The Observer breaks this one:

• CNBC is backing Maria Bartiromo because, really, what else do you know about CNBC apart from Maria Bartiromo? [NYT]
  

It's got to be tough to work at the Times right now: Rumors are swirling about a change in ownership, the paper's relevance is being questioned by both the right and the left, and it's holiday time, which means your chances of getting ass-grabbed by a jolly Bill Safire have increased exponentially. To top it all off, Bill Keller - sounding like a man who has suffered a serious beating at the hands of the circulation department - has just announced that deadlines are being moved up half an hour. The idea is that if more customers in the suburbs can get their papers earlier in the morning, circulation will magically rise and Pinch won't be forced to sell more space in the new Times tower. What does this (probably futile) move mean for you? Basically nothing: You read the paper on line, much like everyone else here in the twenty-first century. Full memo after the jump.

• Bill Keller, everyone he knows, disagrees with NYT ombudsman (sorry, "Public Editor") Byron "Barney" Calame on banking story. [NYT]
  

• Newsweek stands resolute against Gawker's jeers that "while [its recent Annie Leibovitz] story tells of Leibovitz's life and her long-term friendship with the late Susan Sontag, it skips around the question of Leibovitz's sexual orientation." As long as we're jeering, how come there was no mention of Annie running off with the nanny? [NYP]
• No uncomfortable questions were asked at the Bill Keller/Patricia Dunn dinner. Thank God, that would be so tactless. [NYO]
• For those of you who find Rachael Ray insufferably cloying, which should be all of you, maybe Gourmet's Ruth Reichl will be an improvement. RELATED: We get it, Bill Buford, you like cooking. [WWD]

Patricia Dunn: Chair of Hewlett-Packard's board. Hired investigators to find a board member who leaked information to CNET. Investigators impersonated HP board members and outside reporters to get their personal call records from phone companies. Now Congress, the FBI, and California's attorney general are looking into criminal charges, possibly against Dunn.

If you're in San Francisco tomorrow night and you've got $500 burning a hole in your pocket you might want to stop by The Westin St. Francis for the Bay Area Council's 61st Annual Dinner. Times Executive Editor Bill Keller will deliver the keynote address, followed by the induction of recently-deposed Hewlett-Packard Chairman Patricia Dunn into the Bay Area Business Hall of Fame.

• Blogs: worse than the sixties. [NYT]
• Walter Scott, Walt Whitman also guilty of "sock puppetry." [NYT]
• Joe Hagan throws pretty much everything but the revelation that Bill Keller loves "The Wire" into this profile. [NYM]
• New magazine to battle Portfolio for that all-important douchebag demographic. [NYT]
• Speaking of douchebags, it's hard to identify to twattiest statement in this profile of the Flavorpill folks, but we're going to settle on, "We've been called the Cond Nast of e-mail." [NYT]
• Apparently, people wanted to see pictures of Suri Cruise. [WWD]
• Bill Gates has no iPod. Thank you, Donny Deutsch! [copyranter]

We were recently directed to PX This., the "witty, irreverent (star-studded) four year journal of a struggling New York commercial-artist/fashion-designer moonlighting as a maitre d' at some of Manhattan's most well-known restaurants." While perusing its contents, we came upon the following entry (all contents completely [sic]):

The ride is starting to get rough for possible plagiarist Ann Coulter. Apart from the allegations of plagiarism, the 45-year-old has just suffered the indignity of having her column dropped by the Cedar Rapids Gazette, where she's being replaced by Rush Limbaugh's less pill-happy (we're guessing) brother; other papers are also considering severing ties. Even Adam Carolla, who is so desperate for ratings that he'd light his own farts on fire were they able to make a sound, recently hung up on her. And while her book still seems to be moving copies [cough]bulk sales[cough], we're sensing a growing desperation from the professional javelin imitator. Her most recent column contains this gem about NYT Executive Editor Bill Keller:

• Hey, Pinch, there's an upside to keeping your stock in the toilet: It's your chance to take the Times Co. private again. Who to fund the deal? Your buddy Steve Rattner, of course! [NYO]
• Did Jann Wenner try to finagle a discounted rate from the Strokes for the RS 1,000th issue party?? Or did the Strokes try to extort more money from Jann? Eh, who cares. [WWD]
• Bill Keller thinks Bushies are out to intimidate the press. You think? [NJ]
• More changes expected at Marie Clarie — which, somehow, the Post makes at least partially Bonnie Fuller's fault. [NYP]
• Because there's nothing this woman can't do, here's dating advice from Bonnie Fuller. [AMNY]
• Oh, sure, Primedia is a disaster of a company. But why does that mean it shouldn't spend $250k to help cover the cost of its CEO's apartment? [Footnoted]

Today's the biggest day on newspaperland's calendar. No, not when Johnny Apple submits his novella-length list of itemized deductions to the IRS but rather when Columbia University announces the Pulitzer Prizes, promptly at 3 o'clock this afternoon. To mark the occasion, Editor & Publisher asked a bunch of former prizewinners where they were when they heard the news. Some of our favorite reporters are included in the roundup — Maureen, the News's Bill Sherman, who apparently used to cover boring-but-worthy things like Medicare fraud before becoming the paper's Jared Paul Stern reporter — but, frankly, their stories are all fairly boring. (It's a Tolstoyan thing, we imagine: Happy reporters are all alike; every unhappy reporter is unhappy in his own way.) We were stopped, however, by this intriguing story from top Timesman Bill Keller, who won in 1989 for international reporting:

• As expected, the Times dumps its unwatched Discovery Times channel. [Media Mob/NYO]
• Did Bill Keller's gin-heiress wife kill Boldace? Probably not, but she sure didn't help. [WWD (second item)]
• We love conflicts of interest; the Pulitzers board, not so much. [E&P]
• Forbes media kibitzer James Brady wonders, "Is Cosmo editor Kate White the smartest dame in the business?" Of course she is, Jim. Until you find someone else to slobber over next week. [Forbes]
• New Yorker fashion director Michael Roberts moves to Vanity Fair, presumably preferring a publication that does little things like fashion spreads. [Media Mob/NYO]

The week, Times editor Bill Keller is answering questions from readers. We're finding the Times readers' questions boring ("Why are there corrections?" "Why do you allow anonymous sources?"), and we knew Gawker readers would have far more interesting things to ask. You've submitted questions over the last two days; here are our top-five reader submitted questions. We'll submit them to Keller tonight, and we'll even put one of those red exclamation points next to it in Outlook. That'll definitely get him to read them!

We're actually a little impressed. Though they didn't explain it when they started the thing, it seems Times editor Bill Keller will be answering emailed questions on an ongoing basis throughout the week, and it seems — even more notably — that he's going to spend some real time writing substantive and substantial responses.

• David Patrick Columbia tells the story of Ron Burkle. Our favorite part is about midway, when we learn that Ron used hidden cameras to videotape his then-wife's affair with her personal trainer. Fucking the help is so clichéd; hidden cameras, even more so. Update: NYSD makes a correction to this item. [NYSD]
• And then there's the result, Ron Burkle's messy divorce: Interestingly, the Democrats in the California legislature (the same Democrats that count Burkle as a major supporter) are pushing forward legislation that would keep his divorce records from becoming public information. Pity — the public would love to read about who's been on that private jet. [America's Finest Blog]
• Did Harvey Weinstein lie to the poor ol' Gray Lady about his connections to Page Six? Nikki Finke wouldn't put it past him, and she's totally right. [Deadline Hollywood]
• Dealbook proudly presents the Page Six Mogul Index. We lurve it. [Dealbook]

It is, we suppose, admirable and duly transparent and webby and so forth that Times editor Bill Keller will deign to answer questions from readers this week. We noticed the announcement linked from the paper's homepage this weekend:

• Ad-sales side of Conde's forthcoming business mag is filling up; prez/pub David Carey expects mag to be fully staffed — biz and editorial — by Thanksgiving. [MIN]
• Breaking: More and more people people are reading newspapers on the web. [WP]
• Candace Bushnell, Cindi Leive, Jill Abramson, and Geena Davis win New York Women in Communications' Matrix Awards. [WWD]
• Bill Keller is overly absorbed with questions of self-absorption, says Jay Rosen. [Guardian]

A vigilant reader forwarded us an inquiry spotted today on ProfNet, the blast-email service that helps reporters find overeager sources:

Ken Auletta did a major New Yorker profile of Arthur Sulzberger Jr. at the end of last year, and at one point in it he described Bill Keller, the Times editor, as "at times, given to strange jokes." We took that to refer to Keller's inexplicable affection for something-in-the-water-that-makes-your-penis-fall-off punchlines. (See: Here and here.)