The Hollywood Reporter's Borys Kit and Gregg Goldstein have the scoop:

After Warner Bros. absorbed New Line as an in-house production label, industryites wondered which Warners specialty unit would be kept, Warner Independent Pictures or Picturehouse. The answer came Thursday: Neither.

In a move that sent ripples of shock around town, Warners said it is was shuttering both divisions, citing cost savings and an elimination of redundancies.

Most of the units' 70 employees are expected to lose their jobs, including all 43 Picturehouse staffers. WIP president Polly Cohen said that some of her 27 staffers will remain on board to shepherd projects to the studio. The 11-year Warners vet's contract runs for about two more years, and she will stay within Warners for now, though she's unclear in what capacity.

Some Picturehouse staffers also might remain.

Former Star Tribune Editor Tim J. McGuire spoke at the Northwest International Circulation Executives this week and had this to say to newspaper junkies who are hand-wringing about the future of print:

Find your own stinkin' lifeline!

Build your own damn hope!

Discover your own worthiness.

Stop waiting for it to be conferred on you by an aging, retired newsman or by your confused, beyond-desperate corporate owners, or by a besieged management team which has watched its own individual personal worth go up in so much digital vapor because they really don't know up from down in this revolutionary moment.

That should make all those recently laid-off SoCal newsies feel so much better.

(Per Romenesko)

We once heard Stephen King say that if you look back ten years after high school and think that those were the best years of your life - he wants nothing to do with you.

But Fox News needs them to laugh in and pile on! A writer - telling kids to read - what a loser. It's the best nerd bashing - geek punching prom ever!

As if we could make that up. Thanks Nikki!

From venerable Craigslist:

Herbs for short reading/writing gig (LBC 90420 Trade)
Reply to: gigs-674264026@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-05-09, 10:37AM PDT

Need some books read and summarized. About 700 to 800 pgs of reading into 2500 to 3500 words total. Must be usable for research info for Graduate level paper, and ready in one week. Trade $175 of mid grade herbs.

* Location: LBC 90420 Trade
* it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
* Compensation: no pay

We're guessing a grad student from San Diego State?

Our Favorite LAT Headline of the Day: California tax proposals target beer-loving, pornography-watching yacht owners

Joel Stein Might Be High Right Now: Stein gets his hands on some medical marijuana. Hilarity (we guess) ensues. No word if he smoked the goods, returned them or had to surrender them to Sam Zell.

Kate Aurthur Wastes Her Considerable Talents On Speidi: The idea of her eating lunch with two vapid fame peddlers makes us a little sad. But then, so do Hallmark commercials, so who are we to judge?

We think there is a little Gong Show in all reality shows these days. You'll find it in the first couple of episodes of all the talent show formats. It's the parade of those desperate enough to do anything to be on TV. Those that can't sing. Those that only think they can dance. Those that can't remember lyrics etc.

Variety is saying that Dave Attell has been tapped to host the new Gong Show for Comedy Central.

We have sources that say the Gong Show tried to make a come back a couple of years ago but it never happened. Apparently PAs in lieu of casting directors were trolling local open-mikes asking 'talent' if they wanted to be on the Gong Show - the said PAs being too young to realize asking a self-appointed 'singer' and song writer to be on the Gong Show was an insult.

And uh - Gore Vidal will be there on June 24, so mark your iPhones.

For more information about this event or Town Hall, go here.

In today's Morning Call Time podcast, John Logan and Gore Verbinski go into bioshock, Alexander Payne gets hung, and two hours of Lost get found.

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In a move that is innovative, interesting and downright creepy, latimes.com announced a new feature called ICU in which a vid-journo stalks the people on freeways, street corners and the "missed connections" section of Craigslist.

The idea, from what we can tell, is to allow journo Katy Newton to find the real stories of "real people." But it sounds real prying. We're gonna try to connect with her ourselves in a minute here and report back to you. In the meantime, here's the press release:

continued...

Sources close to Ryan Seacrest have confirmed to FBLA that Ryan Seacrest is in talks with CNN to shimmy into Larry King's chair. Now "talks" can mean a lot of things, and our source also says, "I don't think it's going to happen."

Why?

Well, for one thing Ryan is currently the host of... everything. E! News, American Idol, a popular KIIS-FM radio show -- not to mention a producer. Taking on Larry King's show would almost certainly mean shedding all those responsibilities and losing much of the Ryan Seacrest "brand." Plus our source doubts CNN would want to fork up the cash it'd take to get Ryan out of his other obligations.

Our big question, though, is why would Ryan even want to do this? Sure Paris Hilton has been on Larry King -- and, yes, Ryan interviewed Hillary Clinton -- but could Ryan seriously keep from nodding off while talking to political wonks?

In a word, our source says: "Yes."

"His background is in being a generalist. He's known for his work with celebrities, but he came up through mass radio. He could pull it off."

We're not sure if our source meant King's job or his suspenders.

An Indiana man saying that Barack Obama is a Muslim got quoted in three separate newspapers and wasn't corrected according to Media Matters.

The LAT article by staff writer Peter Nicholas says:

"I can't stand him," he said. "He's a Muslim. He's not even pro-American as far as I'm concerned."

Obama seemed unfazed. He had better luck at a round table where several men were eating.

The article never explained that Obama isn't a Muslim - he's a member of a Christian megachurch headed by Rev. Jeremiah Wright that made news because he scares the crap out of white people. At least get your foreboding religious zealot story straight. Geez.

A judge ordered that Toni Locy reporter at the subversive rag USA Today pay out-of-pocket fines to upwards of $5000 a day for not revealing her sources. She was given a stay while her an appeals court looked at her case.

We've been following this case because it's worse than fiction. Nothing you can make up can be more bone chilling and frightening to reporters or to the integrity of The Constitution. But if tyranny and Bush appointees give you a warm and fuzzy feeling - here's your feel good story from the Boston Globe:

"Nicky Scarfo can have a defense fund," Locy said. "Scooter Libby can have a defense fund. But I can't have a defense fund."

Is this a great country, or what? Scooter Libby can lie for an administration that had already lied us into a needless war, get a free pass from the guy who runs that administration, and we're going to throw Locy in jail?

Judge [Reggie] Walton said, from the bench, that he hoped his ruining Locy would make other government officials less likely to talk to reporters.

That's nice. The last time I checked, the country is a mess not because the press has too much power, but because the government does.

Shudder.

LA Weekly's Patrick McDonald wrote a piece about Nudelman's passing.

We Are Officially The Only People Who Didn't Think Ang Lee's Film Sucked: This John Horn piece about the new Hulk film is one of many that accepts Lee's suckitude as a foregone conclusion. This... makes... us... so... angry!

Rabbi Rushfield's Eulogy: "And so we bid farewell to Jason Castro, American Idol's first hippy finalist. With his piercing eyes, goofy remarks, perpetual smile and unmistakable sweet nature, he was a contestant who was impossible not to like... Whether through his music or his personality, Castro always brought a bit of fun to the Idol stage, was never just filler, and for that we wish him well and treasure the time we've shared in the Idoldome."

Steal This: "The six major Hollywood studios have won a $111-million judgment for copyright infringement against shut-down file-sharing website TorrentSpy.com."