In your wearying Wednesday media column: the Washington Post is somewhat unpopular, the NYT is just coasting, Steve Coll's secret reading list, and a late freelancer payment tidbit.

What are those slick bastards at the Washington Post trying now? They are trying—and failing—to hire a bunch of good reporters away from the NYT, according to Michael Calderone. If only there were a massive pool of unemployed and underemployed qualified, struggling journalists from which they could pull talent, instead.


And that looks even worse for the Washington Post, since all the New York Times can offer its own staffers now are fake sideways promotions, like, why don't you go from editing this one thing, to writing about this other thing? Because there are no new jobs there, you see. But hey, at least it's not the Washington Post!


Since we resurrected the topic of late-paying media outlets yesterday, here is an amusing tip: We're told that the infamous, slothful Outside magazine took 58 weeks to pay the writer of this piece. Ironic.


We have just stumbled upon an interesting feature at Atlantic Wire, which is they go to some notable media person and just ask them what media things they read daily, and if you are a certain type of media nerd it really is quite an absorbing thing! So let's just check out today's, Steve Coll, celebrated national security expert and New Yorker correspondent, seems he reads "Gawker." And some other shit.