The UK's stupid libel laws allow people to successfully sue the media for making fun of them. So Robert Dee, a 21-year-old British guy who is the world's Worst Professional Tennis Player, is suing three newspapers there for pointing out that he is, in fact, the Worst Professional Tennis Player. Mainly, this makes us glad to be in America, where we're free to tell you that Robert Dee is the Worst Professional Tennis Player. But also, the facts aren't even on his side; it sure sounds like he really is the Worst Professional Tennis Player!:

Sometimes the scent of desperation just rolls off the newspaper industry in great waves. The Dallas Morning News, like every other paper, has not been doing well. Their new strategy to get back on track: "a free, one-section version of the paper for home delivery aimed at nonsubscribers who are short on time." Ha, they're not short on time, they just don't want to read your stupid paper! The free version will go to "affluent" neighborhoods. So the company will pay to produce a dumbed-down version of its own poorly-selling paper and deliver it, thereby cannibalizing its own declining circulation and giving a big "fuck you" to not-wealthy readers all at once. It just might work! [DMN]

Kittens: they just won't go away. You must look at them! They and their assorted cute friends—puppies, monkeys, duckies, hippopotami—have taken over the internet, and have already become a leading addiction among men and women alike. Cute cravings must be fed, productivity be damned. A baby bear licking a swan! A parakeet wearing a tutu! A kitten roller skating on the back of a pink stingray! The Observer predicts a "cuteness surge." This will be our downfall. Our supposedly sophisticated elites have allowed their cutie wootie nom nom nuzzle muzzle urges to become their drug, their porn, their shame:

The plan to turn the LA Times' Sunday magazine over to the paper's business staff, ending its four-decade run as an editorial product, is now a reality. LAT editor Russ Stanton acknowledged that he didn't like the idea, but said that the paper's budget issues make holding onto editorial control of the magazine "impossible." So who is the Tribune Company's leading candidate to take charge of the troubled magazine now? The perfect choice: a host from the Home Shopping Network HSN.

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.

Former Daily News gossip hack Lloyd Grove has a lengthy interview with New York Observer owner and golden-boy-about town Jared Kushner out today, in which the 27-year-old Kushner yacks and yacks about his real estate holdings, his media holdings, and how the Observer's revenues are way up this year (although it's doubtful the paper has made him money yet). He's guarded, and talks a lot like a PR person. But one thing comes through quite clearly, just by his use of examples: this is a rich, rich young man. And maybe done dating Ivanka Trump? He won't say. Still, the time to snag this wealthy media baron is now!:

WSJ. (note important period), the Wall Street Journal's new glossy magazine, is rolling out in only three short months! Lo, how the idle rich of the world pine for its insights. The paper is already in strong PR mode for the launch, touting its roster of luxury advertisers. More importantly, what will the new rag—with an international circulation of almost a million—look like (besides the single prototype page, pictured)? We put together the clues:

Whoa. We all know the Tribune Company and its biggest paper, the LA Times, are in trouble. But this seems drastic even for them: the paper is considering a plan to fire the entire editorial staff of its Sunday magazine, and turn the whole operation over to the business side of the paper. It would no longer even be an editorial product. (Just try to imagine what would happen if the NYT Magazine did this). The newsroom is pissed, with LAT editor Russ Stanton reportedly asking the publisher to change the magazine's name if the plan goes through, so it doesn't tarnish the newsroom's credibility. Gee, we remember another LAT Sunday magazine scandal in 1999, back when these types of things actually provoked outrage rather than resignation:

Sam Zell's Tribune Company is making drastic cuts in news pages, and adding more colorful charts and graphs. Analyst Ken Doctor says that strategy is doomed to fail, since it just weakens papers' brands further, and charticles haven't impressed anyone since the early heyday of USA Today. "People and paper" are business' two biggest costs. Our BOLD prediction: The four-day print edition (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday) will arrive in mid-major cities in the next 5 years. [via Romenesko]

Newspapers have figured out that they need web content, and they're desperate for it. So they take reporters and repurpose them as bloggers. Makes sense, right? Not really. As it turns out, blogging isn't the same thing as reporting, and many of these reporters are bad and out-of-touch bloggers. Case in point? As Jossip mentioned earlier, Elizabeth Snead of the L.A. Times. Today, she points out the lovely Liv Tyler's "bit of bulk" during a premier: "Suck that tummy in, girls!" Bloggers and reporters are two separate species, and they must be kept apart! That's not to say that a hybrid can't be bred successfully, but we must remain vigilant against journalistic miscegenation.

Hand-wringing Cornell alums will meet to discuss the Future of Journalism, which ain't looking so bright: "The New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Seattle Times and countless smaller newspapers across the US have recently laid off reams of staff members and seen massive declines in advertising revenues. What does this mean?! Why are advertisers pulling out? If the newspaper dies, who's going to deliver hard-hitting, sleuthy, unbiased, quality journalism?! We can't get all our news from Jon Stewart, YouTube, or so-called citizen bloggers, can we?" Welcome; we are your new rulers. Please keep in mind that "truthy" is the new "sleuthy" while checking your 401(k)s at the door. [Cornell Entrepreneur Network]

The Post's Page Six continues to dribble out names of reporters laid off by the Times, and continues to imply, but not say, the layoffs are fresh — which means they likely aren't, but are instead victims of the only newsroom layoffs in Times history, which concluded May 7. Today, Page Six names one person who took the buyout, metro reporter Anthony Ramirez, plus one person forced out — cops reporter Thomas Lueck. "Lueck was on his way to work when they phoned him to say his services were no longer needed," said the Post's tipster. The Post thinks this is "heartless." Right, not at all in the gallant vein of how the Post treated its own cops reporter. [Post]

Yazmany Arboleda, the masterful young media manipulator and artist of debatable talent, still has the national press talking two days after the Secret Service shut down his "art exhibit" about the Assassination of Barack and Hillary. But that's okay, because now the kid is digging his own grave with grand pronouncements. Hoax, you say? No, this whole stunt is probably just over your head:

Tribune CEO Sam Zell famously cursed one of his journalists earlier this year when asked whether refocusing the company would undermine serious journalism. He called such thinking "classic... journalistic arrogance." But now Zell is struggling to service $12.8 billion in debt amid a weak economy, and he's planning what sounds like mass layoffs and newsprint reductions to meet the challenge. The cuts would fall hardest on the journalists who produce the least output — just the sort of emphasis on quantity over quality once-supportive reporters and editors at the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Orlando Sentinel are likely to abhor:

Old Washington Post-ies are getting sweet buyout packages. One example: former Post photography chief Joseph Elbert just walked away with a deal that includes a $280,000 lump sum, and could reach a total value of close to $400,000 with various benefits over the next 20 years. Compare that to what most upstart "new media" bloggers will receive when they retire: nothing. [Washington CP]

Does the New York Times have an intern who just reads copies of the Wall Street Journal from last year and suggests story ideas to steal? Has our explanation of the rules for stealing news stories legitimately had no impact on Times whatsoever? (No). Yesterday Anemona Hartocollis wrote a story for the Times about family-style therapy, largely focusing on the work of a Beth Israel treatment center. That's....been done:

As predicted, Yazmany Arboleda—the publicity-seeking artist hastily shut down by the Secret Service yesterday for his exhibit about the "Assassination" of Barack and Hillary—made a clean sweep of the New York media. He is truly a master of his craft. The stories run the gamut, from the Post's throwaway one-off to the Sun's cautious warning that this whole art project might be a big hoax. And let's hope it is; it would be worthwhile comeuppance for the equally publicity-seeking New York Police Commissioner, who really should have had better things to be concerned about yesterday:

"Thomas A. Johnson, the first black reporter at Newsday and later, at The New York Times, one of the first black journalists to work as a foreign correspondent for a major daily newspaper, died on Monday in Queens. He was 79." [Times] (Photo via Times)

Evangelists preaching the gospel of "hyperlocal" journalism were all atwitter when the Washington Post launched LoudounExtra.com last year, which focuses minutely on the happenings of Loudoun County, Virginia. But the paper's mission to "re-engage its local subscribers" has failed, and the site's audience is still small. Our theory as to why readers haven't flocked to LoudounExtra.com: nothing happens in Loudoun County, Virginia. [WSJ]

Now that the rules for stealing news stories have been revealed, people are seeing stolen stories everywhere! At the National Review, they're accusing the New Yorker's Jeff Toobin of ripping off the Weekly Standard's profile last year of Nixon-loving political hit man Roger Stone. We guess that's true, if you consider it plagiarism to quote the well-rehearsed quotes of a veteran quote whore: