Add another chapter (and headache for Rupert Murdoch) to the imbroglio surrounding former Wall Street Journal managing editor Marcus Brauchli‘s departure: A report published this afternoon on WSJ‘s own site — essentially pitting News Corp. against Dow Jones in a moral mano y mano —asserts that the “special committee established to oversee The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial integrity said its members should have been informed earlier that the newspaper’s managing editor, Marcus Brauchli, had been pressured to resign.” But the damning article alone wasn’t all…

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This morning, three of BBC America’s most popular shows, Robin Hood, Torchwood and Little Britain, became available. It’s the first time programs from the network can be downloaded to own.

Beth Clearfield, vice president of digital media and business development, BBC Worldwide America, who said she “was excited at 6 a.m. this morning,” was kind enough to answer some questions about the initiative.

Because of Britain’s complex usership laws, “There were a lot of clearance obstacles, specifically around music,” she told us when we asked whether getting the programs to iTunes was easy. “We’ve been talking to Apple for over a year to make this happen.”

“We wanted to launch with the right mix and the right titles,” she continued. “Robin Hood season 1 was a big hit and season 2 is just starting.”

In the future, she hopes to get more titles in the mix. “Apple’s gone out of their way to help make this happen and we have the same ideas about what we’d like to see next,” she said. Stay tuned… for the release after the jump.

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Ahead of his new novel’s summer release, recovery community persona non grata — or is that exonerated mag-world feature-bait — James Frey is the subject of Evgenia Peretz‘s latest Vanity Fair profile opus in the mag’s June issue. Bookish bro GalleyCat politely implies that Frey’s claim of not doing any further media is about as sound as Jay-Z saying he’s doing just this one last tour/album/impromptu club date.

Amid the 7,000+ words Monday-morning quarterbacking how Frey’s A Million Little Pieces was intended by the author only as a semi-memoir yet was billed by his publisher as memoir gospel to the heartbreak of Oprah and actual addicts everywhere, causing it to blow up into, well, you know, this part struck us:

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Last week, the Financial Times — clearly not content to take over the Middle East — held its 5th annual “Meet the FT New York” party at 30 Rock. Sheryl Sandberg, the new COO of Facebook, gave the keynote, while guests included Dow Jones EVP and CFO Stephen Daintith, Jane Friedman and Thomas Matussek, Ambassador of Germany to the UN (not as cool as a Cardinal, but whatevs). The media kids — NYT‘s Tim Arango, Jonathan Wald, our own Laurel Touby and hubby Jon Fine, Gloria Steinem, Jason Rapp, Steve Rattner, etc. etc. — came for the Bellinis and stayed for the Blinis with American Caviar and Creme Fraiche.

And there were pictures (and more names)…

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Edelman gets in on the Tribeca Film Festival act, Vodpod redesigns with a simpler browser interface and FremantleMedia teams up with Heavy.com to launch LoveRace. Here’s Amy Palmer with today’s Daily Angle.

When we last left Rolling Stone‘s political correspondent, Matt Taibbi, he was taking a break from the never-ending primary season. Since then, he’s feuded with Erica Jong, of all people and received his first National Magazine Award nomination in the Columns and Commentary category. We caught up with him recently to ask whether it’s even possible to be more vitriolic than fellow nominee (and defending champ) Christopher Hitchens, who’s churlishly defended the war about as loudly as Taibbi has attacked it and its architects.

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The Nielsen Company quit pink-slipping staffers for the time being, announcing today that former Discover Card exec Mark Hosbein would step in as its new senior vice president, marketing.

Full release follows…

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PopSugar‘s expanding its Gotham coverage with the hire of its first NY-based full-time editor. Lorena O’Neil, who freelanced for the already forgotten PageSix.com, joins the site as associate editor from Steve and Barry, where she was director of special projects.

“We are excited to add our first New York PopSugar team member with Lorena O’Neil. With the addition of Lorena we will now have a greater ability to cover live events in the Big Apple and stay on top of the latest celebrity happenings regardless of time zones,” editor-in-chief Lisa Sugar said in a release.

PopSugar’s parent company, Sugar Inc., will hire additional editorial help for FabSugar and BellaSugar later this summer, so dust off those resumes. Or don’t.

Everyone’s favorite site for the elderly set announced the hiring of three staffers today. New senior editor Gary Drevitch will coordinate and oversee the Expert Advice section, which includes our favorite category, “Ask a Therapist.” Shelly Lipton comes aboard as chief marketing officer, while Bryan Rackleff jumps on as executive creative director.

It’s great to be grand. It’s also great to have a job.

We’ll let editor-in-chief Jonathan Dorn do the honors:

Since last September, we have been architecting what our readers said they wanted: more multimedia content, GPS-enabled hikes, current gear reviews, and loads of interactive trip tools. This site is not only a reflection of Backpacker, but also our readers.

Architecting, is that sort of like slacklining?