With a flowery but platitudinous column of cobbled-together homilies on the most hackneyed of subjects ("For 2014, Tweet Less, Read More"), Frank Bruni closes out 2013 in the most Frank Bruni-esque possible way. We'd say "better luck next year," but we're not optimistic.

A comprehensive New York Times investigation into the deadly 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi found no evidence of involvement by al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups; in fact, according to the report, the attack was largely fueled by anger at the American-made video "The Innocence of Muslims."

New York Times Magazine editor Hugo Lindgren will be leaving at the end of the year. Who's his replacement? The Times revealed today: we're stalling! Stalling!

ABC News and The New York Times have known since 2007 that Robert Levinson, the ex-FBI agent who was kidnapped in Iran, was not, as the U.S. government and his family claimed, an independent businessman: He was working for the CIA. The Times’ report today discloses this timeline; ABC News’ report does not—but a source at the network confirmed to Gawker that ABC reporters discovered the CIA connection in 2007 as well. At the request of the government and Levinson’s family, however, both outlets repeatedly stated, without any caveats, that Levinson was on a “business trip” when he was captured. A review of their coverage indicates that ABC News did so at least 7 times, and the Times at least 3 times.

New York Times media columnist David Carr has a lot of friends. I'm one of them. I would generally agree that, as the Wire put it this morning, he is "well-loved and respected," and that his column is often "one of the most thoughtful and critical perspectives into journalism." Likewise with the Boston Globe's assessment that he is a "star." These encomia were delivered on the occasion of Carr's ascent to an endowed chair at Boston University's College of Communication, from which chair he will continue to cover the media beat in his weekly Times column. That chair is endowed to the tune of $1.66 million by the chairman of a media company that Carr purports to cover. There's probably a column in that.

Frank Bruni—who, as a New York Times columnist, holds one of the most coveted jobs in all of newspaper journalism—reveals today exclusively in the paper of record that he saw a movie not too long ago.

Earlier this evening, New York Times political editor Carolyn Ryan started hinting that something big would be coming out in Monday's edition.

On November 24, after nine months of investigative work, the New York Times published a huge front page story raising questions about possible corruption and murder within the St. Johns County, FL Sheriff's department. Here's how the local paper there, the St. Augustine Record, responded:

[The front page of this morning's New York Times, which features a photograph of the left breast of a 28-year-old Israeli woman who has been diagnosed with breast cancer.]

So here’s a question for the Paper of Record: Can a reporter ethically accept a gift from a company he covers if the reporter gives it to a family member, or a friend? We ask because superstar tech reporter Nick Bilton admitted to doing so—or at least attempting to—on last week’s episode of Leo Laporte’s "This Week in Tech" podcast. Here’s what Bilton said:

A few weeks ago, New York Times columnist Jim Dwyer zipped up a "pinch" of "herb" and four marijuana cookies into his backpack and brazenly carried his stash down Eighth Avenue and on to the subway to prove a point about New York's Stop and Frisk law.

The New York Times has long been considered the top of the media food chain, the final stop in a journalism career. No mas. In recent weeks, the Times has been leaking talent left and right. Who do they have left that they really need to hang on to?

Writing in today's New York Times opinion section, the psychotherapist and Atlantic contributor Lori Gottlieb offers a shocking first-person account of why the Affordable Care Act is in so much political trouble: It's because many Americans are too stupid and too selfish to understand how health insurance works, on the most fundamental level.

This is the thing about Anthony Weiner: He's just so very, very seductive. Irresistible. He makes you do things you'd never dream of doing. Well, not you. Some people. They just want to surrender to him. The failed mayoral candidate tells GQ's Marshall Sella about how this sad fact undermined his campaign from the start, when he offered himself and his wife, Huma Abedin, up to the New York Times Magazine for the profile, by Jonathan Van Meter, that was to mark his return to political respectability:

Today, New York Times editor-turned-cranky-columnist Bill Keller's column consists of a long back-and-forth with crusading anti-imperialist Glenn Greenwald. The "must read" portion is not about the NSA, but about Times conservo-nerdlinger David Brooks.

BAZONGADONGA: Rick Berke, a top editor at the New York Times, is leaving the paper to become the new executive editor of THE POLITICO, where he will be free to pursue the horse race political coverage that the Times allegedly loathes.

"His critics call him Darth Vader, a war criminal, an evil genius, the puppet master behind the throne. But sitting with him, I was struck by how calm, unflappable and unbombastic he was." "But," you say?

A Twitter sentiment-analysis study last month mistakenly identified Hunter College High School as the saddest place in New York, thanks to one gloomy account nearby. (The real saddest place is wherever four-year-olds take test prep for Hunter kindergarten.)

Last month we reported on a quasi-exclusive event called The Influencers Dinner, hosted by thirty-something New Yorker Jon Levy, where self-assessed Influential People attempt to Influence each other, over dinner. “As a reminder,” Levy’s “concierge” warned invitees, “a journalist from the New York Times will be present and covering the event for the Sunday Style section.” And just look at what the paper published today (on Thursday, not Sunday):

The New York Times opinion section is adding more than two dozen international contributing columnists, from Kenya to Iran. Thomas Friedman will ask each of them to drive him around in a cab.