The holiday weekend is nearly upon us, but we'd be remiss if we didn't link to the second mega-meta-blogging story to appear in a dinosaur media stalwart, this time the Financial Times. (And considering that paper's circulation decline at home, its editor should be worried.)

But not until after all the throat-clearing and the this-is-our-story-so-far-for-those-who-haven't-been-following-at-home exposition does the story turn interesting. That's when writer Trevor Butterworth heads to Choire Sicha's apartment.

Choire is an odd choice for this story. He's blogging a bit as part of his editorial duties at the New York Observer these days (an institution, it should be pointed out, that is talked about mostly because peaked, suffered the backlash, and then reset for the newbies sake.

"Satire," he told the FT, "is the most useless cultural effluvia one could possibly produce out of the cultural situation in America right now."

We won't be here on Monday (and we were barely here today), so if you happen to drop by that day, by all means read the piece. The only other thing we'd like to add is that we pointed out to Choire on Monday that he was the only editor of Gawker whose name no longer cropped up in the recaps. If his predecessor and successors were to die today, god forbid, Gawker would likely rate the second graph of their obits, at least. Of all of them, he had escaped with the least amount of baggage for his next act -- the former child actor who was least likely to end up addicted to meth.

It's my job at Fishbowl to observe, comment on and critique the New York media world - if I'm to have any credibility at all in so doing, I have to be able to look at Mediabistro and its properties with the same eyes.

So I can't let this go without comment: earlier this week, mothership (and my employer) Mediabistro published "2006: A Media New Year," a list of media predictions for 2006 from eleven "critics, commentators, and industry reporters." Here's the thing: all of them were male.

Now, I have no doubt that the omission was unintentional - author David Hirschman is an absolute doll, and a friend - but that is still unacceptable, especially when there are so many intelligent, savvy, qualified and witty women who know the industry and have smart, informed opinions. It's also an appalling message to send to the thousands of people who visit Mediabistro every day.

So on this, the last business day of 2005, I present th FishbowlNY round-up of some other expert prognosticators, with their thoughts on the coming year in this industry, by turns witty, intelligent, thoughtful, and insightful. Please note that this is NOT an exhaustive list; I only saw the article myself yesterday morning (my bad), and this is just who we were able to nab over 24 hours during a holiday week (one person even emailed from a boat in the Virgin Islands!). So stay tuned - I'll be updating this post as stuff comes in.

And now, I give you "2006: The Year in Media Predictions" by a bevy of smart, expert industry observers and participants who also just happen to be female.

Lynn Harris, Salon/"Broadsheet" contributor; author of "Miss Media" and, for the record, not E. Lynn Harris:

• CNN's new format: "Anderson Cooper 24/7."
  
• The Times will break the following news, again: Reggaeton is hot, blogging is popular, the Eighties are back.
  
• Also at the Times: the Styles section goes daily, replacing Science, Metro, and National.
  
• Oxygen Media continues to fail to appear on anyone's list of media
  predictions, or TiVo.
  
• Going out on limb here: A.J. Jacobs tries something, writes book.
  
• Mediabistro includes women in its 2007 list of prognosticators.

Myrna Blyth, NY Sun and NRO columnist, former editor of Ladies Home Journal, founding editor of More and author of "Spin Sisters: How the Women of the Media Sell Unhappiness - and Liberalism - to the Women of America":

• The internet will begin to take so much money out of print budgets that publishers will take a break from trashing each other and try to find new and ingenious ways to trash their web competitors. The MPA will commission a study to help.
  
• The New York Times Book Review will check out their reviewers' biases a bit more carefully but will continue to give conservative books crummy reviews.
  
• Hillary Clinton will try to firm up her base support among women. Expect a Hillary and Chelsea mother's day cover on some woman's magazine in May.
  
• Maureen Dowd will run a desperately seeking someone ad in the personal section of New York Magazine. Oh, sorry, she already did.

Wendy Shanker, author, "The Fat Girl's Guide To Life" (which, btw, is "Vere Curve" in Italian and "Dünn Sein War Gestern!" in German)

• Even more celebrity trash mags will come on the market, including massive flop Jessica Simpson Weekly, edited by the newly-free Janice Min.
  
• Magazines will continue to post celeb photos asking, "Is she too thin?" next to "Butt Be-Gone in Six Days!"
  
• "Lost" is actually autistic child's inner world
  
• TV ad industry sinks as digital video recording rules
  
• Music industry sinks as downloading rules
  
• Two of the "Desperate Housewives" will have to go to rehab for "exhaustion and dehydration" (put your money on Hatcher and Cross)
  
• Maureen Dowd marries Kenny Chesney and/or Keith Urban
  
• Americans continue to care more about celebrities than the state of the world
  
• ...and here's one for the long-term: Oprah in 2008!

Rachel Pine, author, "Twins of Tribeca, and "Communications Director, Doubledown Media:

• Journalists in all types of media will take what they learned from the coverage of the hurricanes and Plame and run with it. They have the power to wake people up and show them when their government is failing miserably, they possess the ability to move people in and out of office, and the responsibility to keep asking questions and not be satisfied with evasive or programmed answers. The fourth estate's back, baby!
  
• Advertisers will once again realize the power of print -- not necessarily huge, mainstream publications, but they will begin to understand, embrace and champion affinity publications as never before.
  
• Snarkiness will be replaced by leurve and compassion.

More fabulous female media commentators after the jump...suffice it to say that it is NOT an exhaustive list.

continued...

I'm taking a little break from chronicling the disrupted circadian rhythms of our city's stalwart photogs to send a little shout-out to print, echoing my position from Sunday night: the internet is great and all, but sometimes you just gotta love print. I get a bunch of magazines, including New York, but by the time they arrive I've already checked things out online. Sometimes I don't even crack it until the end of the week (New Yorker, too. I know! 30 lashes for me). Which is why I had such a pleasant surprise in the waiting area at Michael's this week: flipping through New York with the finally-actually-looking-his-age Viggo Mortensen on the cover, I actually kind of gasped at the gorgeous portfolio by Roger Deckker, particularly the high-def shot of Viggo, the two black and white shots of George Packer and Joan Snyder, and the amazing shot of Stephen Sondheim and heir-apparent Adam Guettel (that was the gasp moment. High-def Sondheim! He's so hummable). It just really drove home how pleasurable it is to read a magazine, especially for features like this (I'm not even including the link because the online version is so vastly inferior to the print version).

I will say this, though, about a certain item on pg. 58: Best Industry Development "Screw You, Toronto?" Aw! Not nice! Especially to one of your "Best New Yorkers of the Year," Will Arnett...born and raised, baby. Ditto clutch senior editor Adam Sternbergh...I'm just sayin'. Show the love.

Another nice mag-only moment this week: Howard Halle's interview wtih Gilbert Gottfried on the back page of Time Out. Just try to find it on line; you won't. (Update: Actually, you will, but not by Googling. Here is the magic link.)

What prompted me think to write this: receiving a heads-up email from New York publicist Betsy Burton about next week's issue, with the cover "117 Reasons to Love New York Right Now" and it made me think "117 Reasons to Love Print Right Now." There are more reasons of course; send 'em our way. Fisbhowl is at its happiest when we're congratulating people for being awesome.

P.S. I would have clicked on the email from Betsy, but there were no links.

Did anyone see "The Daily Show" on Monday night? Rob Corrdry filed a report from the White House where he was dazzled by all the fun new initiatives sprung this week. Alito nomination! Yaay! Scooter who? Jon tried to get Rob back on track, but then Rob got distracted by a big shiny ball of tinfoil on the White House lawn. Whee! Shiny! Pretty! Dazzling!

That, to me, is Jon Klein's problem. It's been two months -- just two months -- since Anderson's breakout role in Hurricane Katrina, and one month since the uncomfortable NewsNight duo became permanent. Jon Klein saw Anderson and his silvery hair glinting in the post-Katrina spotlight, and he jumped at it as surely as Rob Corrdry on the fake White House lawn. It wasn't enough to work on shoring up 360, expanding Anderson's viewership, building his fan base on the web. Oh, no -- Klein needed to show the world that he had vision, had the vision, for CNN. I repeat, we've seen data on what an Anderson-ful NewsNight looks like -- yes, Jon Klein, congratulations -- but have we seen any data on what a Brown-less NewsNight would look like? As one FB reader says: "All I know is my dad's gonna be really disappointed. He's grown to like Aaron a lot."

That's because Aaron Brown is likeable, and has earned the viewers who tune into NewsNight over years of service. For CNN to destabilize his show and then unceremoniously shove him out -- because come on, that's precisely what happened -- is pretty damn disrespectful. And totally wasteful -- on a 24-hour network in a 24-hour news cycle, a truly visionary leader would have realized the value in keeping them both. But it's hard to have vision with pretty tinfoil sparkling in your face. Too bad Jon Klein's loyalty is blind, too.

From Klein's memo to CNN staff: "We cannot thank Aaron enough for the skills and professionalism he brought to CNN."

No, Jon Klein. Clearly, you can't.

Related:
Seacrest in for Larry King [TVNewser]

Not Related:
Fishbowl's source at CNN is fired [FishbowlNY]

When Jamie Frevele applied for her Fishternship, she went on record as having a strong affinity for cable news, and in particular "The Abrams Report" and its titular host. We, of course, were down with that. But Jamie takes the Abrams-love one step further and extends it warmly to groundbreaking First Amendment lawyer and Dan-father Floyd Abrams, whom she regards with great respect and affection. Early on she pitched me a review of "Speaking Freely: Trials of the First Amendment" with an eye to applying Abrams' comments and history to the infamous and ever-evolving case of Judith Miller. She reads, watches, thinks and loves, sharing a few nuggets along the way.

Judy Miller is officially free to leave the media cycle. She has served her time, told her story, and won the Society of Professional Journalists' First Amendment Award, calling for federal shield laws to protect journalists. Now, we all know Miller's reporting was controversial and, well, wrong. (Ed. - I prefer to use the more cautious word "dubious" - not unlike her memory). But in all the hullabaloo over Scooters and aspens and who one Valerie Flame might be, the original First Amendment question has been waylaid (Ed. Mickey Kaus blames that on Judy, too). Last night Aaron Brown interviewed Abrams for NewsNight (transcript here) wherein Abrams discussed his time serving as Miller's lawyer, and the current backlash against Miller in the press. He lamented the "huge hits" she's taken, reminding viewers that she's "getting credit from some people to no credit at all" for serving the longest sentence by a reporter and for "fighting the fight" (Ed. We know the rebuttal issues, but let Floyd speak.) Most fundamentally, there is "no reference to the First Amendment anymore, as if that had nothing to do with anything." Brown, interviewing Arianna Huffington afterward, brought up the fact that most liberals, like Huffington, would be standing up for Miller's First Amendment rights had she been rooting for their cause. Huffington denied this, but Brown and Abrams are exactly right. (Sorry, Arianna.) The same First Amendment that gives Judy Miller freedom to protect her sources gave Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein the freedom to protect theirs during Watergate! Before that, the same First Amendment protected Daniel Ellsberg and the New York Times for respectively leaking and printing the Pentagon Papers. Agree or disagree (vehemently) with Judy Miller, but the First Amendment applies to the whole political spectrum. Sometimes you just have to bite your lip and play fair.

Back in April, Floyd Abrams released "Speaking Freely: Trials of the First Amendment." Despite the undesirable result of what would end up being 85 days of prison for Miller, Floyd Abrams said to the press after Miller was incarcerated in early July, "You have a very successful lawyer before you."

Think "Very successful lawyer" is in the eye of the beholder? Think it might look a wee bit different from the Alexandria Detention Center? Read on after the jump!

continued...