The blog just launched Monday and functions like a guide to the 2012 presidential election. It has brief analysis of all the Republican candidates, photo galleries and medium-length thought pieces on the primary process from the magazine’s esteemed writers, such as Jeffrey Toobin, Ryan Lizza and Jane Mayer.

There’s a lot of content but it’s got a few setbacks. First, the graphics appear to have been captured using IMAX technology. They’re massive. Of course, gigantic graphics lead to choppy display. Second, a banner with feature stories drops down and covers more than half the screen if you hover your cursor above a certain point. Lastly, scrolling itself is an odd experience. Navigation bars on the left and top of the screen remain stationary as you move up or down, but chunks of the screen run into each other then overlap to display the previous or following story. Readers may experience brief vertigo while browsing.

We’re not huge fans of the layout, but it’s a decent blog. Designers should simply keep in mind that not everyone is running on a double-screen multiprocessor computer system.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Photo L to R: Rick Klein, Robin Sproul, Richard Kaplan, Ross Levinsohn, Jonathan Karl, Amy Walter, Joe Ruffolo.

If you didn’t make it up to the rooftop of 101 Constitution Ave for Yahoo! News’ swanky soiree on Wednesday night, here’s a quick recap of what you missed:  Thrown by event extraordinaire Philip Dufour, the party was held in large part to welcome new DC bureau chief David Chalian.  In addition, the newsgroup used the opportunity to kick off their 2012 campaign coverage plans and to raise a glass to their partnership with ABC News.

Ross Levinsohn, Yahoo! EVP of the Americas  (and American University alum),  spoke about Yahoo! News’ expanding editorial coverage and presence in Washington to a crowd that included many familiar faces from ABC’s DC bureau:  Ann Compton, Jonathan Karl, Rick Klein, Polson Kanneth, Richard Kaplan, Amy Walter and Robin Sproul.  Also in attendance were WaPo‘s Dana Milbank, Neil Patel of the Daily Caller, NJ’s Chris Frates, Jane Mayer from the New Yorker, CNN’s Dan Lothian and Alex Mooney, Politico’s Marty Kady and Keach Hagey, Judy Kurtz of The Hill, NBC’s Adam Verdugo, MSNBC’s Karen Finney, CQ Roll Call’s Mark Walters and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

As alerted to us by Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at NYU, the faculty at NYU have chosen the top 10 works of journalism in the United States for the past decade between 2000-2009.

Some D.C. journos made the cut.

Number 6
Jane Mayer
The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals, 2008
A thorough and damning investigation, based on her New Yorker articles, of the Bush administration’s more questionable tactics in the war on terror. Read the piece here.

Number 9
Anne Hull, Dana Priest (reporters) and Michel du Cille (photographer)
Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration at Army’s Top Medical Facility, February 2007, The Washington Post
This two-part, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation of abuses at Walter Reed Army Medical Center exposed the substandard treatment soldiers received at this Washington, D.C., hospital and led to firings, resignations, government investigations and efforts to better care for those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Read the piece here.

Read the full list here.

Judges outside NYU including D.C.’s own Juan Williams of NPR: Madeleine Blais (University of Massachusetts), Gene Roberts (former editor Philadelphia Inquirer and New York Times), Dorothy Rabinowitz (Wall Street Journal), Morley Safer (60 Minutes), Ben Yagoda (University of Delaware), Eric Newton (Knight Foundation), Leon Dash (University of Illinois), Juan Williams (NPR), Sylvia Nasar (Columbia) and Greil Marcus (cultural critic).

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

CNN’s Candy Crowley has dropped five dress sizes. It was evident in her debut appearance Sunday of the show she now hosts, “State of the Union.” And people around town are noticing.

“Girlfriend totally looks like a different person,” said a source who occasionally runs into her doing errands.

As reported by our sister site TVNewser: Crowley won’t disclose how many pounds she’s lost, but says she’s down five dress sizes. She doesn’t own a scale. Exercise, diet and transcendental meditation led to the transformation, she says, which she embarked on to feel better, not to be an anchor.

Sunday’s show had girly touches on set, such as pink and yellow tulips in the background. There was also more estrogen on the whole – her first guest being Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a panel in which two of the three guests were women – CNN’s Dana Bash (wife of former “State of the Union” host CNN’s John King) and The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer. The third guest on the panel was WaPo’s Chris Cillizza, who said he didn’t feel outnumbered by the female-dominated show.

“It was an honor to be on Candy’s maiden voyage,” Cillizza wrote FishbowlDC by e-mail. “To be alongside Jane and Dana made it all the better. I really couldn’t be more thrilled for Candy — a great newswoman an even greater person.”

And Candymania continues…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Forget Kevin Bacon.

President Barack Obama and VP Joe Biden may be excluded from GQ‘s “50 Most Powerful in DC,” but looks like most of the list’s top half are one degree of separation from the West Wing.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, Senior Advisor David Axelrod, Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner and National Economic Council Director Larry Summers (tie), Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, former VP Dick Cheney and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts round out the top ten. The list may be a changing-of-the-guard from the Bush administration, but it’s a DC no-brainer.

Your DC media types are represented by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos at #31, Politico‘s John Harris #43 and The New Yorker‘s Jane Mayer and NYT‘s Scott Shane tied at #27.

Politico points out White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, though #20 on the last list, did not make the cut this time around.

The mag will celebrate the list with a party tonight at 701. And though obviously overlooked for “50 Most Powerful,” FBDC will be there. Check back tomorrow for dets.

The complete list, as polled by “journalists, congressmen, lobbyists, think tankers, and influence peddlers,” can be found here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

They polled 43 prominent journalists on whether journalism has been helped or hurt by the Internet- 65 percent said it has been hurt more, while 34 percent said it has been helped more.

On the coverage of President Obama- of 45 respondents, 71 percent say it has been “about right,” 22 percent say it’s been “too easy” and 7 percent say it has been “too tough.”

Those polled include: Peter Beinart, Gloria Borger, David Brooks, Carl Cannon, Tucker Carlson, Jonathan Chait, Roger Cohen, Steve Coll, Sam Donaldson, Bob Edwards, James Fallows, Howard Fineman, Frank Foer, Ron Fournier, Jeffrey Goldberg, Jeff Greenfield, Glenn Greenwald, David Gregory, Mark Halperin, Christopher Hitchens, Al Hunt, Mort Kondracke, Jim Lehrer, Ruth Marcus, Joshua Micah Marshall, Chris Matthews, Jane Mayer, Doyle McManus, John Micklethwait, Dana Milbank, Markos Moulitsas, Katherine McIntire Peters, Todd Purdum, Cokie Roberts, Eugene Robinson, Tom Shoop, Roger Simon, Scott Simon, Ray Suarez, Nina Totenberg, Linda Wertheimer, Leon Wieseltier, Juan Williams, Judy Woodruff, Fareed Zakaria.

Read the rest of The Atlantic/NJ’s findings here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.