NYT: Forget Gossip, Girl; the Buzz Is About the Clothes

Swampland: The Politics of Lil' Wayne

Modesto Bee: Judge Dismisses Condit Lawsuit Against Author

On The Media: Talking A Red Streak

The Meredith Corporation has announced the departure of Ladies Home Journal editor-in-chief Diane Salvatore. Salvatore will be replaced by Parents editor Sally Lee, who will also oversee Circle, Fitness, American Baby Group, and Ser Padres.

The move appears to be part of a larger re-shuffling at Meredith, something Portfolio attributes to last month's departure of editorial director Mike Lafavore. Other changes include Gayle Butler to Senior Vice President, where in addition to being Editor-in-Chief of Better Homes & Gardens, she will be editorial director of Country Home, Traditional Home and Midwest Living. As well, Dan Hickey moves to Vice President, Digital Content and Jim Blume to Group Editor. Full memo after the jump.

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So by this point it's no secret how we feel about Maureen Dowd and her gender-twisting habits, but even though we are quick to point out her shortcomings we were also quick to realize that the Obama smear email making the rounds right now that purports to be a June 29 Dowd column (complete with her byline, and the Times' font — as if these things are hard to fake) accusing Obama of accepting online funds from "Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other Middle Eastern countries" was not actually by Dowd. And that's not just because we recall reading her June 29 column! Nope, what immediately clued us in is that fact that the real MoDo rarely talks money (a point she makes herself), rarely breaks news (she's an opinion columnist, not a reporter!) and rarely misses an opportunity to describe Obama as being effeminate, or Hillary as a ball-buster, or for that matter, tie it all in in some way to Bill's ego or W's daddy complex.

To her credit, Dowd herself didn't seem too fazed by the whole thing: "The line about it being the 'most shocking revelation,' I don't think I've ever said those words, except in a satire. Also, it is about money, which I never write about...Sometimes you try and protest things you hear about, but sometimes it's just not worth it... It is hard to track down and control these things, and anyone who reads my column knows that this wasn't me. I got to the second line and I knew it wasn't me." [Yep, emphasis added.]

The 2008 Olympics kick off in exactly one month and China — which was awarded the games in part because of its promises to relax its draconian policies on foreign media reporters — seems to be reverting back to its old ways.

According to a report issued yesterday by the Human Rights Watch, entitled "China's Forbidden Zones, Shutting the Media out of Tibet and Other 'Sensitive' Stories," (brought to our attention by BusinessWeek's fine article), the communist government is limiting journalist access throughout the country. The report argues that the Olympics committee is "trying to extort favorable coverage in exchange for accreditation to cover the Games."

While we wouldn't call the news a surprise — China banned The Huffington Post, after all — but does seem strange after what the rest of the world took to be excellent coverage of the devastating earthquake.

Our friends at Writer's Digest published their list of 101 Best Web sites for writers for 2008 and we're on it. Well, not FishbowlNY exactly (foiled again!), but rather mediabistro.com. WD specifically highlights our job board, but we're partial to the whole site.

So, hooray us?

(The other 100 Web sites are worth a glance as well. There are some hidden gems among the usual suspects.)

We're running out of relationship metaphors to describe the on-again, off-again business dealings between Yahoo, Microsoft and more recently, Carl Icahn. As it stands the trio appears to be somewhere between Three's Company and Melrose Place.

Over the week-end reports surfaced that Icahn, who is currently waging a proxy battle against Yahoo's board, had convinced Microsoft to publicly renew its interest in Yahoo's search business as long as Yahoo replaces its board. The question now, according to the New York Post, is whether Icahn can convince the Yahoo board to trust him to make the deal happen and sell the company at a premium, something Yahoo head Jerry Yang was unable or unwilling to do. This renewed interest on the party of Microsoft is apparently the result of a number of conversations Icahn had last week with Microsoft head Steven Ballmer and may signal Microsoft's "acknowledgment that it badly needs Yahoo to compete with Google in Web advertising." For their part Yahoo seemed less confident in Microsoft's committment saying

If Microsoft and Mr. Ballmer really want to purchase Yahoo, we again invite them to make a proposal immediately...And if Mr. Icahn has an actual plan for Yahoo beyond hoping that Microsoft might actually consummate a deal which they have repeatedly walked away from, we would be very interested in hearing it.

When Hearst isn't parting ways with its CEO or poaching EICs from rival companies — causing the shuttering of yet another magazine, no less — the company's trying to extend its digital reach. The latest offering is Delish.com, a food Web site launched in conjunction with MSN.

Debuting this fall, Delish.com will feature editorial content developed by Hearst Magazines digital media team — whose VP we spoke with in April — and by sold by MSN's sales team, who also sell food-related inventory on Countryliving.com, Goodhousekeeping.com, Quickandsimple.com and Redbookmag.com. According to a release, it will be one of the Top 10 food-related destinations online.

The site is currently dark, but it's coming. We assure you.

The full release is after the jump.

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We were on a Peter Pan bus Sunday afternoon, so we missed most of the epic, seven-hour Wimbledon final between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. The rest of the country, however, was watching in huge numbers.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the match averaged 4.6 overnight household rating and a 12 share between 9 a.m. and 4:45 p.m. It was the highest-rated final since 2000, when Pete Sampras defeated Patrick Rafter and up 44 percent from last year's Federer-Nadal final. The audience stayed strong despite a 70-minute rain delay in the second set and a shorter one in the fifth set.

In dramatic executive fashion, NBC sports president Ken Schanzer compared the match to a play: "The first act was Nadal. The second act was Federer. The third act was the denounement, the resolution. The drama just kept building." We've never been to a play with a rain delay, but perhaps we just slept through it?

We're trying to buy the worldwide rights of a well-known American magazine while leaving the North American rights with the parent company...We sort of think it's a win-win for everybody. This is a big company, a sensible company, but they do not engage in much worldwide activity. They've got a good title that will do well in places like India, China, Russia. But they need someone to go and do it. And we're not going to do it unless we own it. And that means shared ownership.

We're not sure if this is a case of following the money or just escaping the lack of it, but LA Observed is reporting that two of the LA Times' top reporters are jumping ship to join up with ProPublica the online non-profit investigative journalism website helmed by former WSJer Paul Steiger.

Charles Ornstein and Tracy Weber won a Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for reporting on the deaths at King-Drew Medical Center, and in June Ornstein was honored as a journalist of the year by the Los Angeles Press Club. Their departures take place in the wake of last week's sweeping staff cuts at the LAT, which were themselves part of Sam Zell's intended "deep cuts" for all Tribune Co. papers. It's a blow to the LAT newsroom, and if it becomes a trend one wonders if the deep cuts will end up being fatal ones.

That was fast. Only hours after Hearst's announcement that Susan Reed, current editor-in-chief at Golf For Women was leaving her post to helm O, The Oprah Magazine, Conde Nast said it intended to fold Golf For Women for good effective immediately. Of the decision, which will affect about 30 people and apparently only took hours to come to, Conde Nast said: "We came to this decision because we feel the magazine will not support our long-term business objectives."

Portfolio says that the magazine economy being what it is, "it's easier to shut down a magazine with dozens of employees than to hire one new one," also suggesting that in the wake of Quick and Simple's shuttering last week this may just be the beginning of a long summer for magazine folk.

We missed this last week, but felt it was worth a mention (and not just because he's Canadian) since before there were blogs we depended on NY1's Pat Kiernan to read us the morning paper (the NY Post's headlines take on a new level of amusement via Kiernan's "deadpan" rendering).

For "In the Papers," Mr. Kiernan starts with The New York Times, the Daily News and the New York Post, which he calls the "core of the segment." Then comes The Sun, which Mr. Kiernan says "clearly in the past few months ousted Newsday as the fourth-most-cited newspaper. That's as much about The Sun as that what Newsday is doing is dishonest. They slap something about New York City on the front page — they've really given up...They do some good Albany reporting and things like that, so I won't ignore it, but it's tough to hold up the front page with some story from far out on Long Island. I look at The Observer and The Voice on Wednesday and make a decision based on what else I have and whether there's time for a particular story."

MoDo's "An Ideal Husband" is still riding high as the Times most emailed article. For those of you who missed it, in another "gender twisting" twist, Dowd has sought out some happy marriage advice from Father Pat Connor, a 79-year-old Catholic priest based in Bordentown, N.J.; it may be too late for Christie Brinkley and A-Rod, but it's not too late for you! And what is the key to marital bliss according to Father Conner? Basically it boils down to using your head, not your heart.

Hollywood says you can be deeply in love with someone and then your marriage will work, but you can be deeply in love with someone to whom you cannot be successfully married...Don't marry a problem character thinking you will change him. He's a heavy drinker, or some other kind of addict, but if he marries a good woman, he'll settle down. People are the same after marriage as before, only more so...After I regale a group with this talk, the despairing cry goes up: 'But you’ve eliminated everyone!' Life is unfair.

Politico, FishbowlDC and Portfolio have been predicting it for a while (though maybe the Times doesn't read other blogs?), and now it's official: the Washington Post has named Marcus W. Brauchli as its new executive editor.

Brauchli's appointment follows a period of some upheaval at WaPo that saw a large buyout at the paper as well as the appointment of new publisher Katharine Weymouth. Long-time WaPo executive editor Len Downie announced his retirement last month, and many see this appointment as Weymouth's attempt to "put her stamp on one of the nation's great newspapers." Brauchli was most recently managing editor at the Wall St. Journal but resigned in April amidst rumors that he no longer felt welcome under Rupe's new regime. Is this just the beginning of structural changes at WaPo? FBDC seems to think so, apparently they've been hearing that that some managing editors may be added to the mix or that an entirely different leadership structure may eventually be put in place. They also have Weymouth's full memo announcing the appointment.

We all know "notable" New Yorkers never get tired of hearing about themselves, much as the blogosphere never tires of writing about them. To that end, Gawker is reporting that Cityfile, the brainchild of Remy Stern, has gone live. According to the site, Cityfile aims to be a "guide to the most notable and influential New Yorkers, more than 2,100 people divided into 27 industry categories. The editorial content on the site, which was assembled by a talented team of writers, editors and researchers, is updated regularly." It's also home to a blog, Dailyfile, . In case you're wondering, as far as Cityfile is concerned, there are currently 2109 "notables" residing in New York; at the moment Harvey Weinstein is the "most viewed" media entry.

Contributions are welcome in the form of comments and readers will also be allowed to rate people and upload photos. It appears that not only will entries sometimes include real estate purchase prices and "messy" histories, they may also contain actual current addresses(!). So basically, it's sort of like Gawker Stalker meets the bathroom wall for the Waverly Inn set.