In your finally Friday media column: Greta Van Susteren stands up for Sarah Palin, the NYT vs. HuffPo Twitter traffic war, an excellent history of The National, Conde Nast must have its own air, and Larry King comments on penises.

  • Sarah Palin pal Greta Van Susteren, the journalist least likely to commit journalism, is asking some very provocative questions about all these so-called "news" organizations going through all of Sarah Palin's emails right now. "If however a news organization is seen as having a bad motive – ie on a mission to destroy someone rather than trying to assemble noteworthy information and report – it is not journalism but something else," she blog-writes. What else, Greta? "Palin should not get "special treatment" or a "media colonoscopy" simply because the media can't get enough of her …doesn't like her…or thinks it will spike readership or viewers to cover her. If the foregoing are the reasons for hiring the extra help to go through her emails (the outsourcing) the public is better served by the Post and the Times (and others) using their resources chasing down other stories….for instance pouring over documents showing exactly where the dollars are going that are being spent on defense contractors in Afghanistan." Haha, "pouring." Also haha, all that other stuff she wrote there. Then she says, "If there is some reason to believe there is something newsworthy in her emails, the media should go through Governor Palin's emails." Okay, shut up then.
  • The New York Times is not cool with yesterday's reports that the Huffington Post is getting more traffic than NYTimes.com: yeah, there was like, a Twitter war about it, but it would make me feel dirty to repeat it all. The Gray Lady is such a Tweety Bird these days.
  • Grantland today has a very worthwhile and well-researched oral history of The National Sports Daily, the short-lived sports journalism project that still makes an entire generation of sportswriters nostalgic (for those paychecks). Also today in Grantland, a meditation on Wrigley Field by Dave Eggers. I'm sure that's something.
  • You know how fancy the new Conde Nast cafeteria is gonna be? ("I don't know, how fancy?") So fancy that Conde is spending a million bucks to install a special ventilation shaft for it, so that it's cafeteria doesn't have to share a common ventilation shaft with all the commoners' air! Fancy? I'd say so!
  • Have you had a quote from Larry King today? "I am not sure that the ‘every guy' is twittering out his penis. I haven't. I tweet but I dictate my tweets, I have never physically tweeted." Thank you, Larry King. We needed that.

[Photo: Getty]