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Today on the mediabistro.com Morning Media Menu podcast, hosts Jason Boog of GalleyCat and AgencySpy's Matt Van Hoven welcomed PRNewser editor Joe Ciarallo to talk about the day's biggest media news.

On tap today: Jason discussed last night's National Book Awards (see GalleyCat for full coverage) and Matt talked about an ad for Sarah Palin's book Going Rogue running during "The Rachel Maddow Show."

"We do have standing a call and emails, multiple, out to Tina Andreadis at HarperCollins, the director of publicity," Joe said. "We imagine she's quite busy with the book launch, but we do want to get her take so Tina, if you're listening, call us."

You can listen to all the past podcasts at BlogTalkRadio.com/mediabistro and call in at 646-929-0321.

Blogger Melissa Lafsky, the latest editor of the blog The Infrastructurist, joined the mediabistro.com Morning Media Menu podcast today, where she chatted with hosts Jason Boog of GalleyCat and AgencySpy's Matt Van Hoven about the site that she described as an "ongoing conversation about how we get around and how we'll get around in the future."

"The joke with infrastructure is that no one pays much attention to it until it breaks down," she said. "And right now we're looking at a pretty existential break down [in] that we rely on certain fuels in order to get us to work in the morning and to get us around period, and these fuels are limited in capacity and will eventually run out. So the larger conversation is what's the future of energy that's going to run this country as well as the rest of the developed world."

After talking about infrastructure in the U.S. and around the world, particularly in China and India, Melissa talked about another one of her gigs, as the "Horror Chick", writing about horror movies for The Awl. Then, Jason asked her for a reaction to Roland Emmerich's latest disaster film, 2012, from a horror and infrastructure point of view. Melissa said she boycotted the film because she hates "apocalypse porn" but she still had something to say about it.

"The point of film is to take you to somewhat dark places," she said. "A movie like this is raw, unbridled apocalypse porn. The premise is so ridiculous I don't even have to tell you...But the point of this movie is just, 'We're going to take Independence Day and make it look like Little Miss Sunshine.' That is probably the conversation that they had in the greenlight producer's office."

You can listen to all the past podcasts at BlogTalkRadio.com/mediabistro and call in at 646-929-0321.

It seems like there's only bad news in the media world these days. But this morning on the mediabistro.com Morning Media Menu, FishbowlNY editor Amanda Ernst and hosts Jason Boog of GalleyCat and AgencySpy's Matt Van Hoven only had good things to report.

That good news included a conversation about Sarah Palin's memoir Going Rogue, out today, and Levi Johnston's Playgirl photo spread, which is giving the out-of-print magazine buzz that will hopefully propel upcoming print issues.

Other good news: Budget Travel is not closing, despite recent rumors; Daily News owner Mortimer B. Zuckerman has invested in expanding the paper's printing plant; and YouTube has launched a new channel to better help news organizations like The Huffington Post and NPR manage video submissions from citizen journalists.

You can listen to all the past podcasts at BlogTalkRadio.com/mediabistro and call in at 646-929-0321.

We were eager to listen in to today's mediabistro.com Morning Media Menu podcast this morning, because we hoped guest Ron Henkoff, editor of Bloomberg Markets, would let us in on a little inside information stemming from Bloomberg LP's recent purchase of BusinessWeek.

Henkoff told hosts Jason Boog of GalleyCat and AgencySpy's Matt Van Hoven that BusinessWeek would not be combined with Bloomberg Markets, an idea that had been floating around before the sale was made final. "Bloomberg will have what we hope will be the world's leading business weekly in BusinessWeek and the world's leading financial monthly, which is Bloomberg Markets," Henkoff explained.

Henkoff said that decisions are still being made about the eventual size of the BusinessWeek staff. "What's important is that both magazines will become part of Bloomberg News, which is a global newsgathering organization dedicated to news on business and finance," he said.

Also discussed: Bloomberg Markets coverage and what's in the magazine's future.

You can listen to all the past podcasts at BlogTalkRadio.com/mediabistro and call in at 646-929-0321.

Here's another thing that blogs are great at: uniting communities that are an ocean apart. Today on the mediabistro.com Morning Media Menu podcast, hosts Jason Boog of GalleyCat and AgencySpy's Matt Van Hoven welcomed Ruthie Ackerman, who founded the blog Ceasefire Liberia to report stories from Liberia and ex-pat Liberian communities around the world, including one right here in New York in Staten Island.

"The idea for me was that I wanted to dispel the myth of the single story," Ackerman said. "So I didn't like this idea from journalism that you have one person, the journalist, the authority that comes and tells the world about an individual or a community and I wanted the people within the communities that I was writing about to share their stories and share their voices as well."

Since its inception in May, Ceasefire Liberia has drawn notice of Liberians around the world and had helped them start a dialogue about topics and ideas that are important to them. Check it out and listen in to today's menu to see how hyperlocal journalism and community involvement can start a movement.

You can listen to all the past podcasts at BlogTalkRadio.com/mediabistro and call in at 646-929-0321.

Where has the bulk of Jay Leno's young audience gone? Today on the mediabistro.com Morning Media Menu podcast, host Jason Boog of GalleyCat reported that 1.82 million young viewers have fled from the 10 p.m. hour on NBC that's now home to the new primetime "Jay Leno Show."

"It's not news that his show's not doing well, people have been talking about that for weeks," Jason told co-host AgencySpy's Matt Van Hoven. "But the really funny thing is that CBS and ABC haven't managed to pick up these viewers."

Instead, the viewers are going to cable, watching taped shows on their DVRs or (gasp!) simply turning off their TVs. Asked Matt: is it possible that this demographic might not return to TV? Jason thinks so. "There's just so many options available to people so you can get what you want rather than surfing around to get what you want," he said.

Also discussed: Are people watching more news video online than on cable news networks? And a recap of what happened yesterday when David Letterman's alleged extorter Robert Joel Halderman appeared in court.

You can listen to all the past podcasts at BlogTalkRadio.com/mediabistro and call in at 646-929-0321.

On this celebratory day in New York, as the New York Yankees prepare to parade down the Canyon of Heroes downtown, Jason Boog of GalleyCat and AgencySpy's Matt Van Hoven welcomed Jackson Taylor to the mediabistro.com Morning Media Menu.

Jackson, the director of the PEN American Center's Prison Writing Program, stopped by the Menu to talk about the program's contests and mentoring and its upcoming projects. "Writing is a skill, and it can be practiced," he said. "And, unlike many skills, writing well is useful and it's useful in almost any avenue of education, employment or daily life. And it's also a skill the generates other skills. So that's why we very much believe in our work."

As he explained his program's work, Jackson said he is in the midst of looking for funding for it, specifically to pay for postage for the approximately 5,000 writing packets mailed to prisoners who request them every year. You can learn more about the program here.

You can listen to all the past podcasts at BlogTalkRadio.com/mediabistro and call in at 646-929-0321.

FishbowlNY editor Amanda Ernst joined the mediabistro.com Morning Media Menu podcast this morning, where she and hosts Jason Boog of GalleyCat and AgencySpy's Matt Van Hoven talked about the media layoffs and other big industry news.

Of course, Amanda wanted to talk about news of layoffs at Time Inc. and Forbes over the past two weeks. It's the same layoff story we heard last year, as companies from all industries plan for next year and cut waste in the fourth quarter, she said. Still, it makes for a pretty uncertain work environment for those across the industry.

Jason wanted to talk about Glenn Beck and his effect on the best-seller list. Seems that every thriller that Beck mentions on his show becomes a best seller, Jason explained. "It's such a big thing for publishers," he said. "They are looking for options. Book reviews are closing right and left, and the idea that this Conservative talk show host has become the go-to place for thrillers is really kind of amazing."

Also discussed: Twitter vs. cable news on election night.

You can listen to all the past podcasts at BlogTalkRadio.com/mediabistro and call in at 646-929-0321.

Yesterday was all about advertising, but today's mediabistro.com Morning Media Menu podcast was all about publishing. Hosts Jason Boog of GalleyCat and AgencySpy's Matt Van Hoven welcomed Bloomsbury Press publisher Peter Ginna, who discussed the biggest publishing news of the moment, starting with the reported pricing war between Walmart, Target and Amazon.

"As of now, that discount is confined to I think 10 titles and is more about getting attention and pulling people's eyeballs away from Walmart or Amazon or whoever the competitor is," Ginna said. "The concern that publishers have is if this is going to establish in the consumer's mind that that's what a best-selling hard cover book is worth."

Ginna also gave some advice to people looking to break into publishing: "I think the most important thing for anybody going into the industry now is to really learn as much as you can and, to the extent that you can, master social media. That's going to be the most important channel that publishers have to sell books. And that's one of the other areas that we've been struggling with."

Ginna also recently launched a blog himself. "I know that in the future we're not going to be able to rely on newspaper print reviews and authors on television and subway ads, which are really, really expensive. So we need other ways of communicating with the public. So this is my attempt to at least experiment with a way of doing that," he said.

You can read Ginna's blog Dr. Syntax at www.doctorsyntax.net.

You can listen to all the past podcasts at BlogTalkRadio.com/mediabistro and call in at 646-929-0321.

If you've ever wondered what goes on inside an advertising agency, today's mediabistro.com Morning Media Menu podcast is one for you.

This morning, hosts Jason Boog of GalleyCat and AgencySpy's Matt Van Hoven welcomed Alain Sylvain, the managing director of New York-based agency Redscout, who discussed a new video series initiative his company is launching with PSFK that seeks to innovate account planning.

What is account planning, you ask? "Planning is really a function within agencies...that was designed to enhance the development of ads," Alain explained. "It was meant to enhance it with the voice of the consumer. It was an effort to make the creative development more tapped into what consumers really wanted and really felt...But over the years the role of planning and the role of planners has been a little unclear."

The new video series seeks to answer questions that agencies and planners have about planning. In the broader sense, Jason and Matt were wondering if planning could help the struggling media world of magazines, newspapers and books. Alain said he believed there was still a way to update the current approach to long-form content, from books to feature length articles. "You will see a lot of former journalists go into planning," Alain said. "What you won't see is planners going into publishing...But if I was a young planner frustrated at an agency, I would definitely consider going to work for a publishing house. It's basically the same discipline."

You can listen to all the past podcasts at BlogTalkRadio.com/mediabistro and call in at 646-929-0321.