Richard Perez-Pena

Martin Eisenstadt, principal of the Eisenstadt Group and Senior Fellow at The Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy is on a the mind of a lot of bloggers and cable news talent bookers lately. Apparently Mr. Eisenstadt, as an adviser to Senator John McCain, leaked the story that former G.O.P. Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin didn't know that Africa is a continent and not a single country. That bit of news was picked up by many, many media sources including Fox News, whose Carl Cameron's on-air telling of the anecdote Media Mob saw fit to include in a round-up of post-election bashing of Governor Palin. He also spread the rumor that Joe "The Plumber" Wurzelbacher was spotted "canoodling" with Saturday Night Live's Kristen Wiig and that he might appear on The Bachelor. That little story made it to Politico's Shenanigans blog, written by Anne Schroeder Mullins, and then the New York Post on Nov. 4, in a "Campaign Morsels" sidebar that is not online, but was recounted in New York magazine's Daily Intel blog.

And who can forget back in August when Mr. Eisenstadt revealed that Paris Hilton's family was offended with the McCain campaign for an ad that compared Senator Obama to Ms. Hilton and Britney Spears.

This election year, Mr. Eisenstadt has been full of great scoops. He's also been completely full of it.  read more »

The most interesting thing in Richard Perez-Pena's 3,330 word write-around profile of Si Newhouse is the language from Condé Nast executives about the importance of the Web.

• Tom Wallace, editorial director, Condé Nast: “You’re going to have to go a long way on the Internet to compete with the way we produce words and images in the magazines."
• Steve Newhouse, chariman of Advance.net: “What we’re not doing is trying to turn those companion sites into large Web destinations. They’re there to support the magazines.”
• Jonathan Newhouse, head of Condé Nast international: “I think sometimes commentators throw around these assumptions about what is happening to the industry, going the way of newspapers, and I don’t believe it.
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More layoffs in the newspaper industry. This time it's 1,400 workers at The McClatchy Company according to The New York Times' Richard Pérez-Peña. That staggering figure accounts for 10 per cent of the company's staff.

As Mr. Pérez-Peña reports, "The deepest cut will hit The Miami Herald, one of McClatchy’s largest papers, which told its staff on Monday that it would eliminate 250 jobs, or 17 percent of its work force."  read more »

That's what Richard Perez-Pena asks in this morning's Times, and he hears a mixed response.

A former executive at Gannett, Allen Neuharth, says that Zell is just doing what he has to do. In order to prevent newspapers to go the way of the steel industry in the 1980s, preemptive steps have to be made.  read more »

According to Richard Pérez-Peña, people who have been awed and amused by Sam Zell's dirty mouth have been "twittering" and "tut-tutting" about more serious matters lately. In today's Times, he writes that Mr. Zell is in danger of falling into credit default.  read more »

Rub the sleep out of those eyes: it's the morning-after in L.A.!  read more »

He notes that George Bundy Smith -- a liberal who is up for possible re-appointment by George Pataki -- went with the Republican-appointed majority in voting against gay marriage.