Gawker recently posted the headline, “Tumblr Is Launching Its Own Journalism Operation.” Our immediate thoughts: Wow, really? That would be awesome. Or, wait, would it? Maybe not. Could be. Hmm, why would the platform want to do that?

But no need to worry BIG media. Tumblr isn’t launching a journalism department, for now at least.

The implication stems from a recent interview by Business Insider with Tumblr’s young founder and CEO David Karp, that mentioned, “There’s now an editorial team forming that will help promote stories people write and share on Tumblr too.”

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Young startups in the Big Apple are about to get a boost from Colorado-based startup incubator TechStars.

New York City will join Boulder, Colo., Seattle, and Boston as the fourth city to play host to the group’s mentorship and seed stage investment program.

TechStars is now accepting applications for the 2011 New York program, which starts in January. The three month boot camp seeds participating startups with capital (up to $18,000), provides shared office space, and connects founders with established tech mentors. To help fund future programs, TechStars takes a 6% equity stake in company.

“TechStars is built on a mentorship-driven approach and in New York, the biggest city in the world, there are lots of amazing mentors,” according to an announcement on the TechStars web site.

The NYC program boasts an impressive lineup of high profile mentors, including Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley, Tumblr founder David Karp, and Union Square Ventures financier Fred Wilson.

TechStars founder and CEO David Cohen is moving to the city to oversee the new program, while seed stage investor David Tisch is slated to manage.

Over the years, the program has yeilded some impressive results. TechStars graduate Socialthing, a social site aggregation tool, was acquired by AOL in 2008, and mass emailing service SendGrid raised more than $5 million in VC funding in 2009.

The application deadline for the 2011 NYC program is November 21.

The spirit of Cannonball Run lives on! Via CNet’s Caroline McCarthy comes word (and video) of last week’s Rental Car Rally from New York to Montreal. The rule? No speeding. Also, it appears people had to dress up. Perhaps not surprisingly the Thrillist boys were involved in this, though no word on whether anyone was diverted to Rochester. Richard Blakeley, who shared a car with McCarthy and David Karp (they were dressed as the Royal Tenenbaums), made a video of the whole shebang, though sadly there are no appearances by either Burt Reynolds or Sammy Davis Jr. — basically the only two things we remember from the original Cannonball.

2008 NYC To Montreal Rental Car Road Rally from Richard Blakeley on Vimeo.