New York Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman unleashed a screed yesterday on the Huffington Post about how the media never covers how bad it is for Israelis dealing with Palestinian terrorism. He should know.

A newspaper's most basic function, one could argue, is to keep tabs on crime. For decades, New York newspapers have done this out of the "police shack," but the NYPD is now kicking them out.

It's no wonder Hud Morgan relished his move from the Daily News to Men's Vogue: "Champagne Easter" parties, fruitinis and Beatrice Inn slapfights become a lifestyle glossy editor. At a gritty tabloid they're embarrassing.

It was upsetting enough for employees to hear the New York Daily News was ending its 401(k) contributions (memo below). The jokes about bigwigs' extensive stock holdings only made matters worse.

Look: It's a glorious, bona fide press brawl! Caroline Kennedy's withdrawal from senate consideration touched off the rivalry between New York and D.C. news desks. New York won.

Citigroup is a pathetic loser of a corporation having needed three bailouts in as many decades. "Another large exposure for uncertain benefits," the corporate apologists at the Wall Street Journal editorial page declared of the latest Citi rescue. But the global banking giant is one of the largest tenants of Mort Zuckerman, the owner of Citigroup's world headquarters and of the nearby 59-story Citigroup Center, which Citi partly occupies. Why is NBC News allowing Zuckerman to pimp a rescue for Citi?

The Daily News has had a sudden change of heart about Sarah Palin. On Sunday, the paper's Thomas DeFrank and David Saltonstall quoted three Republicans critical of Palin's embarrassing answers for CBS anchor Katie Couric and others on the campaign trail. The story's headline said there were increasing calls for Palin to "step down from GOP ticket." Then, on Monday, came an article by "Daily News Political Editors" — no writers' names were attached. It was titled "Eight reasons why John McCain won't drop Sarah Palin from ticket." And it called Palin a "fundraising dynamo" and "crowd magnet" who had "unconditional love" from social conservatives. We hear the story was considered an embarrassment by News journalists, but was ordered from on high. UPDATE: See below.

The morning news is terrifying even before the ominous opening of U.S. markets today, and was also scary hours ago before overseas markets opened and U.S. stock futures fell sharply. The bankruptcy at Lehman Brothers, the takeover of Merrill Lynch and the plea by insurance giant AIG for $40 billion in federal aid made for scary front pages (pictured, click for larger image) and heated chatter on CNBC. And no one wasted any time telling everyone how bad things really are. The "American financial system was shaken to its core," the Wall Street Journal said, warning of a "crisis on Wall Street." Other media outlets were scarcely more comforting:

It's not just MSNBC's Democratic National Convention team that's filled with vicious rage bursting out in inappropriate ways. At the Daily News, convention reporter and political editor Ian Bishop just totally snapped Saturday morning, and might have been fired for the incident if he wasn't buddy-buddy with the editor in chief. A glass wall was shattered! Here's what happened, according to the Post:

After bitter tabloid rivals the Post and Daily News both lost their bidding war for Newsday to bumbling Long Island cable concern Cablevision, discussion centered on which tab would be first to strike some kind of cost-cutting partnership with Cablevision. As it turns out, the Post and Daily News may just cut Cablevision out of the loop entirely — the Times tonight substantiates prior rumors the two papers will partner. The tabloids are in preliminary but "committed" discussions to share printing, distribution, sales and other functions, stopping short of a full Joint Operating Agreement. If only it were all so easy as simply signing off on such a deal.

Among Julia Allison's many achievements, one stands out: the dating columnist landed a gig as editor-at-large of Star magazine, which consisted of reading the gossip blogs and then opining on television as if she knew the celebrities at the center of the week's scandal-and as if she had a job at Star. Her lucky successor-Allison's contract having expired after her sponsor Bonnie Fuller lost power at the celebrity gossip magazine-is charming Aussie Ben Widdicombe (left, with Horacio Silva of the Times.)

You know it's a slow news day when the Daily News decides to run a nine-page photo gallery of a naked rugby match on a beach in New Zealand. In the "News" section, no less. Or maybe an intern just got confused. "Oh you said you wanted a NEWS gallery? Uh, actually, nevermind, that's not gone live yet." NSFW, obviously. [Daily News]

Our source was right: Greg Gittrich is leaving the Daily News for NBC. "Insiders at NBC tell Media Ink that he is going to be the news editor of the digital operations of NBC Local Media Group, a new job." [Post]

The dreamy beach warrior who rescued a drowning man and and made all other news irrelevant a week or so ago has been found! And he's "a humble hero who would rather sail off into the sunset than step into the limelight, his relatives said Saturday." Swoon! Could he get any dreamier? "Kevin Campion, a 30-year-old ship's captain from Seattle, doesn't mind if his lifesaving deed goes unrewarded, they said. 'He's a great guy and it's an amazing thing he did and actually I'm not surprised that he would do it,' said Kenn Christianson, the brother of Campion's stepmother, Sonya Campion. 'He's just not sure he wants the attention to be on him.'" Oh. Then I guess The New York Daily News wouldn't have another photo of him or anything. Wait, they do?

A source tells us that Metro ed Gregg Gittrich is indeed out at the Daily News. Gittrich was widely consdered a rising star, maybe even next in line for the managing editor gig. But the NYDN isn't great about holding onto talent. And maybe Greg's taste of TV glory on unwatched 2006 reality program Tabloid Wars inspired him—we hear he quit the Daily News to go to NBC. If you know what he may or may not be doing at NBC, drop us a line.

Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. He is, more or less, dying. So we can rely on our own New York Post to relay that fact as efficiently as possible. They do, of course, call him a "brave icon," but there's really not a lot of love lost between the rabidly conservative Post and the grand old liberal Kennedy. Boston's tabloid, the Herald, goes with a show of support. The poor Daily News splits the difference.

We're hearing problems at the Daily News! There are problems everywhere else, why not there, too. Metro editor Greg Gittrich is out? He was the anointed next-in-line to managing editor Stu Marques, supposedly, but now...? Is it true? Let us know.

Having bought Newsday for $650 million, Cablevision executives, who pretty much suck at making money on anything that's not a cable system, are now interested in maybe having an actual newspaper company print, distribute and sell advertising into the tabloid. A printing deal with Post owner News Corp. or Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman would make eminent financial sense, since Newsday has an outdated printing plant and both the Daily News and Post stand to cut their own printing costs if they can sign up the Long Island newspaper as a customer. And cross-selling ads could drum up some extra revenue. But if Cablevision were to do a comprehensive deal covering pretty much all business-side operations, it would beg the question, why did Cablevision buy Newsday in the first place? Were the cross-selling opportunities between cable, internet and the newspaper really worth an $80 million premium over bids from News Corp. and Zuckerman? Prediction: Whichever media company ends up doing this deal with Cablevision, and one of them will, is going to end up owning the newspaper in a few years when Cablevision's high expectations are deflated. [Times]

Departing gossip columnist Ben Widdicombe's innuendo-laden items for the Gatecrasher column in the Daily News were always designed for two audiences: the tabloid's middlebrow readers, who weren't intended to get the joke; and the Australian gossip's counterparts, who could be expected to pick up on the camp subtext.

Both major New York tabloids today went, on their front pages, with a story that everyone knew was bullshit by the time they picked up the papers. If you caught a second of the morning news today, you know that the letters to congressmen saying "WE DID IT" had jack shit to do with that little I.E.D. that went off in Times Square the other morning. The Post didn't know that when they decided to play the story HUGE today. The Daily News went a bit more tasteful, with one line below a story about how Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are having a Graveyard Smash, or something. Click to see both covers embarrassingly huge.