In your tricky Tuesday media column: Ski Resorts are the Stasi of Colorado journalism, the White House press corps exercises its shit-eating grin, The New Yorker cuts its fiction, and a dead magazine overview.

Big Ski is muzzling the frozen press! David Carr takes a deeper look at the case of a Colorado newspaperman who got fired after upsetting a ski resort company with a story, and concludes that, yes, he was probably fired for that reason, after the company pulled its ads from the paper. He also finds another case of self-censorship induced by pressure from the same ski company, leading us to the unavoidable conclusion that skiers are total pussies, dude.


Oh, last night was the annual White House Press Corps Shit-eating Kowtowing Fake Smile Holiday Party, where reporters who pretend to be impartial to the president get to finally go to the White House and take pictures with the president, which can really help you get laid, if you're a White House reporter. Check out how the "veteran journalist" attendee in this story refuses to be quoted by name! Because deep down, the journalists are ashamed. Very deep down.
Any journalist who steals something from the White House gets a pass, though.


The New Yorker is dropping its Winter Fiction Issue this year in favor of a special issue on "world changers," who are not fictional. The winners: Ad sales, world changers. The losers: Fictional things.


Folio magazine (still living!) reports that 428 magazines died in 2009, which is actually fewer than in the past two years! Of course, all the weakest are long dead already, so. Everything is still terrible.