Welcome back to another edition of FishbowlNY’s weekly Cover Battle. Today we have Interview taking on Rolling Stone. Interview went with a fantastic photograph of Lena Dunham, a person who clearly could use more press.

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You’d think Oprah Winfrey would be too bothered by a certain you-know-what to mention it at a high-profile event like New York Women in Communications’ annual Matrix Awards. Yet, she says, it’s her ‘MSF’ (mother sister friend) Gayle King who has needed the most consoling.

“May I say the last week was a rough week for Gayle when a so-called biography came out. Every day she was getting herself more and more worked up about all of my new daddies. Somebody saying ‘Hello, daughter. Call me. I need a new roof.’”

Watch an excerpt from Winfrey’s speech below and follow the click for a round-up of quotes from this year’s honorees and presenters.

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You may have already seen this video floating around the Interwebs, but we thought it was just too cool not to share.

The American Society of Magazine Editors and the Magazine Publishers of America have compiled 92 covers that represent the decade that was, visually calling to mind ten years of events and experiences that shaped our country and our world — from September 11 to Hurricane Katrina to Obama’s election, the phenomena of Google, Apple and Tina Fey — in just two minutes.

Hope you enjoy as much as we do.

Previously: MPA’s Tweetable Truths Give Hope To The Magazine Industry

Sorry, sometimes we can’t help the clever headlines: New York Women in Communications, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering women in all communications disciplines, today announced the honorees for the annual Matrix Awards.

The Matrix Awards has for 30 years celebrated strong women in the field of media and communication, and on April 19 at the Waldorf Astoria, Tina Fey, Ina Garten, Sheryl Crow, Anne Keating, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Marissa Mayer and Gayle King will all become honoree Matrices. Former Matrix recipients include Barbara Walters, Meryl Streep, Annie Leibovitz, and Anna Wintour (natch).

And our favorite comedian/news anchor, Brian Williams, will be on hand to emcee.

Full press release after the jump.

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Now here’s a holiday window display we can get behind.

After reliving the 1960′s last year with his “Peace & Love: Have a Hippie Holiday” theme, Barneys New York’s creative director Simon Doonan has cooked up a plan to commemorate timeless New York City-based sketch comedy show “Saturday Night Live” and its 35th anniversary in the department store’s holiday windows this year.

We got a peek at some of Doonan’s sketches of the windows, which will debut on November 19. The windows will include tributes to famous “SNL” sketches like the Coneheads, Chris Kattan‘s Mango and Tina Fey as Sarah Palin.

“From Roseanne Roseannadanna to The Church Lady to Weekend Update there is an unlimited amount of brilliant material,” Doonan said. “I have always wanted to pay tribute to the genius heritage of ‘SNL.’”

Even “SNL” producer Lorne Michaels agrees the windows will be exciting. “The Barneys Holiday windows are a great New York tradition and I am very excited that ‘SNL’ is going to be the focus of this year’s celebration,” he said.

(Sketches courtesy of Barneys New York)

Even before the Primetime Emmys opened with a musical number by Neil Patrick Harris, the show’s host — who also served as co-producer — was a lamenting the death of network television.

“This may very well be the last year they’re on a network show,” Harris told New York magazine in a a profile featured in last week’s issue. “This wheel contract they have, where each year a different network gets the show, as the ratings decline it becomes less of a good thing to ‘get it.’ It’s a very expensive show. Which means they have to get more ad revenue. Ads are less expensive, because ratings are down. So you have to do more ads, which makes the show smaller…and finally someone will do it on cable, where there won’t be any commercials. Which will be a wonderful show. Our three-hour show is only two hours and five minutes long, due to economics.”

If cable is a better outlet for award shows, is it also a better outlet for award-winning television? It seemed that way as a slew of the first few awards of the night went to basic cable shows — Toni Collette won Best Actress in a Comedy Series for her role on Showtime‘s “United States of Tara,” Glenn Close took home the Best Actress in a Drama Series award for “Damages” on FX, Bryan Cranston won Best Actor in a Drama Series for the second year in a row for his role in AMC‘s “Breaking Bad” and AMC’s “Mad Men” won the drama writing award and Outstanding Drama Series.

But, the networks still had a strong showing. Kristin Chenoweth took home the Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series prize for her role in ABC‘s “Pushing Daises,” which was canceled even before nominations were announced. Jon Cryer took home Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy for CBS‘s “Two and a Half Men,” Alec Baldwin won for the second year in a row for Best Actor in a Comedy Series for NBC‘s “30 Rock,” which also took home the Outstanding Comedy Series award for the third year running.

Still, the changing world of television as a medium was a prevailing theme throughout the show. At one point, Harris revisited his online persona, Dr. Horrible, to (literally) sing the praises of Internet television over network and cable TV — complete with “buffering” gag.

And in her acceptance speech, “30 Rock” creator and star Tina Fey took a jab at Jay Leno when she thanked NBC brass for not pulling her show off the air, “even though we are so much more expensive than a talk show.”

Even Harris couldn’t help mentioning network TV again in his sign off, telling viewers, “May we see you again on broadcast television again next year.”

After the jump, some Emmy highlights, including the Harris’ Dr. Horrible Sing-a-Long Blog bit.

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It’s a classic technique: dump bad news late in the day on a Friday and hope the news media and the public mostly ignore it. Bonus points if it’s a holiday weekend. Double bonus for a summer holiday weekend.

We kept one eye on Twitter all day on Friday, waiting for some crazy news to break. Who knew it would be about former VP candidate and Alaska governor Sarah Palin? In the afternoon, news started to trickle in. The first reports from a press conference in Alaska without a live transmission were that Palin would not run for a second term. Then it became clear that she would be resigning, at the end of the month, and her lieutenant governor will be taking over her role for the remainder of her term.

In the days that followed, talking heads and critics have attempted to make sense of the unexpected turn of events, but Palin’s reasons for her resignation are still unclear. CNN‘s Anderson Cooper interviewed Palin’s spokeperson Meg Stapleton on Friday but didn’t get any closer to understanding the decision (see video above). Conservative pundits Karl Rove, Mike Huckabee, Chuck Grassley and George Will all appeared on Sunday morning talk shows questioning Palin’s unprecedented move.

Some have (not surprisingly) managed to find the humor in the situation. Political analyst Andy Ostroy suggested a few other jobs for Palin including Alaska tour guide and personal shopper, while Berkman Center fellow David Weinberger listed the top 10 reasons she resigned. Number one? “Desperate bid to be mocked by Tina Fey one last time.”

Expect more weighing in over the next few days as all the “media elite” start to return from their holiday weekend vacations. No rest for the weary!

Is Jack McBrayer the new Tina Fey? After Bobby Jindal’s very ‘Kenneth the Page’-ish response to Barack Obama on Tuesday all eyes (or links) were on McBrayer, who made an exclusive appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s Late Night to respond to the Internet response to the Republican response to Obama’s Not State of the Union address.

No one’s going to be arguing with this choice. The AP has made Tina Fey their ‘Entertainer of the Year,’ recognizing her as the performer who “had the greatest impact on culture and entertainment in 2008.”

I Want Media has named Arianna Huffington their Person of the Year, presumably based on your votes. As it happens the top three spots all belonged to women — Tina Fey and Rachel Maddow were the runners up. Says IWM about the choice: “Huffington had a big year in 2008, guiding her liberal-leaning news and blog site to record traffic during the U.S. election season.”

More fun, however, is the comments section which features the picks of some bold-faced media names. Perez Hilton voted Sarah Palin. Tina Brown voted Tina Fey. David Carr voted Mayhill Fowler. And both Frank Rich and Kurt Anderson tapped the Laid-Off Journalist as media person of the year.

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