We were born 100 years too late. In the Times' "TimesMachine," you can read about the glorious life you might have been living in 1909, when, on this day, the paper featured a Senator's attack on a Times reporter and the election of President Taft's son into Skull and Bones.

• Francois Payard says he'll be forced to close his Upper East Side flagship (and lay off his 74 employees) if his landlord insists on doubling his rent. [Crain's]
• Daniel Boulud's DBGB held a preview last night for industry peeps and, sure enough, loads of industry types turned up. Commoners will get a chance to try out DB's latest venture when it opens to the public on June 8. [TFB, GS, Eater]
• Ipuddo, the EV ramen spot, gets one star from Bruni in today's Times. [NYT]
• Yama on Houston has closed; the lounge Stay caught fire last night. [Eater]
• A bunch of Hamptons bouncers have been busted for dealing drugs. [NYP]
• Nobu in London still serves endangered bluefin tuna because the chefs there insist on it. Or at least that's how Nobu GM Richie Notar explains it. [TFB]

In your woebegone Wednesday media column: Richard Branson's allegedly stalking Playboy, dead mag foto fun, more ominous signs on the NYT's Social Media Editor, and gag outsourcing is the new "let's hope it doesn't turn into real outsourcing":

• Rumor has it Richard Branson may be interested in buying Playboy. [ChiTrib]
• Two Boston Globe unions have agreed to concessions with the NYT Co. [E&P]
• Why did the Times pick Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim to invest in the paper instead of David Geffen? It seems publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. was "worried about Geffen's ambition to take over the company." [AllThingsD]
• Mayor Bloomberg plans to introduce legislation in Albany to extend the city's popular—but broke—film/TV tax credit program. [THR]
• Tom McGeveran has been named interim editor of the New York Observer. He'll take over for Peter Kaplan, whose last day will be this Friday. [NYO]

This week, a former New York Times editor revealed that the NYT got handed the Watergate storywell before the Washington Post had it, but they just...forgot about it, or something. Now the full scope of this foolishness is coming out; the comedy of errors continues to this day:

Today the New York Times named Jennifer Preston its first-ever "Social Media Editor." We speculated she would do comical stuffy-NYT-meets-freewheeling-internet activities like cracking down on newsroom Twitterers (and maybe trying out this "Twitter" herself?). We were correct:

• How is Twitter going to make money? With a reality TV series, naturally. The show will involve "putting ordinary people on the trail of celebrities in a revolutionary competitive format," in case you were wondering. [Variety]
• The primetime lineups for next year "are chockablock with shows meant to make recession-weary viewers laugh and feel better." How encouraging! [NYT]
• Ratings are down for CNN's Anderson Cooper as well as for Roland Martin, who has been subbing for Campbell Brown recently. [Page Six]
• Bravo's next Real Housewives installment: Washington, DC. [Daily Intel]
• Fox News nut Greta Van Susteren may not be around for long. Rumor has it her contract won't be be renewed and Megyn Kelly will replace her. [NYT]
• New York lost close to $5 million last year; with ad pages down 37 percent thus far in 2009, "losses are expected to be even higher this year." [NYP]
• A Russian investment firm has dropped $200 million into Facebook's bank account in return for a 1.96 percent stake in the company. [NYT]
• Ben Stiller's Night at the Museum sequel beat out the fourth installment of the Terminator franchise with a four-day pull of $70 million. [Reuters]

The New York Times is charging face-first into the digital age! They're appointing a "Social Media Editor." It's Jennifer Preston, former editor of the recently-folded Regional Sections! Could this be the beginning of the end of the Golden Age of NYT Twittery? [UPDATED below]:

Teenagers! They're out there, genuflecting at the altar of the Jonas Brothers and finger-banging in the backs of buses on the way to field trips and doing whatever else teenagers do these days. But did you know that text messaging is completely destroying all hope for their future?

New York Times economics reporter Edmund Andrews has responded to The Atlantic's Megan McArdle's takedown of him for glossing over important details in his "I'm broke!" Times piece. It's an ugly scene.

The New York Times' Charlie Savage can write a whole book about The Presidency, but he can't figure out how to operate a lapel mic. This proves that New York Times people always think they're so smart, but they're not.

Last night, New York Times LA bureau chief Jennifer Steinhauer had a party for her new book at the home of Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton. The additional drama: Her husband Edward Wyatt covers television for the Times! So what happened?

Bloomberg has distributed a policy to newsroom staff on blogging, Twittering and Facebook updating. And in keeping with the company's tyrannical management culture, the rules are far more authoritarian than similar admonitions recently dispensed at the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and elsewhere.

In last Sunday's New York Times Magazine, Times economics reporter Edmund Andrews wrote a piece about how irresponsible lenders had essentially ruined his family's life titled, "My Personal Credit Crisis." Megan McArdle of the Atlantic then went digging around and found some major issues with Andrews' story.

Jennifer Steinhauer is the L.A. Bureau chief for the New York Times. Her husband is Times television reporter Ed Wyatt. Steinhauer's having a book party in LA tonight for her new novel, Beverly Hills Adjacent. The location of the party: the home of Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton. What?

Reports surfaced recently that media mogul David Geffen had expressed an interest in buying a piece of the New York Times. As the story goes, Geffen had offered to buy Harbinger Capital Partners' 20 percent stake in the paper; but Harbinger, the hedge fund operated by Phil Falcone, had rejected the overture because it had been hoping for a higher price. Much was made of Geffen's attempt to snag a piece of the esteemed paper, what his true intentions were, and whether the DreamWorks co-founder had been hoping to shape the paper's coverage of Washington and Hollywood. It doesn't matter much now, since the deal doesn't appear to be moving ahead. In the meantime, though, let's all be thankful that Falcone's wife, Lisa, hasn't been making any efforts to influence the Times's fashion coverage. Click on the photo above to see Lisa at the NYCB spring gala the other night in all her glittery glory.

This note went out to NYT staffers yesterday evening, in the wake of Tommy Friedman having to return a $75K speaking fee, because Tommy Friedman cannot read:

Media minutiae feud alert! The combatants: Selena Roberts, former star NYT sports reporter now at Sports Illustrated; and her former paper. Did the Times try, and fail, to take her down, journalistically? Details! [UPDATED]:

• Portfolio isn't over and done with, after all: An affiliate of Condé Nast—based in Charlotte, weirdly—plans to revive the magazine's website. [NYO]
• Josh Marshall has accepted Maureen Dowd's apology for swiping some of his copy; and Dowd's new column today is Marshall-free, thankfully. [TPM, NYT]
• Upfronts 2009: What the CW and CBS have in store for the fall. [THR, THR]
• Is Jann Wenner looking to poach Condé Nast honcho David Carey? [NYM]
• Times executive editor Bill Keller says Google is the paper's "frenemy." [NYO]
• CNBC's Jeff Macke had a meltdown on the air yesterday. [Gawker]

Misunderstood Times columnist Maureen Dowd got in trouble for not rewriting something her friend emailed her from a blog, so today's column is something only MoDo could've written.