In your special weekend media column (whoa!): Traders die, generals lie, and the media influence of international oligarchs multiplies:

Doubledown Media, publisher of Trader Monthly and other financial titles which global economic events have now rendered grotesquely anachronistic, has put itself up for sale. Let's hope this doesn't cut down on the company's output of Wall Street loudmouth feuds. [NYP]


The NYT wrote two huge investigative pieces on the ties between Barry McCaffrey and other retired generals who served as media experts, the Pentagon PR machine, and businesses trying to get Pentagon contracts. They were great pieces. So the Pentagon "investigated" and put out a report that says, hey, nothing to see here! Well you know who doesn't like that answer? NYT Public Editor Clark Hoyt, that's who. He also gets two unbelievably disingenuous quotes. Barry McCaffrey "said he couldn’t imagine how The Times could publish the first article about 'generals shilling for the Pentagon without mentioning me as a hero, the antithesis of that hypothesis.'” Yes, how could they fail to mention your heroism, over and over? And equally ludicrous, from the reporter who wrote the massive story about what a shady bastard McCaffrey is: "Barstow said he never intended to say that McCaffrey did anything illegal or unethical. He said he was describing how the world works and raising the issue of disclosure of potential conflicts." Here's how the world works: it's full of shady bastards. [NYT]

Hey, the NYT Co. just took $250 million from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, but a couple years back the paper wrote a story calling him a "'robber baron' and a 'crony' of Mexico's notoriously corrupt politicians." This from the New York Post, owned by crony of America's notoriously corrupt politicians Rupert Murdoch. [NYP]

Russian expat oligarch Aleksandr Lebedev just bought London's Evening Standard, and people aren't sure what to think. Should they be worried about his motives? One one hand, he's an ex-KGB operative. On the other hand, he also owns muckraking papers in Russia that are considered enemies of the government. So clearly he's just doing it for the chicks. [NYT]