Zeleny tells TVNewser the decision to jump from print to TV was easy, since he hasn’t “worked for a newspaper in quite a while,” referring to the Times’ expansion into video and social.

So how did his editors take it when he told them the news?

“There’s no question that some of the editors were disappointed,” he says. But as for executive editor Jill Abramson: “She was very gracious throughout this whole process. It’s been a great opportunity at The Times. They tried to get me to stay.”

Zeleny also is bullish about his soon-to-be old medium when we asked if he thinks there will be a print edition in 10 years: “I do think there will be a print edition of the New York Times in 10 years. There’s no question that mobile has been a huge part of our audience, but there are still a lot of people who find value in the print edition.”

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Rick Santorum

Politico reports that Santorum said, “Quit distorting my words. It’s bullish*t,” to Times reporter Jeff Zeleny. Then his camp sent out an email insisting that he was ready to rumble with the evil paper of record:

I’m Ready to Take On the New York Times.

Earlier today, while campaigning in Wisconsin, I criticized Romney and Obama for their outrageous healthcare legislation. Predictably, I was aggressively attacked by a New York Times reporter all too ready to defend the two of them, and all too ready to distort my words. Let me assure you, I didn’t back down, and I didn’t let him bully me. I think it is high time that conservatives find the courage to expose the liberal press for what they are, a defender and enabler of Romney’s and Obama’s liberal agendas.

Okay! Well, it’s clear that someone needs to give Santorum a pat on the back and tell him he had a good run, but it’s over now. Hell, give the man a hug; he sounds like he needs one. Because this will only get more awkward the longer it goes on.

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At National Journal, Gwen Ifill writes that:

My flight from Seattle had just touched down at Reagan Washington National Airport late on Sunday night when I turned on my BlackBerry. It immediately began buzzing with an alarming stream of e-mails and tweets.

She also puts together what other major journalists were doing when the news broke. Here are a few of the stories:

Washington Week regular Jeff Zeleny was watching The King’s Speech on pay per view at home. Helene Cooper was watching a DVR of the royal wedding. (Lots of anglophiles in the media!)

Another Times reporter David Sanger was in Brussels for a NATO story. NPR’s Tom Gjelten was on a late-night run to the drug store. Our favorite: James Kitfield of National Journal was in a Houston hotel room sipping from a glass of brandy. Coincidentally, so was FishbowlNY.

Just kidding. We were watching the Royal Wedding on DVR, too. We’re not that cool.

Update: Dylan Byers reports on what the top CNN journalists were doing when the news broke for Adweek: it turns out that they are some serious hockey fans. Wolf Blitzer was watching the Washington Capitals playoffs on TV when the story broke, and John King and Ed Henry were at the game. Apparently “Ed Henry went to the White House and had to borrow a jacket from someone.”

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It felt like the Lord of the Flies in there…The people who have been there for a long time have all of their little decorations and knickknacks all over the back of the plane. Everyone’s a little grumpy and territorial, and there’s this sense of people thrown together who have been with each other way too long. I got the sense that I was dropping in on a hostage-captor situation.

Nope, not hostages per se, just the state of Obama’s press corps as The New Yorker‘s Ryan Lizza discovered it upon his return after a few months away. Over at The New Republic journalists are describing the peculiar aspects of the sort of “Stockholm Syndrome” that has developed in the press corp during the longest campaign season in history. For example, CNN’s Candy Crowley sets three alarms each night and writes the following down before she goes to bed: “What city is she in? What time zone? What time does she have to be out of the hotel room the next morning? What day is it?” Says the NYT Jeff Zeleny, “Now that the campaign is winding down, they’re all taking pictures of one another, and you get the sense of summer camp coming to an end.” And some people, like Politico‘s Ben Smith don’t want the madness to end: “It’s so built into my system, that it’s going to be hard to stop…it’s pathological, really.” Six more days!

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