In your wacky Wednesday media column: the phone hacking fallout predicted, a financial bright spot at the NYT Co., Tina Brown's crazy cover fails, and HuffPo afflicts the British isles.

  • Short version of the UK tabloid phone hacking scandal news: News of the World is dirty! So, so dirty. Always have been, of course, but it's all getting dumped on the table now, and there are political implications as well as financial ones, in the form of pulled advertising. Rumblings have already begun about the "pressure" this is all supposedly putting on Rupert Murdoch. Who will take the fall, etc? Here's what Rupert had to say today: "I have made clear that our company must fully and proactively cooperate with the police in all investigations and that is exactly what News International has been doing and will continue to do under Rebekah Brooks' leadership. We are committed to addressing these issues fully and have taken a number of important steps to prevent them from happening again." That's right—no one will take the fall. A low-level patsy, at best. I would be surprised if Rebekah Brooks gets canned, because Rebekah Brooks is a loyalist, and Murdoch prizes loyalty, and also he does not give a fuck about prevailing public opinion, which has always been against him, anyhow. This is News Corp, after all. You people expect Rupert Murdoch to step down, or something? You people are crazy.
  • At least one analyst believes that the New York Times Co. is no longer such a horrible stock that you should sell it all at once, lest you go bankrupt. Huh. Did they sell that copy of the Declaration of Independence?
  • Bwahaha: Tina Brown's way psycho "Picture of Princess Di if she was alive today" cover of Newsweek bombed ad sales-wise, selling just half the ad pages of the previous double issue. Hey, that's what happens when you choose the covers of your national magazine based on the weird personal fixations of your editor-in-chief. I mean just cause you like some long-dead person doesn't mean you need to splash them on the cover of fucking Newsweek. (Except the Historical Jesus.)
  • There's now a Huffington Post for the UK. Just what they need.

[Photo: AP]