In your shiny Thursday media column: the Tumblr-magazine relationship debated, Erik Wemple goes soft on the WaPo, Dorothy Parvaz's fun prison stories, HuffPo keeps on HuffPo-in', and your daily Katie Couric update.

  • Oh, here's an "interesting" media question: If a print outlet starts itself a Tumblr, does that actually cause more people to subscribe to the magazine? Magazine people with Tumblrs say "yes!" We say no. Anyone reading a magazine's Tumblr is already savvy enough to read your magazine's content for free. You know what improves magazine sales? Being stuck at the airport. The worse our nation's airlines perform, the better the magazine industry will do. Ergo, terrorism is good for magazines. Ergo, the magazine industry hates America. End of discussion.
  • Once-tough Washington Post critic Erik Wemple has gone soft on the Washington Post, now that he's been hired by the Washington Post! ""I could be critical of the Post while working there," he tells AJR. "Yet I don't want to cover the Post anymore, at least not even close to the degree that I once did." Wimp! We here at Gawker vow to continue being tough on the Washington Post, until such time that we're hired by them, also.
  • Dorothy Parvaz, the Al Jazeera journalist who was recently freed after being incarcerated for weeks by the Syrian police, tells The Stranger that she was singing Guns N Roses, Cee-Lo, Johnny Cash, and "old school gangster rap" in her cell to pass the time. That's so fucking hardcore. Shout out to you, Dorothy Parvaz.
  • The Huffington Post has launched a Canadian site for some reason, and has hired more people for Daily Finance. Meanwhile, here's a good roundup of all the people who have left since the merger with AOL, because AOL is a heartless corporate hellhole.
  • It's a day of the week ending in "-day," and that means there's another story saying that Katie Couric is "close" to signing with ABC. Katie, we'll just reiterate: please go ahead and sign already, so we may never speak of you again.