• We just can't believe that anyone calling himself "Jacob the Jeweler," who makes his living crafting massive, diamond-encrusted watches and pendants for the good people of the hip-hop industry, would have anything to do with a drug ring called the Black Mafia Family. [TMZ]
• Introducing our new favorite website: Long Awkward Pose. People look stupid when they pose for pictures, but they look even more stupid when they don't know they're being videotaped during their earnest posing. Hilarity ensues. [Long Awkward Pose]
• Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos thinks Maureen Dowd is a "catty, insecure bitch," which may or may not having something to do with former Wonkette Ana Marie Cox. Crazy fucking redheads. [The Stranger]
• If a sex shop comes to Soho, it has to be luxe. Kiki de Montparnasse fits the bill — and if it's high-end, the celebrities shall flock. Go and watch Lenny Kravitz buy a high-end dildo, it'll change your life. [NY Sun]
• Daniel Klaidman comes to NYC to be the assistant managing fluffer at Newsweek. [FishbowlDC]
• Associated Press management slowly dehydrates its staff to death. [The Slug]
• Bill Gates announces that in two years he'll go part-time at Microsoft and devote his energies full-time to his charity work. Steve Jobs cackles, John Hodgman weeps. [Forbes]

Ever walk by a newsstand and notice that all the covers are either dead Jordanians or living white people? So did the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, an organization whose recent five-month study determined that "only 18, or 1.2 percent, of the 1,547 stories that appeared last year in Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report were predominantly about Latinos," and that even that coverage was predominantly negative, focusing on Latinos as a "'disruptive force' to U.S. society." Time deputy editor Steve Koepp acknowledged the study, noting that " "We welcome the feedback and are glad to see our cover story on the 25 most influential Hispanics commended for its broad representation of Hispanics in America. With that story and our recent cover on America's Secret Work Force, our goal is to look past the cultural stereotypes."

Above left, this week's U.S. News. Above right, the Aug. 9, 2004, Newsweek. Apparently Mort Zuckerman's cutbacks now extend to cover ideas.

"What Happened at Duke," by Susannah Meadows and Evan Thomas, Newsweek, today:

It's a tough time in the magazine business. AMI, Conde Nast, and Hachette are shuttering titles. Time Inc. is shedding staff. Newsweek, however, has apparently found an innovative to make ends meet: They're cutting back on spaces.

• Because God is inexplicably protecting Maer Roshan, Radar still looms over us. Well, kind of. Maybe not. Maybe so, with Jesse Jackson's son in the mix. And whether or not the mag that Maer built comes alive, it sure is fun to speculate and send Roshan into a secretive frenzy.
• Our sick and psychotic Gawker Stalker Maps continue to destroy the world, prompting George Clooneyto don his Batman suit and unite his flacky friends against our satanic practices. The New York Press agrees that we're bad people and, moreover, just snarkity snark snark snarky.
• Naomi Campbell assaults her staff again — and this time, it's over a pair of jeans.
• Hell of a week for masthead changes: Wall Street Journal's Weekend Journal editor Amy Stevens saunters over to Conde; the Observer's Ben Smith relocates to the Daily News; more changes at Spin; and Newsweek executive editor Dorothy Kalins suspiciously heads upstairs.
• Breaking: Just like any student at any college, NYU kids like to party.
• Circulation desperation sets in, and free papers are everyfuckingwhere. And if they're free papers from the Post, you'll find them at the dump. Or China.
• It took way too long, but the Village Voice's doe-eyed young fabulist Nick Sylvester finally gets fired.

We hear that Dorothy Kalins, the former Saveur editor-in-chief who arrived at Newsweek as executive editor five or so years ago to supervise a redesign and spice up the mag's back-of-book, is leaving her position. She'll be moving into a contributing editor gig and have a "consulting" role on WashPostCo.'s other magazines. Which sounds to us a bit like a kicked upstairs situation. Got any dirt on the move?

"How geeky are you," asks Newsweek, ruining a perfectly good cover story with an awkward quiz. Bad enough that half of it is desert-island questions; even worse that the "desert-island book" options don't include the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Flickr's Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, king and queen of the digital photo, take Polaroids. Caterina: "What is this primitive paper-making box you handed me?"

About this Newsweek cover story — can we all share a moment of glee? Newsweek really gets the new web! Writers Steven Levy and Brad Stone score major points for:

At right is the cover of last week's Newsweek. And here is the correction from this week's Newsweek:

Vanity Fair, issue dated April 2006:

If you're anything like us, you were drinking and dancing till the wee hours last night, celebrating the announcement of this year's National Magazine Award finalists. Such excitement! Such drama! Such drug-addled nightmares of being stampeded by a herd of bronze elephants! In the sober light of morning, finally, there's a chance to ponder some of the great metaphysical questions raised by yesterday's announcement:

• Time Inc.'s young guy-geared humor site, Officepirates.com, helmed by former Maximer Mark Golin, is slated to debut Feb. 22. Given the mag publishers track record with web ventures — Pathfinder, anyone? — we're sure the College Humor boys are terrified about the potential competition. [NYP]
• Who'd have thunk it: Cargo sells best with a hot chick on the cover. [WWD]
• World News Tonight anchor Elizabeth Vargas announces she's pregnant and will deliver in late summer — this ensuring that by the eight-month mark of ABC's latest dual-anchor experiment, neither of the two anchors will be on air. [ABCNews.com]
• At least there's one winner in the recent cartoon-induced global crisis: Newsweek, who people now realize probably didn't singlehandedly incite riots with a poorly sourced sentence. [MW]

From the latest Newsweek, a case of possible Taracide:

Under any circumstances, it would be difficult for us to ignore the Observer engagement announcement of pending nuptials between a high-powered newsweekly writer and a high-powered arts-world flack. (It's also difficult to ignore an announcement in which half of the couple spent about six years sharing an apartment with half of us.)

Our airsick bag-collecting brother at Gridskipper points us to a NY Observer story on the big acquisition of a 2000-acre plot of land in the Dominican Republic, financed by what could be the least masculine troupe of investors in history. The thin-wristed crew includes Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria, DJ-ing white vegan stain Moby, mimbo socialite Alex Von Furstenberg and bird-chested money manager Boykin Curry.

• Jon Friedman gets feisty and calls "Bullshit!" on Time and Newsweek's Person of the Year shtick. [MW]
• Jann Wenner channels Joe Francis at the company holiday party, asking a female employee to show her tits for some shiny beads. Wenner reps deny reports, but who cares?. [Lowdown]
• Former Condé Nast editorial director James Truman is feeling out New York editors to helm a soon-to-be-launched travel/culture publication for Louise McBain. Condé Nast Traveler braces for an inevitable fleecing. [WWD]
• Time Warner appoints Jeff Bewkes as new president and chief operating officer of television and movies. We still don't know who to call when our wifi craps itself. [NYT]
• OK! magazine assures everybody that their recent addition of tabloid editors are not signs of desperation for a struggling publication. Things are okay at OK!, okay? So stop asking. [NY Post]
• And then there's that half-wit, pseudo-McCarthyism involved in the White House trying to stop the publishing of the New York Times' wiretapping story. [NYO]

• Bob Woodward, Judy Miller, Mitch Albom, and Newsweek had the worst media years this year, says Jon Friedman. We can't help but think that's not quite fair to Newsweek. Or, really, to Albom. Or even, ultimately, to Woodward. But Judy? Yeah, her year sucked. [MW]
• Time's Viveca Novak tells her Plame tale. Are we the only ones a little amazed at how long she kept her bosses in the dark? Weird. [Time]
• Hollywood gives the press a bad name, says David Carr. We'd argue the press doesn't help, either. [NYT]

Poor Simon Dumenco.