We’ve moved from a dollop of salt to a giant pepper grinder. At least that’s the view of Doug Porter, who offers a hilarious quick-take reaction in the San Diego Free Press to the wave of coverage sparked by Hillel Aron’s barn-busting LA Weekly item:

The rumor mills continue unabated, like a distracted waiter with an oversized pepper grinder ruining a Caesar salad at a faux fine dining restaurant. My favorite take of the day on the latest LA Times speculation was in Forbes:

“LA Weekly pegs the price of the Tribune newspaper group at about $600 million. By my calculations, that’s a little more than Charles and David pull in dividends from Koch Industries each year — after reinvesting 90% of the profits back in the business. So no question they can swing it. But after a career of successfully investing in businesses that make money, I am not sure Charles Koch wants into this one.”

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The Hollywood Reporter has added some editing fire power to its website. Per an announcement this morning, Seth Abramovitch has been appointed deputy editor, while Erin Carlson and Jordan Zakarin have joined the publication as staff editors.

Abramovitch once worked alongside Mark Lisanti as an editor of defamer.com. He also helped relaunch movieline.com and has contributed to gawker.com. Carlson comes over to THR.com from AP, where she covered TV, while Zakarin was previously an entertainment editor and reporter with The Huffington Post.

“I’m very happy to welcome Seth, Erin and Jordan,” said editorial director Janice Min. “Their talents and diverse backgrounds in online journalism will be an asset as THR.com continues to expand.”

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