The New Yorker profiled MSNBC editorializer Keith Olbermann and the Post, as the designated attack dog of Olbermann enemy News Corp. excerpted only the most damaging bits. But it still left out plenty of juicy scraps of information about the many coworkers the MSNBC Countdown host has insulted and alienated over the years, and about the arguably insulting things even supportive NBC executives said about him. A quick roundup, starting with Olbermann's insults, including the co-host he moved to tears:

A tipster is telling us that the Wall Street Journal's fabled Page One staff will be dissolved into the news desk. Page One editor Mike Williams would become a "roving features editor," which sounds much less powerful. The Page One desk is responsible, among other things, for the often breezy but always well-researched A-Hed feature, which has been increasingly marginalized as the Journal's front page gets newsier. Its disbanding would mark only the latest move by new editor Robert Thomson to remake the Journal in the image of the Financial Times, Thomson's former employer and a favorite of ultimate Journal overlord Rupert Murdoch. In fact, the paper's old guard is said by our insider to be grumbling that recent FT-like stories, like the front page article on alleged flaws in the Libor benchmark lending rate, are shoving aside "stories that appeal beyond the circle of Murdoch's friends in the global elite." But not all veteran editors are suffering under a cluster of changes said to be coming down in the coming days.

The Post's efforts to slam Keith Olbermann are getting increasingly desperate. In its latest attempt to lash the MSNBC personality on behalf of owner Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. comrade-in-arms Bill O'Reilly, who are in a feud with the Countdown host, the tabloid somehow managed to work an Olbermann dig into a story about bad gym behavior. Well, actually, not into the copy of the story itself, but into the accompanying infographic, pictured above. It's an awkward enough dig to make one miss Olbermann's Rupert-Murdoch-as-a-pirate imitation. [Post]

Everyone seems nearly as confused in the aftermath of Jane Friedman's departure from atop HarperCollins as they were in the frantic hours before the official confirmation. But it looks increasingly like the CEO was elbowed aside. Friedman's deputy and successor, Brian Murray, has disclosed he was summoned to a meeting with Rupert Murdoch Wednesday and unexpectedly offered her job. But Friedman didn't discuss her departure with Murdoch until two days later, on Wednesday, according to a Times source "familiar with her situation." If true, that would signal Murdoch wanted her out. Perhaps the HarperCollins pipeline looked weak; Leon Neyfakh at the Observer raised the possibility of "a terrible fourth quarter." Still, there are all sorts of conflicting signals.

Looking for a decent excuse to advance his long-simmering feud with Rupert Murdoch and to do a weird Australian/pirate accent, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann seized upon the words of a former News Corp. insider, who claimed in one of our posts this morning that Murdoch fired Jane Friedman from HarperCollins because she canned powerhouse publisher Judith Regan in late 2006, and also because she squashed Regan's OJ Simpson book project. The source also claimed, tangentially and outlandishly, that Fox News chief Roger Ailes will soon be fired as well for his own role in the Simpson book fiasco. Predictably, this amused Olbermann to no end. For the crime of going to bat for the OJ book, Olbermann named Murdoch today's "worst person in the world," an honor previously bestowed to Fox News screamer Bill O'Reilly. He then did a killer Murdoch imitation that will surely put to rest those allegations that he's totally crazy. Clip after the jump.

Jane Friedman's departure as HarperCollins CEO, first reported by Gawker, has been officially confirmed by the book publisher. Her replacement by Brian Murray, 21 years her junior, comes less than a month after a similar generational shift at Bertelsmann AG's Random House, where unsentimental German engineer Markus Dohle, 39, replaced book-loving lawyer Peter Olson, 58. The young book executives hope to fix slowing growth and to better exploit the explosion in online digital media. But it's not clear whether broad technology trends had much to do with the departure of Friedman, who got her start as a Knopf dictaphone typist four decades ago, went on to become a pioneer in audio books and online marketing and who led a unique and ambitious push to digitize HaperCollins' collection. As a surprised fellow executives groped for answers about the change last night, some speculated it might even have its roots in late 2006, when Friedman, with the backing of Roger Ailes, squelched the a high-profile book overseen by HarperCollins executive Judith Regan by alleged killer OJ Simpson, then pushed Regan out of the company in the wake of Regan's remarks about Jews. As one former News Corp. insider put it:

We're hearing a wild rumor that Jane Friedman was just fired from her perch atop News Corp.'s HarperCollins. If true, this would sure lend a hefty dose of irony to the publishing executive's quote in the Observer today, gleaned from an industry party on the Twentieth Century Fox lot Saturday: "I love being CEO of HarperCollins!" Anyone hearing anything? UPDATE: The Observer quotes a source confirming Friedman's departure, and the Wall Street Journal is reporting the exit as fact. Two strange things about these reports:

Rupert Murdoch's handmaidens over at the New York Post this morning jumped into a feud between their Fox News shouting head Bill O'Reilly and MSNBC ranter Keith Olbermann. The tabloid's gossip page ran an item dredging up various minor controversies involving Olbermann dating back to his ESPN days, up through an alleged spat between Olbermann and fellow MSNBC personality David Gregory last Tuesday over camera time. It then insinuated Olbermann might soon explode and leave his network. The warmed-over gossip was clearly meant as cover fire on behalf of O'Reilly, a fellow News Corp. soldier, whose feud with Olbermann is detailed in the Washington Post today. In a nutshell:

John Bussey-the Wall Street Journal's DC bureau chief and one of the candidates touted for the newspaper's vacant managing editor position-probably won't get the nod from the Journal's new owners. To be sure, he's won respect from Rupert Murdoch's lieutenants for masterminding the newspaper's election coverage; one of them, Journal publisher Robert Thomson knows Bussey drive from their days together as rival foreign correspondents in Tokyo; and his less whiny underlings give Bussey credit for energizing the sleepy bureau in the capital. But Portfolio's Jeff Bercovici reckons Rupert Murdoch's lieutenants will bring in someone uncontaminated by the business newspaper's rather insular culture; and we're sticking by our original prediction that Robert Thomson will pull a Dick Cheney and nominate himself for the managing editor role (much like I have at Gawker). Anyway, it's too bad. Bussey has made a lot of enemies during his years at the Journal-and the backstabbing colleagues are offering a smorgasbord of delicious anecdotes about the newspaper exec that we'd love to have better reason to relay.

Of all the cliques at the Wall Street Journal, the reporters and editors of the newspaper's Money & Investing team were most inclined to accommodate to the new régime put in place by Rupert Murdoch. They're more financially sophisticated than the average Journal reporter, and less precious; the head of the paper's third section is thought friendly with Murdoch aide Gary Ginsberg, and has even been mentioned as a candidate for managing editor; and Money & Investing is widely regarded as the newsiest part of the Journal, in need of less of a re-education than the self-indulgent feature writers of the main paper and the second section, Marketplace. And that's why this week's disastrous pep talk by the Australian media mogul's key lieutenant, Journal publisher Robert Thomson, is so damaging.

That largely impotent committee set up to protect the editorial independence of the Wall Street Journal has issued a statement. The business newspaper's new owners, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, "failed to meet the letter and the spirit of the agreement" to consult over personnel changes. And?

The Times profile of Rupert Murdoch's man at the Wall Street Journal, Robert Thomson, reinforces much of what was already known about the newsroom leader. He is good friends with the News Corp. chairman, charming to coworkers, a proven news chief and has responsibilities at the Journal that have long outstripped his title of "publisher." But the Times story adds new information that makes it sound like Thomson will play good cop to Murdoch's bad cop:

News Corporation tycoon Rupert Murdoch is precisely thirty years older than his lieutenant at the Wall Street Journal, Robert Thomson. And a birthday is far from the only thing they have in common, as shown by this handy list from Intelligencer.

Last night, Gawker compared Nik Deogun of the Wall Street Journal to Quisling, the politician who did Nazi Germany's bidding during the occupation of Norway. Unkind. But the Murdoch favorite should at least pretend to be in mourning for his dear colleague, managing editor Marcus Brauchli-and the ancient freedoms of the business newspaper trampled by News Corporation's jackboots. One former colleague of Deogun, the Calcutta-bred manager of the Journal's Money & Investing section, writes in: "Never have truer words been written than your post on Nik Deogun. Friends of mine still there said he was swanning around the newsroom the morning of the Marcus news with a big smile on his face."

Marcus Brauchli got screwed, as this virtual gift on the outgoing Journal managing editor's Facebook page so aptly depicts. With his departure goes any pretense that Rupert Murdoch's takeover of the business newspaper will be anything but brutal, and Wall Street Journal reporters are already gossiping about the likely casualties. But there will be winners as well as losers; some of them will even be deserving. Our list, after the jump.

Portfolio's Jack Flack, interpreter of opaque corporate boiler plate, translates Marcus Brauchli's letter resigning as managing editor of the Wall Street Journal.

The Wall Street Journal's managing editor, who's just resigned, went along with many of News Corporation's plans for the business paper. "It's hard to think he could've jumped much higher," a Journal reporter told Portfolio's Jeff Bercovici. For an explanation of Rupert Murdoch's frenzy of activity, here's the analysis of the motives of the News Corporation boss.

Rupert Murdoch's 78th year has been busy. With the exit of the Wall Street Journal's native managing editor, Marcus Brauchli, the Australian media mogul's lieutenant now has a free hand to turn the business newspaper into a broader national title. We're hearing this afternoon that Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman has dropped out of the bidding for Newsday, clearing the way for Murdoch's News Corporation to take control of a third newspaper in the New York market. And the New York Post is this week shrinking to allow the News Corporation tabloid to be produced on the same presses as the Journal. But here's the question: why the rush? There are three main reasons: newspaper publishing economics; the broader synergies available to a media group with heightened political influence; and mortality.

Departing managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, Marcus Brauchli, says Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation "should have a managing editor of their choosing."

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is about to buy Newsday for close to $580 million, and pull off a neat trick in the process: bringing profitability to Murdoch's other, cash-bleeding tabloid, the New York Post. By combining the Post and Newsday into a joint business venture, Murdoch stands to "wipe out as much as $50 million in annual losses News Corp. now incurs on the Post, with the combined Newsday-Post operation earning roughly $50 million," according to a Wall Street Journal source. The sale price represents a significant premium over the $350 million to $400 million price put forward by one newspaper analyst. The whole transaction is dependent on regulator approval, which is no sure thing. Assuming the deal goes through, it will be interesting to see how Newsday's headlines, front page and overall tone evolve, since the joint venture is not limited to back-end business operations but includes editorial resources as well. [WSJ]