Delectable bits from around the web:

-- Jon Friedman of Marketwatch takes on the embattled newsweeklies: ''The New York Observer recently reported that (Newsweek editor Jon Meacham) beseeched about a hundred graduate-level journalism students at Columbia with this message: 'I need you.'

''This plaintive exhortation is almost Shakespearian. Weekly publications like Newsweek, owned by Washington Post, clearly need us more than we need them.

''... Meacham can't seem to understand why Newsweek has lost much of its snap, crackle and pop in today's media world. He is apparently flabbergasted that such a well-reported and smartly written weekly magazine could have lost its buzz so dramatically.

''I respect Newsweek and I like Meacham, but he should get real. Newsweek's lack of pizzazz is his own fault.'' Full story here.

-- WNYC's John Scaeffer is covering the New York Philharmonic's historic visit to North Korea. While he did not delve into the thorny geopolitics of the event, he spoke about the concert and its reception in the totalitarian regime: ''(After the concert) the audience kept applauding and finally ... the concert master had to get the troops out of there ... and while he did that the audience waived goodbye.''

''... backstage the band members were covering their eyes ... I've never seen anything like it.''

More after the jump ...

-- Ari Melber writes on TheNation.com that Time managing editor Rick Stengel's argument against newspaper endorsements is wrong: ''Sure, many voters now ignore them -- no damage done. Yet for voters who care, endorsements are a reasoned antidote to the superficial, gossipy cacophony of today's political discourse. Stengel criticizes them as an 'anachronism.' Exactly. This is one throwback we can really use. In many states, people look to editorial boards for concrete, local, policy-based suggestions on who to vote for up and down the ballot. That's why campaigns still fight so hard for endorsements from local papers. Editorial boards vet candidates, even the presidential contenders, in long policy discussions off-camera. It's a rare break from soundbite-driven debates and the sanitizing fear of stumbling into a 'YouTube moment.' Then, when the research is over and the interviews end, newspapers do something that does merit public respect. They take a stand.'' Full story here.

(image via bostonherald)