In your desperate Wednesday media column: Baseball writer fired at baseball game, a Harpers ripoff, News Corp has big plans like everybody else, and even more!:

David Steele was a 44 year-old sports columnist for the Baltimore Sun who had a nice career until the paper laid him off last week—by calling him, on his cell phone, while he was in the press box at a Baltimore Orioles game, which his paper had assigned him to cover. Sucks. Two other Sun staffers at that game also got laid off. During the game. Worst Orioles game ever. Which is saying a lot.


Noted: "NYT made it to May 2009! Suck it, Michael Hirschorn!"

Did you know that there's a German magazine that looks just like Harpers? It's true! We hear Harpers is deciding whether to go after them for copyright infringement. The last thing the world can tolerate is two good magazines.


Two journalism conferences have already been canceled this year, because organizers expected low attendance. Are top journalism bosses giving up their love of all-expenses paid bar tabs in Boca Raton golf resorts? No, it's just a phase.

News Corp has big plans "to devise a system to charge for content on the Web." Top executives are working on it! I don't know. A system to charge people is the easy part. (Send me checks, in the mail, if you agree!). Getting people to pay: hard part.