In your magical Monday media column: Media CEOs earn Monopoly money, a fine White House Celebucocksucking Dinner roundup, CNN gets a new toy, and the Arizona Republic finds a use for editorials.

  • Big media companies by and large did not have an incredibly successful 2009. Nevertheless, the CEOs of many of those companies received substantial pay increases! Look at how happy Les Moonves is about it, in that painting! Will this, at last, be the bell that tolls the end for corporate-controlled capitalism? Sorry, just felt like saying that, haha.
  • If you were one of the 300 million Americans who weren't invited to the White House Correspondents Dinner and its associated parties, just go ahead and read John Koblin's recap, in which everyone is either tripping over themselves to suck a celebrity's dick (metaphorically), or tripping over themselves to ensure that no reporters present actually report anything, because it is all off the record. Sums up the entire endeavor pretty well.
  • Huzzah, CNN hath unveiled a new HD set. The better to show the Twitters on!
  • The Arizona Republic ran an editorial decrying (more or less) the wacko immigration law on its entire front page. Proving that there is a still a role for editorials in newspapers: to distract readers from the fact that there's no news on the front page. (Kidding! We like the idea). (Not really kidding though).