• AgencySpy: Here is a military-grade fart smuggler for your partner’s chemical weapons-grade flatulence. Although, true story, I accidentally dutch ovened myself in my own cold lonely bed this morning. So, thanks, infomercial, for allowing me to feel not only totally disgusting, but also chronically alone.

• Founditinabar: Oh man. I know what I’m going to be reading as I drink by myself in front of my laptop tonight!

• FishbowlDC: The White House Correspondents’ Dinner has an awkward seating arrangement. Who is going to get a booster seat for Justin Bieber? Or Sally Quinn?

• Bitch: Blogging while female is tough. It seems our only choices are to tell TMI-ified personal anecdotes (like, say, fart stories), blog about fashioooooon, or have been famous to begin with. So glad I went with option 3.

Shares in media companies fell nearly across the board as the broader market lost serious ground thanks to the SEC investigation of Goldman Sachs and uncertainty over financial reform. The S&P 500 lost 2.6% to end at 1186.68.

Earnings season continued, offering investors additional insight into the health of the media space. Financial Times publisher Pearson (PSO) on Friday announced first-quarter revenue growth of 7%. Shares nevertheless lost 1.2% on the week to end at $15.97.

Shares of The Daily Beast operator IAC/Interactive (IACI) lost 4.6% to close at $22.45. The company on Wednesday announced a first-quarter loss that had narrowed compared with the first quarter of 2009. In a conference call with analysts, CEO Barry Diller said the iPad would play an important role in the company’s future. Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO), also posted a narrowed first-quarter loss on Wednesday. Shares fell 2.3% to $6.68.

Meredith Corp. (MDP), which publishes Family Circle and other consumer titles, announced it made a fiscal third-quarter profit that climbed 31% year over year. Shares nevertheless fell 3.2% to $35.93.

Weekly stock results for The New York Times Co., Gannett, Lee Enterprises and more after the jump.

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The Huffington Post this week debuted a new audio blog featuring interviews from “The Kathleen Show” – a nationally syndicated radio program hosted by Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau. We spoke a bit with Kathleen to learn a little more about the program and what we can expect to hear.

A filmmaker and health advocate, Kathleen’s show focuses on empowerment and, as she tells us, “going for it.” Going for it, as it were, could mean delving into myriad topics including food, spirituality, the green movement, film, literature, and health care – which Kathleen hopes to discuss in a way that brings attention to alternative, and not necessarily Western, means of medical practices and techniques. Kathleen told us she also hopes that her show will help show people that prevention and living a healthy lifestyle are sexy rather than boring. As if regular colonoscopies are ever boring or unsexy.

Kathleen refers to her interviews as “raw, solid,” and a listen at the first interview and write-up she placed on the newly-launched blog, “God gets a makeover,” fits that description quite nicely. She talks with William Paul Young, the author of the New York Times bestseller The Shack [Which, if I'm not mistaken, is a book that made my dad cry just a little]. Both interviewer and interviewee tear up a bit at some point in the process, which is usually a sign that the interview is going either well or terrible or terribly well.

Each week, although not on any specific day, Kathleen will choose one interview from her radio series along with a roughly 300-word write-up that offers either a personal take on the subject matter discussed, or a behind-the-scenes look at the show.

Given that the slogan for her radio show is “Grab Life by the Ovaries” (Bruising!), we asked Kathleen whether her series and accompanying blog posts would be primarily skewed towards female visitors. Kathleen told us that the theme of “going for it” is universal and that, although her audience is 60 percent comprised of women, she does and will focus on both gender-neutral and males-specific shows – like, for example, how to prevent prostate cancer. In ways that are, naturally, sexy and not boring.

Audio content, Kathleen believes, is an interesting form media to people that will add a new layer to HuffPo’s multimedia coverage. And she hopes that Huffington Post visitors will be able to listen to her segments at their leisure, interact with her and one another via online comments, as well as share stories that interest them via social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Give her show a listen and let us know what you think. And her accent? Is Wisconsinian. In case you were wondering.

The New York Times has placed David Firestone on its editorial board, according to a memo from editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal published by Romenesko.

Firestone — who has been a deputy national editor, national correspondent and Queens bureau chief, among other things — replaces Adam Cohen, who will soon be teaching at Yale Law School. News of Cohen’s departure emerged in early March.

You can read the full memo here.

Yesterday, the Gerald Ford Foundation announced the winners of the 2009 Gerald Ford Awards for Distinguished Reporting.

Associated Press White House correspondent Ben Feller won the Gerald Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency. The award recognizes that he broke news that Obama had chosen to nominate Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court and for quickly filing stories that gave insight into the president’s character. Feller joined the AP in January 2003.

Greg Jaffe, who reports on the military for The Washington Post, won the prize for National Defense for his reporting from the battlefields of Afghanistan. Jaffe joined the post in March 2009. He has also worked for The Wall Street Journal and written a book titled The Fourth Star.

Each writer took home $5,000 for his efforts.

(h/t Romenesko)

In response to the ongoing intrigue surrounding the Case of the Wayward iPhone, Slate‘s Jack Shafer examines the moral and practical implications of paying sources for information. (Gawker Media ponied up $5,000 for its iPhone exclusive.)

Shafer says paying for information isn’t always bad, wondering aloud whether people would have minded if Daniel Ellsberg had charged The New York Times for a look at the Pentagon Papers, or whether it would have been so bad if some $$ had greased the skids to get the Abu Ghraib photos published sooner. In those circumstances, the way of getting the information wouldn’t be as important as the information itself.

But, there are caveats. Shafer also says it would cost too much to sort through all the information that would flood the market. He then goes on to say that paying for stories poses an economic problem:

In my nightmare scenario, sources of free information would dry up and people would charge a metered rate just to talk. As my questions started to converge upon the answers I was looking for, I’d become hostage to my source as he flipped the flag on his meter and said, “More questions? More money!” Oh, the haggling that would ensue! Where would I ever find the time to file the actual story?

He then goes on to admit that there’s already a lot of money changing hands (TV networks routinely pay sources for photos and comp their travel). Since that’s the case, we’d venture, Shafer’s nightmare scenario is already here.

Greg Osberg, formerly the president and publisher of Newsweek, is the new publisher and CEO of the Daily News, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philly.com.

In taking the helm at the yet-unnamed company (formerly Philadelphia Newspapers LLC), Obserg is set to pave the way towards focusing more on digital media initiatives, such as providing content for smart phones or the iPad.

Osberg’s appointment comes one day after the bankrupt company was auctioned off to its lenders for $139 million.

Pearson (PSO), the company behind the Financial Times, today announced that its first-quarter revenue rose 7% to $1.66 billion. Part of the increase was due to improving newspaper-ad sales.

The Guardian reports:

FT Publishing, the division that owns the Financial Times, has seen strong demand for subscriptions in print and online and “return to growth” in advertising revenues contribute to a “good first quarter”. Like pretty much all media owners, Pearson suffered “sharp declines” in ad revenues in 2009.

“We are encouraged by a more positive environment for corporate and financial advertising, but booking remain volatile and visibility remains poor,” the company said.

The company expects profit to grow in 2010. Pearson also owns Penguin Publishing and a piece of The Economist.

The Associated Press announced yesterday that it will begin pursuing new digital initiatives, after the news collective’s board of directors voted unanimously to do so.

The board resolved to pursue new opportunities related to Web search, content distribution and social networking. “Within a year, we will be in a position, as an industry, to play on any device and build audiences with our own tools and products. That’s the new day we’ve been working toward,” said Dean Singleton, chairman of the AP board of directors.

In one specific digital innovation, the news organization announced the launch of a News Registry and a “destination microsite” geared toward college-football fans who follow the AP’s Top 25 poll. The football project is slated to launch in August.

The AP expects its News Registry to involve the participation of 600 newspapers by the time it launches on July 14.

Playboy‘s Leopold Froehlich, the magazine’s current executive editor, has been promoted to managing editor.

Froelich has been with Playboy for 19 years.