This probably won't end well. Following the President's State of the Union address tonight, Chris Matthews took to MSNBC's airwaves to declare that Obama is "post-racial," before stating, "I forgot he was black tonight for an hour." Update: Matthews "clarifies."

• The iPad may be cool and all. But don't expect it to revolutionize newspapers. Or magazines. Or even book publishing. [AdAge, NYT, Reuters, NYT]
• The WSJ is getting ready to take on the Times. Three dozen staffers (and $15 mil.) will go into creating its new NYC edition, which debuts in April. [NYO]
• NBC and Conan O'Brien are back in business (sort of): The network is picking up a pilot from Conaco, O'Brien's production company. In less surprising news, Jay Leno says he hasn't spoken to Conan since the late-night drama unfolded; and Comcast's chief says he's behind NBC CEO Jeff Zucker (officially-speaking).
• ABC has decided to bring Ugly Betty to an end after this season. [LAT]
• MSNBC wasn't planning to air last Friday's Haiti telethon. But then Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow got involved and things changed. [NYO]
• Harvey and Bob Weinstein are looking to buy back the Miramax name. [DH]
• Louis Auchincloss, chronicler of WASP culture, is dead at 92. [NYT]

People are still pushing the "Ed Schultz for Senate" idea? Really?

• It's a new day at Condé Nast. The mag giant's chief exec, Chuck Townsend, has gone from firing staffers to giving them motivational speeches. [NYO]
• In Touch's editor quit yesterday, reportedly because he wasn't happy that his bosses wouldn't agree to increase his $750,000-a-year salary. [NYP]
• Is MSNBC's Ed Schultz thinking about running for Senate? [HP, The Hill]
• A draft of the script for the third Twilight film has been leaked online. [WSJ]
• Fox's latest reality show, Our Little Genius, is stirring up controversy. [NYT]
• It looks like Sam Mendes will be directing the next James Bond movie. [MTV]
• Advertising: Hanes is pulling its TV ads featuring Charlie Sheen. [People]
• Taylor Swift's "Fearless" was the No. 1 selling album of 2008. In other Taylor-related news, Taylor Lautner is now the highest paid teenager in Hollywood.
• "Newspaper reporter" is officially one of the worst jobs in America. [HP]

• How did World News anchor Diane Sawyer do in her first week? Better than Katie Couric, but not as well as Brian Williams. (So-so, in other words.) [NYT]
• TV news: MSNBC is taking heat for not really covering the attempted terror attack on Christmas Day; NBC News has been scolded by a journalism ethics committee; CNN's ratings were down 30 percent in 2009, more than any other cable network; and ethics-free Fox News just recorded its best year ever.
• Comedy Central has canceled The Jeff Dunham Show, thankfully. [NYT]
• Know how TV networks give you the programming for free, but pay their bills by airing commercials? Yea, well, it isn't the best business model, FYI. [AP]
• How many product placements appear in Avatar? A bunch! [Brandchannel]
• Charlie Sheen's arrest hasn't hurt ratings of Two and a Half Men. Phew! [LAT]
• How did TMZ get duped by that JFK photo? Harvey Levin isn't saying. [NYT]
• Editor & Publisher's last issue has shipped and will close down on Thu. [E&P]
• Legendary caricaturist David Levine died today. He was 83. [NYT]

• Sad news, Tyra fans: This season will be her last, she says. [People]
• Avatar was No. 1 at the box office this weekend with $75 million in domestic receipts. The movie has raked in $617 million globally thus far. [THR]
• The game of chicken between Fox and Time Warner Cable continues. [USAT]
• MSNBC's new schedule will focus more on "the day's big stories" and less on "personality-driven programming"—during daytime hours, at least. [AP]
• Get ready for lots of remakes of old TV shows in the year ahead: Charlie's Angels, Hawaii Five-O, and The Rockford Files are all in development. [NYT]
• Also: Get ready to pay for lots of online news in the near future. [NYT]
• What else is in store for the media for 2010? A handful of predictions. [LAT]
• Tiger Woods' advertising partners haven't fared well in recent weeks. [WSJ]
• Director Roman Polanski, now under house arrest at his Swiss ski chalet, has issued his first statement since his arrest back in September. (He's really thankful for all your support and warm wishes, just so you know.) [Reuters]
• As rumored last week, TMZ is branching out with a sports site. It's also smarting from an "exclusive" this morning that was actually a hoax. [NYT, TSG]

• Did Hugh Hefner abandon a deal to sell Playboy because he insisted he be allowed to live at the Playboy Mansion until he dies? That's the rumor. [PC]
• CNN will finish 2009 behind MSNBC, which is a first. How is it that CNN chief Jon Klein still has a job? Ask Jeff Bewkes if you bump into him, please. [NYT]
• Daily Intel has a list of the latest layoffs at the New York Times. [NYM]
• Roy Disney, nephew of Walt and former top Disney exec, is dead at 79. [NYT]
• The war between the Times and Wall Street Journal continues apace. [NYO]
• The Journal is boosting circulation of its glossy quarterly, WSJ. [WWD]
• Pressure's on! Jim Cameron's $300 mil. Avatar debuts this weekend. [THR]
• Two of Hollywood's big PR firms, BNC and PMK, have joined forces. [AdAge]
• Teen Vogue editor Amy Astley is making a cameo on Gossip Girl. [WWD]
• Painful truths: Your boyfriend secretly loves soft-rock, Celine Dion. [NYT]
• Time's 2009 "Person of the Year" is Fed chair Ben Bernanke. Yawn. [Time]

• The New York Times and Wall Street Journal are feuding once again. [DF]
• Thanks to a $200 million investment in new printers, Mort Zuckerman's Daily News can now print any page of the paper in color! Exciting! [Crain's]
• Does the fact Glenn Beck is a highly paid pitchman for a gold company explain why he promotes it on Fox News show every night? Probably! [NYT]
• MSNBC is changing up its daytime lineup a bit, just so you're aware. [NYT]
• Despite the recession (and $12 tickets), film attendance was up in '09. [LAT]
• The New York Film Critics Circle announced its yearly picks today. [AP]
• Congress is devoting (wasting?) $30 mil. to battle music/movie piracy. [THR]
• Disney's The Princess and the Frog dominated the weekend box office [THR]
• CNBC has poached the WSJ's Nikhil Deogun as its new managing editor. [NYT]
• Sarah Palin's book tour is over. "Now what?" Good question! [LAT]

Whoo boy: Things got steamy on the Rachel Maddow Show tonight, as Maddow faced off with Richard Cohen, the "ex-gay" "psychotherapist" who claims gays can choose to be straight. It's the heavy-weight homo showdown you've been waiting for!

• It's official: Will Ferrell is the most overpaid man in show business. [THR]
• Layoffs: BusinessWeek's cuts kicked off today; layoffs now loom at Time Inc. as the company awaits word on how many volunteers will accept buyout packages; and there's a bit more detail on this week's cuts at the AP.
• MSNBC's Joe Scarborough isn't exactly on fire at the moment. [NYO]
• Palinitis: The ex-governor's sit-down with Oprah on Monday generated the talk show queen her highest ratings in two years; Fox News clowns Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity are now at war over their respective Palin interviews; and people are still talking about that Palin Newsweek cover, for some reason.
• Vivendi has tossed a last-minute complication into the NBC deal. [NYT]
• Times reporter Jodi Kantor has landed a seven-figure book deal. [NYO]
• Breaking! The Emmys are moving from September to August. [THR]
• CNN's Candy Crowley is speaking out about her weight loss. At last! [LAT]

In a New York Times story portraying MSNBC is independent and not at all like those ideologues at Fox News, Rachel Maddow says, "we're not saying ‘Call your congressman, show up at this rally!" This is not true.

Keith Olbermann and Sean Hannity snapped cutesy pictures of one another at a World Series game, even though Hannity's boss Rupert Murdoch just yesterday said there was a nasty "personal" feud going between the TV opinion hosts. He wishes.

• Is Oprah preparing to leave her syndicated show behind and take her act to OWN, her long-delayed cable network? That's the rumor anyway. [DH]
• The new editor of the Observer is Kyle Pope, formerly of Portfolio. [NYO]
• Cable meets kindergarten: Fox News will stop being mean to MSNBC only if MSNBC first stops being mean to Fox News, reports Rupert Murdoch. [NYT]
• Fortune and Time are expected to be hardest hit by layoffs at Time Inc. [NYP]
• Scripps has beat out News Corp. for control of the Travel Channel. [BN]
• Susan Plagemann has been named the new publisher of Vogue. Meanwhile, Tom Florio will now oversee Vogue, Bon Appétit and Traveler. [WWD]
• Bloomberg BusinessWeek (or BBW for short) has its new team in place. [NYT]

This morning Joe Scarborough was like, hey, I'm a Republican, but Republicans sure do say and do many stupid, stupid, stupid things these days, due to the innate stupidity of Republicans! And Pat Buchanan kind of looks at him, silently.

Reverends! All reverends look alike. Jesse Jackson was on MSNBC today to help poor people, and Contessa Brewer introduced him as "the Rev. Al Sharpton." If Fox News did this, there would be sit-ins.

• Is New York magazine up for sale now that Bruce Wasserstein has died? There's no reason to assume so, but that isn't stopping people from tossing around the names of some very unlikely "contenders." [NYP, AdAge, DF]
• Related: David Carr of the Times details how Wasserstein benefited the magazine; Daniel Gross of Slate focuses on his commitment to journalism; and New York's editors offer up their own heartfelt tribute to the mag's late owner.
• The cuts at Condé continue: Golf World felt the pain today. [Gawker]
• SNL has cut a deal with Anheuser-Busch to stick beer ads into the show. "Maybe if we drink enough the show will actually seem funny." [LAT]

It's happening in Colorado right now. A boy climbed into an helium balloon that his parents were building, untied the rope, and took off. No one knows how to get him down. Updates in comments, boy's missing after balloon lands

Lindsay Lohan tries to explain her adventures in fashion. Britney Spears receives a dubious award. Joe Francis has no backbone. And we feel bad for Leona Lewis. Yes, it's your Thursday morning gossip roundup. It's it's chock full of nuts!

Keith Olbermann's hour-long, uninterrupted, endless "Special Comment" last night was actually called "The Fight Against Death." You will lose that fight, Keith. We all will.

In this clip, MSNBC's Contessa Brewer reports new Gallup poll data showing that "just nine percent approve of the GOP" in Congress. She's wrong. It's MSNBC's version of Fox News putting a "(D)" after the name of every pedophile Republican.