Wall Street Journal: Money Over Prestige

In your evasive Thursday media column: the WSJ is becoming more like your little hometown paper, Mediaite doesn't justify itself to anyone, an alt-weekly judgment upheld, and Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck have a mystifying chat.

  • Haha, since Conde Nast is now a restaurant company and the New York Times Co. is a bodega, the Wall Street Journal is just gonna start stuffing itself with coupon inserts for Cheez Doodles and Cocoa Puffs, just like your average Dubuque Telegraph Herald Sunday edition. Prestige, who needs it?

  • Jeff Bercovici says that Mediaite oversteps the bounds of fair use by posting extraordinarily long video clips pulled from TV. Mediaite editor Colby Hall responded: "Singling us out feels like another in a long line of repeated efforts rooted in some sort of vengeful disdain or general disapproval of Mediaite and Dan. Honestly, I've very little interest in assisting in this ongoing game." Well, that settles that.

  • An appeals court has upheld a $21 million judgment against the SF Weekly for illegally selling below-cost ads that financially harmed its competitor, the SF Bay Guardian. If Village Voice Media, which owns SF Weekly, actually has to pay out that money (which shouldn't be happening in the near future), say goodbye to the good times in their alt-weekly kingdom.

  • Bill O'Reilly had his friend and colleague Glenn Beck on his television programme last night, and Bill says to Glenn, he says, direct quote, "Why don't you do the culture warrior stuff?" What now? And then Glenn goes, "I think we have bigger fish to fry." Fish made of crystal meth.
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