In your finally Friday media column: wacko wants to buy newspaper from some other wackos who are too wack to sell, Christiane Amanpour has a new job, a WSJ wage freeze, and Jon Friedman is a literary Tiger.

  • Some crazy person (Suffolk County real estate developer Bob Toussie) has informed Cablevision that he would like to buy hopeless newspaper Newsday. According to the WSJ: "I'd love to tell you but I would have to pay more for the paper,'' said Toussie, in a long and sometimes rambling conversation. "Would you tell someone the cure for cancer before it was finalized?" In journalism, "rambling" means "crazy." Still: Sellsellsell!
  • Christiane Amanpour is the new George "Steph" anapoulous. It is truly notable how little we have come to care about the minutiae of cable news news, at least that portion of industry news unrelated to the colorful, insane, screaming non-journalist personalities on our cable networks, given the fact that we are technically covering the media. We can only imagine the effect is even more pronounced in the non-media reporter demographic.
  • The WSJ's union has agreed to a 17-month wage freeze in its new contract. Which sounds kind of bad, but 17 months is a reasonable estimate for how long it might take for the media at large to pull out of the worst of its own recession. Not newspapers, though. Those are fucked.
  • Are you confused about how to wrap your mind around Tiger Woods' return to golf? Allow Jon Friedman to help you:

  • When Michael Jordan returned from his retirement, the mania for his first game was incredible. Putting it in proper perspective, the opposing coach for his first game, Larry Brown, then of the Indiana Pacers, quipped, "The Beatles and Elvis are back."

  • Tiger is returning. You might say that the Beatles, Elvis and Michael Jackson are back.

[Pic: Flickr]