* “Today” wins weeklong showdown against “Good Morning America.” (New York Times)
* Choire Sicha needed a Friday laugh so he read the Olbermann lawsuit. (The Awl)
* Cosmopolitan catches heat over Selena Gomez cover. (CNN via KPLR11.com)
* WP reader to ombud: “I found the photo of the youth burning to death in today’s edition to be horribly offensive.” (Washington Post)

NYT's Matt Bai is a NYT puzzle clue

* NYT’s Matt Bai wakes up to learn he’s a NYT crossword puzzle clue. (@mattbai)
* Why Bob Woodward is wrong about the Internet and journalism. (Gigaom.com)
* Guardian’s Alan Rusbridger “seems less a commanding newsroom boss than a grown-up Harry Potter.” (New York)
* National Football League shuts down NFL Magazine after just four issues. (AdAge.com)
* All 4 Milwaukee TV stations say newsroom staffers signed Gov. Walker recall petitions. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
* “SNL” alum Rachel Dratch: “I get New York magazine in real form, but that’s the only magazine I get.” (Adweek.com)

Photo: Ali Colwell

Maneater managing editor Abby Spudich says the April Fools’ edition of the paper — titled “The Carpeteater” — “was incredibly offensive and potentially damaging to the social climate at MU, and I want to take this opportunity to express our sincere apologies.”

Although many parts of this edition were vulgar and offensive, I want to first take the time to explain the masthead. I truly did not know that “carpet eater” is a derogatory term used for a lesbian. Had I known, I would never have even considered using it. …

I would also like to take this opportunity to apologize to any individuals, advertisers, groups and readers who were offended by the content in the April Fool’s edition. I could not be more sorry or regret this any more than I already do.

Spudich says the paper will not have an April Fools’ edition next year. “We’ve decided that it’s not worth offending members of our community for an attempt at a few laughs,” she writes.

Assistant editor Molly Duffy writes on The Maneater’s Facebook page: “I really am grateful so many students called us out on the awful issue we published, and again, we’re sorry.”

* Letter from the Maneater editor
* How the Maneater pissed off Mizzou’s campus …. again
* The Maneater mistakes slurs for humor

Everyone loves to speculate on the future of the New York Times. Henry Blodget said in December of 2010 that it “might even be bright” after the newspaper stopped “the train-wreck-in-progess.” Now comes Eric Jackson predicting that the Times “will be gone as a stand-alone newspaper by 2015″ and “the rest of the newspaper industry should face a similar crisis even sooner.”

* Why the New York Times will disappear as we know it by 2015

Time to take off your Curmudgeon hat

Steve Buttry is 57, and “I learned journalism in the old school, same as you,” he tells fellow “old-timers.”

I am steeped in the same values of accuracy, fairness, dogged reporting and good writing that you cherish. But I’m having as much fun as I’ve ever had in more than 40 years in journalism, I have as high regard for my colleagues’ work as ever and I’m as optimistic as I’ve ever been about the future of journalism and the news business.

If you would like work to be fun again, if you’d like to be optimistic again (or, if you never were, to finally be optimistic), I’m writing to tell you about the fun and optimism that I find in journalism.

Buttry addresses some possible reasons for why curmudgeons resist change — “You don’t like Twitter (or some other digital task)”; “too old”; and five others — in this very good essay. Your thoughts on it? (Scroll way down to read the comments.)

* Steve Buttry writes a letter to newsroom curmudgeons

The New York Times’s Julie Bosman reported earlier in the week that all but 1,000 sets of the last Encyclopaedia Britannica print edition have been sold. The Chicago Tribune has an update today: “Now less than 800 sets remain, and they are going fast.” Britannica president Jorge Cauz tells Robert Channick:

The speed at which the sets are going is a little surprising. It’s highly likely we will see it all depleted over the next two to three weeks. There are resellers selling it for a lot more money than what we’re selling it for. It’s an indication that people are looking at it as a collector’s item, and maybe there’s not enough information that they still can buy it from us.

The sets sell for $1,395 on the Britannica website, but Channick reports they’re being marked up by about $2,000 on eBay and Amazon, “where opportunistic entrepreneurs are apparently looking to get a jump on history.”

* Tribune: Britannica experiences run on final print edition
* NYT: Britannica’s last print edition has a sales boom
* A former Britannica editor on the print edition’s demise