwit, outplay, outlast!

BREAKING: Bruce Wasserstein, the financier, is set to take over New York Magazine. An announcement's due this afternoon. More later.

In a shocking turn of events, the rampant, largely unfounded, and overly-spun speculation regarding New York magazine's next editor now includes... current New York editor Caroline Miller. What? you gasp? But what experience does she have? Has she ever actually run a magazine the size of New York before?

How do you manage a magazine if it's owned by half the moguls in Manhattan? Duh, it's easy — just rename the front of the book section Disclaimers and Disclosures. It'll make for a fascinating read, a veritable who's who of favors owed, mafia connections, sex partners, and queer business ties. That's the shit everyone wants to read anyway. As David Carr points out in the Times: "It is hard to imagine an article that would not touch on a family member, a business partner, a friend or a foe of the Zuckerman-led group." Yeah, heavy on the foe.
Bid for New York Magazine: A Dance of Money and Ego [NYT]

The Post's Keith Kelly is getting antsy: Who will rule New York? If Harvey Weinstein nabs New York magazine, he may want Maer Roshan, the some-time editor of Radar, to helm. Peter Kaplan, editor of the NYO, is also mentioned. Please, will Uncle Harvey arrange us a cage match between the two? Kaplan tossing from his stash of nearly-empty liquor bottles, Roshan nimbly dodging while throwing pencils from his pretty and over-sharpened Hello Kitty set... It's the cinematic bloodbath Quentin Tarantino forgot to film.
The Title Fight [NY Post[

The focus groups have been forcefed, the late-night catfights have been apologized for, and now Hearst's entry in the women's shopping mag market has a name: Shop Etc.

Everyone's sending in their worst news assignments to Romenesko today. The best so far, from R. Bonapace:

Trouble, trouble: Last week's Star was the worst-selling issue of all time, its ads are for classy products like Glad trash bags, and the cover referred to The Zeta-Jones as a cheapskate. Now, the wolves are after AMI editorial director/Star editor Bonnie Fuller.
New Scheme for Struggling Star [WWD]

As strange be-suited men wander about the New York offices, poking and prodding in the cubicles, the word on the mag bids trickles in.

What happens when Primedia majority owner Henry Kravis meets with Harvey Weinstein and his Coalition of New York mag potential buyers?

Clay Felker, founder of New York magazine, pulls his punches a bit in a Folio interview: