MSNBC’s top spokesperson Jeremy Gaines is heading to the Gannett Company to lead the corporate comms division as VP, effective May 21. Gannett owns USA Today, a number of broadcast stations, and tons of other media properties. NBC News’ lead spokesperson Lauren Kapp is heading to The Huffington Post as of April 30. NBC has not announced replacements for either position. [via]

Speaking of USA Today, two of the papers journalists say they’ve become the target of a “smear campaign” after reporting on “government propaganda contractors.” We tweeted the PRSA response; here it is as well. [via]

Salon has a new look. Thoughts? Separately, the site’s press release for the redesign says the number of monthly unique visitors has grown 30 percent to 7.7 million since 2011. [via]

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We mentioned this in this morning’s Ticker, but we wanted to provide a little more information from what has become available about the death of Andrew Breitbart.

Breitbart, the well-known and very provocative conservative blogger, was 43 years old. He worked at the Drudge Report before starting his own sites, including Big Government. He was known for his attacks against organizations like NPR and Planned Parenthood and for revealing the revealing photos of former Congressman Anthony Weiner, which led to his resignation.

According to Fox News, Breitbart was seen walking by his Brentwood, CA home when he collapsed and was rushed to UCLA Medical Center’s emergency room. The Los Angeles Times says Breitbart died of natural causes, though there’s an ongoing investigation.

A polarizing figure, The Washington Examiner has gathered some posts from those who still don’t have kind words for Breitbart. Anecdotally, however, we’re seeing a lot of shock and dismay expressed across Twitter over this news, even from those whose political positions were on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Fox published Breitbart’s final tweet, written in his usual style: “I called you a putz cause I thought you were being intentionally disingenuous. If not I apologize.”

Breitbart had a wife and four children.

Photo: Ramin Talaie for The New York Times

His colleagues may want to put him on an ice floe and push him off the coast at Coney Island, but Rep. Anthony Weiner is hanging in there. Which is exactly what his constituents would prefer.

A NY1-Marist College poll found that 56 percent of his constituents in Brooklyn and Queens want him to remain in office. “This is his personal life. And I feel that the public should actually lay off,” one voter told NY1. Moreover, only 11 percent think he did anything illegal.

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