Is Nick Denton going soft? Even his cutbacks are sentimental these days. In the old days, Denton, the publisher of Valleywag and 14 other Gawker Media blogs, would simply shutter blogs. These days, he worries first about finding them nice homes. Such is the velvet-glove treatment he's giving Gridskipper, Wonkette, and Idolator, his blogs about, respectively, travel, politics, and music. The three blogs amount to less than 3 percent of Gawker Media's traffic, he says. Fine, so why keep them around in any form? Silicon Alley Insider has the details on their new owners. More evidence of Denton's increasing namby-pambosity: Instead of threatening to fire leakers, he's encouraging us to post the internal memo announcing the move. Darling bossman, that's no fun. But also no reason to keep the memo from you, dear readers:

Yesterday, our allegedly cooler siblings at Idolator shared their thoughts about Tricia Romano's In Defense of Ultragrrrl Voice cover story. Today, world champion cat blogger Rich Juzwiak of Fourfour weighs in, so brilliantly that we believed in the internet again (again!) The whole thing is a must-read, but we have plucked out the highlights in deference to your ADD. If you only read one more bullet-pointed list about Ultragrrrl, let it be this one!

Well, this is embarrassing. So we'd rounded up some gossip items the other day about America's sweetheart, Britney Spears: we mentioned a "leaked song" on YouTube that seemed to be her "Cry Me A River" to K-Fed, and we linked to Jeannette Walls' report that Brit seemed preggish. After Variety broke the story yesterday, Fox News reported that the former claim, at least, is untrue: "That is NOT her vocal, that is NOT a song on her forthcoming album," Jive rep Gina Orr is quoted as saying. Today's Page Six brought the Variety quotes to the non trade reading masses:

The glorious day has finally arrived: After the painstaking tabulation of over 500 ballots, the kids at Idolator, with the invaluable assistance of Michaelangelo Matos, are ready to rip the rotted corpse of the Voice's music section from its fetid tomb and violate it like they were Canadian butt-burgling specters. That's right, Jackin' Pop is here! Featuring fresh faces alongside the usual suspects, five brilliant essays (Jason King on Gnarls Barkley; Daphne Carr on TV on the Radio, Mr. Matos on the poll itself; Rod Smith on metal and critics; Maura Johnston on fugitive number-ones), and the stunning MS Paint artistry of Jess Harvell, Jackin' Pop is the only look back at the last year in music that you'll need. Plus, you're spared the embarrassment of being seen holding the Voice. Go forth and enjoy.

• Arthur Sulzberger may try to take the New York Times private rather than see it fall into the hands of Hank Greenberg or Jack Welch. [BW]
  

Remember how, even when the rest of the paper sucked, you would still excitedly anticipate the Village Voice's Pazz & Jop music-critic survey each year? How it either confirmed your prejudices or made you think differently about something you had dismissed out of hand? How it served as a scouting report for fresh critical voices nationwide that (especially in the pre-Internet days) you might never have heard of otherwise? No? Just us? Well, whatever, we loved it. And one of our biggest worries when the new ownership came in and fired pretty much anyone with talent in the music section (Chuck Eddy and Bob Christgau in particular) was what would happen this year. We're not sure whether or not they'll even do a Pazz & Jop, but we are sure that if they do it'll blow (and be written mainly by music critics from the Columbia School of Journalism). That's why we're thrilled that the kids over at Idolator have picked up the ball and run with it. Curated by the brilliant Michaelangelo Matos, Idolator's Jackin' Pop (haha, get it?) Critics Poll "will maintain the Voice's thoughtfully anarchic approach to music criticism, merging it with the technological reach of Gawker Media." (Don't let that last part scare you.) Full details after the jump.