Merrill Lynch, under financial pressure, is selling one of its more valuable assets, a 20 percent stake in Bloomberg, the financial-information business, for $4.5 billion to $5 billion. The sale marks the business's value at $22 billion to $25 billion — four times or more what Rupert Murdoch paid to tuck the Wall Street Journal's publisher, Dow Jones, a far more prestigious name in business news, into News Corp. Under Murdoch's ownership, Journal staffers are groaning about new expectations for productivity. Several highly paid, but not highly prolific, writers have been laid off, including George Anders, one of the biggest names in technology reporting. Join the club, Bloomberg writers would say; they are constantly measured, and perpetually disgruntled. What Bloomberg's high valuation tells us: Expectations of productivity in the news business are here to stay. Prestige and quality are well enough — but only if they make a noticeable difference. Being read matters just as much as being right.

• John Huey is finally initiated as the successor to Norm Pearlstine's editorship at Time Inc. The ceremony involved branding, hazing, and some tasty swag.
• Daily News EIC Michael Cooke barely lasts 10 months before scampering back to the Windy City. At least he'll be taking a nice, new pair of shoes home with him.
• The Upper East Side's finest brats open their own under-18 Chelsea nightclub, where they won't be drinking or blowing rails.
• Fabulist Jayson Blair returns to the Times building, but naturally lies about the incident.
• Actor Chris Klein attends the Condé Nast holiday luncheon!
• We haven't sold out to the New York Times Company, but can you imagine if we did?
• Body-armor magnate David H. Brooks breaks all records for nauseating indulgence by throwing his daughter, Elizabeth, a $10 million bat mitzvah at the Rainbow Room, complete with A-list entertainment and princess costumes.
• Woody Allen graces Lincoln Center, prompting us to recall when his films were consistently good.

By the by, we finally gave in and ate some of Norm Pearlstine last night. (We'd previously said we wouldn't touch any of this smuggled swag — from the secret ceremony anointing John Huey as Time Inc.'s new EIC — until we received a personal waiver from our double-super-secret source that he or she didn't want it returned. Watching The O.C. and craving chocolate, we decided 48 hours without comment constituted a personal waiver.)

Last night saw the secret Time Warner ceremony during which John Huey was finally, formally coronated to succeed Norm Pearlstine as Time Inc.'s editor-in-chief, only the sixth in the company's history. (Indeed, Keith Kelly has suggested in the Post that actual ceremonial headgear is involved, a Vatican-like bishop's miter that represents the "church" side of media organizations' alleged and increasingly quaint "church-state" divide.)

The Journal wrote it a week and a half ago, and today it is sealed: Notes-releasing Time Inc. editor-in-chief Norm Pearlstine will end his 11-year tenure in the job at the close of this year, and his deputy for the last several years, editorial director John Huey, will become top dog.