• AgencySpy: Because everyone loves babies and puppies, here's a little something from E*Trade. (Just press "stop" to make it shut up.)

• NPR: Ian Chillag attempts to use every banned word or phrase on Tribune CEO Ryan Michaels' list. It is, really, the mother of all blog posts, folks.

• Facebook: MSNBC Digital has launched a Breaking News feature on Facebook. I love the idea, but. It's Complicated.

• The Wrap: Conan O'Brien (No. I will not now nor will I ever refer to the man as "CoCo.") took to Twitter to announce that he's going on tour. In related news, Jay Leno wants to be your friend on MySpace.

• PRNewser: PRNewser is at the PRWeek Awards because they're better than you.

RadarOnline.com, America's pinkest news source, today broke its biggest exclusive since last week's colossally untrue scoop that John Roberts was about to resign.

TVNewser has the story:

Radar Online reports that rapper Ludacris and FNC's Bill O'Reilly finally met at a recent event. "He wasn't expecting to see me, at all," Ludacris told Radar. "The look on his face when he saw me approaching... priceless." The two haven't always seen eye to eye in the past. (h/t ICN)

Update: Roland Martin informs us that the "recent event" Radar is describing was actually last May's White House Correspondent's dinner. "[Ludacris] told me that story himself," Martin said. "O'Reilly later made a donation to Luda's charity." Radar, Radar, Radar...

On the bright side, calling a nearly year-old event "recent" isn't nearly as bad as incorrectly reporting that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court will step down. At this rate of progress, RadarOnline.com should have an actual breaking news story by 2011.

Last night, Dwell Media revealed the findings of their newly-created "Dwell Strategy and Research" division's study regarding the "New Face of Affluence." As we mentioned in an earlier post, the study took an in-depth dive into the buying habits and motivations, desires, brand loyalties and concerns of a select group of individuals. The group consisted 2,230, 61% of whom are men, who are mostly in their 40s and came from households with an income of over 100,000. Interestingly, not all of those surveyed were Dwell magazine subscribers, although all involved did have some familiarity with Dwell Media as a multi-platform brand.

The report includes mentions of 620 brands ranging from the likes of Target and IKEA to LVMH Group and Richemont.

Click through for more information on what Dwell Strategy and Research discovered -- and what this information means for consumers and brands alike.

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Reuters has released a new "social media policy" to instruct journalists how and when to promote stories and share breaking news over social media networks. Included in this policy is a mandate to not "scoop the wire," or break stories via Twitter.

According to the policy's intro:

We want to encourage you to use social media approaches in your journalism but we also need to make sure that you are fully aware of the risks -- especially those that threaten our hard-earned reputation for independence and freedom from bias or our brand. The recommendations below offer general guidance with more detailed suggestions for managing your presence on the most popular social networks.

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The New York Times - NYU collaboration, "The Local East Village," announced in February, now has a promotional video to recruit aspiring journalists.

"The Local East Village" hopes deploy unpaid NYU student - journalists to provide coverage of the neighborhood. In exchange, the students get exposure to beat coverage and the chance to work for a New York Times project. The project met with some criticism on its announcement for relying on unpaid labor to perform the important task of local New York coverage, among other things.

In the video, "The Local East Village" editor Rich Jones promises that "You get to work in one of the most dynamic neighborhoods in New York City, and you get to work with journalists who have a great deal of experience working at the highest level of the profession."

Video after the jump. Thanks to the Observer for the point.

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Perhaps you've heard that social media is an important, somewhat new way for online users to engage the news. USA Today has heard that too, and so today it created a team specifically devoted to social media.

The paper has moved its former Online Marketing Manager, Brian Dresher, into the role of Manager, Social Media and Digital Partnerships. Alexandra Nicholson, who previously worked as a communications manager at USAToday, will now manage social media strategy.

In addition to manning a USA Today corporate Twitter account, the pair will helm the USA Today Social Media Lounge, a WordPress blog (slogan: "We're all in this together"), which offers "a living, breathing look at what USA Today is doing every day through marketing, communications and social media efforts." Readers can also expect "tips, case studies, best practices and general feedback on social media."

UPDATE: A total of 25 staffers are being cut from Bloomberg BusinessWeek today. The layoffs are a result of job redundancies following the merger between Bloomberg and BusinessWeek. Despite job losses, BusinessWeek insiders say the publication expects its Tokyo bureau to grow.

Today marks the second round of layoffs at BusinessWeek one month before the publication's anticipated April relaunch.

Those who have been cut from the publication include media and marketing writer Tom Lowry and Michelle Conlin, who focused on "workplace issues." Both had been senior writers at the publication.

The New York Times' Adam Nagourney is leaving his post covering U.S. politics in DC to become the paper's Los Angeles bureau chief.

Before joining the NYT as chief national political correspondent, Nagourney worked at the Gannett Westchester Newspaper, the New York Daily News and USA Today.

Mark your calendars: Mediabistro is holding its annual Mediabistro Circus, a conference about media and technology, on May 20, 2010 at New York City's 92YTribeca. This year's theme: "Visionaries and Provocateurs: Women in Media and Technology."

This year's speakers include:

• Alice McKown, executive director of marketing at Conde Nast Digital, on Social Media

• Lisa Hsia, senior vice president at Bravo Digital Media, on the Next Age of Broadcasting

• Susan Lyne, CEO at Gilt Groupe, on Taking a Fresh Approach

• Carol Smith, SVP, chief brand officer at ELLE Group, on Embracing Risk

• Brandon Holley, editor in chief, Yahoo! Shine, on Online Communities for Women

For a complete list of speakers and the agenda, check out the Mediabistro circus Web site.

Tribune Co. CEO Randy Michaels is sick and tired of your empty "lingo" and cliched phrasing, people.

Michaels took it upon himself to release a list of 119 words and phrases he would rather anchors for Chicago's WGN-AM never use again because many sound too "conversational." And folks, we gotta admit that, even though we've been guilty of the senseless crime of resorting to clichés in reporting, we're inclined to agree with Michael's list. These'll positively make your head spin, guys! Allegedly.

The full list is after the jump. Enjoy.

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NYT Co. Chairman Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., spoke on the keynote panel at the BusinessWeek media summit.

Anyone hoping to get some good dirt on The New York Times' business operations would've left this morning's BusinessWeek Media Summit panel with Times Co. Chairman Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., and CEO Janet Robinson feeling sorely disappointed.

The keynote discussion, held at the McGraw-Hill building in Manhattan and moderated by BusinessWeek Assistant Managing Editor Jim Ellis, only briefly touched on topics of great interest like Carlos Slim's sizable stake in Times Co. Another pressing matter, The Wall Street Journal's forthcoming Metro section, viewed by many as a direct attack on the Times, was never mentioned.

After the audience filed out, one reporter said to FishbowlNY, "What a blowjob."

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While many publications are either erecting or planning to build pay walls for their online content, Condé Nast says the company has no current plans to follow suit.

Speaking at the Bloomberg BusinessWeek 2010 Media Summit, Julie Michalowski, vice-president for business development at Condé Nast, shared the company's thoughts on pay walls:

All of a sudden walling off our content and saying you can't have it, I don't think that's the right strategy.

What we want to continue to do is to build digital relationships so that we can have a multi-channel relationship with our consumers that includes print and includes other ways that they want to access us.

Coné Nast's titles have already been looking into ways of expanding their content across different platforms, with GQ preparing an iPad version of their magazines, and Vogue introducing an advertiser-friendly iPhone app called "Vogue Stylist."