In your merry maudlin Monday media column: Changes on the NYO's political beat, Washington Post copy editors are a joke, a flack named Flack, and a reporter braves Wal-Mart, for journalism.

The New York Observer's new editor Kyle Pope is already making changes. On the politics beat specifically. Political writer Steve Kornacki is ending his days as a full time employee and becoming a contributor. And fellow political writer Jimmy Vielkind is leaving the NYO and moving to a political writing job at the Albany Times Union. Meanwhile, NYO owner Jared Kushner is overcoming adversity in his own way, as well. On his honeymoon with Ivanka Trump:

So, everyone's pitching in!


For the record: the Washington Post reporter who wrote the story that led to the year's dumbest correction, in which the paper thought Public Enemy's "911 Is a Joke" referred to 9/11, was not responsible for the mistake. It was a copy editor's fuckup. Let this be a lesson: Always blame editors for everything.


Hilton Hotels has a flack named Flack! "'A film like this has a truly global reach and allows global marketing,' Mr. Flack said." Now we've seen everything!


Let's just salute the intrepidity (word?) of NYT reporter Stephanie Rosenbloom, who spent an entire shift as a worker at a Wal-Mart in New Jersey, being forced to endure mandatory employee pep rallies complete with hip-wiggling and cries of "whoo whoo," in relation to the fact of being employed at Wal-Mart. By our reckoning hers is the second-worst time ever had by a reporter at Wal-Mart.