* Barry Diller’s IAC has joined Answer.com in bidding for New York Times Co.’s About.com. IAC has offered more than $300 million for the site; the Times Co. has preliminarily accepted Answers.com’s $270 million offer. (reuters.com)
* Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial page editor and city editor — husband and wife — are both laid off. (4thst8.wordpress.com)
* FYI: September issue of Vogue is 916 pages. (observer.com)
* The AP announces its convention coverage plans. (ap.org)
* Orange County Register, under new ownership, is hiring a local columnist. (laobserved.com)
* New York Daily News beefs up its fashion coverage. (capitalnewyork.com)
* Journalists start a campaign to award a posthumous Pulitzer to a reporter who broke one of the biggest stories in World War II and was fired. (sfgate.com)
* Rem Rieder urges the media to aggressively call out candidates “when they tamper with the truth.” (ajr.org)
* Advertiser #48 has now yanked their Village Voice ads, says watchdog. (villagevoicepimp.com)

I’m shocked to see another Tampa Bay Times reporter going into PR. #JournalismisthenewTripleAleague #sayfie @romesnko

— Peter Schorsch (@SaintPetersblog) August 21, 2012

The people overseeing Florida’s university system apparently liked the coverage they got from Tampa Bay Times higher education reporter Kim Wilmath because they just hired her as their $75,000 a year spokeswoman.

Wilmath, who is the fourth reporter to recently quit Poynter’s newspaper for a PR job, didn’t respond to an email I sent last week after hearing about her resignation.

* Board of Governors hires Tampa Bay Times higher education reporter (tampabay.com)
* Another Poynter departure: Steve Myers leaves online managing editor post (thelensnola.com)

Earlier stories:
* “They’re dropping like flies over at the Tampa Bay Times” (cltampa.com)
* Why Tampa Bay Times’ Tom Scherberger went to “the dark side” (jimromenesko.com)

UPS driver Tony Tavarez’s reaction to the California newspaper editor’s post: “Sound like the Sentinel can’t handle criticism. Isn’t that just like the media. U can delete me. I never believe the media. Esp liberals.”

The paper’s response: “Tony – actually, we appreciate constructive criticism – it often leads to great stories. …”

* Editor: Slam us on our own Facebook page and you’ll be deleted

Princeton Review just put Penn State’s Daily Collegian on the top of its 2012 Best College Newspapers list. Here are the Review’s #1 papers going back to 2002:

2012: The Daily Collegian, Penn State
2011: The Daily Tar Heel, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill
2010: Yale Daily News
2009: The Daily Tar Heel
2008: Yale Daily News
2007: The Daily Tar Heel
2006: Yale Daily News
2005: Arizona Daily Wildcat, University of Arizona
2004: The Hilltop, Howard University
2003: The Daily Tar Heel
2002: Minnesota Daily, University of Minnesota

(Source: Princeton Review)

Tom McGeveran on Niall Ferguson’s “Hit the Road, Barack” cover piece:

Make no mistake about what is happening here. Tina Brown is dressing up Ferguson’s failure as a provocation and conversation-starter. The problem is that this is not the kind of conversation Brown means to start.

Brown’s theory of buzz has been expounded at such length over the years that to hear it again or describe it again would just feel like a PCP hangover. The point is that Brown wants her magazine to be talked about.

But “roundly ridiculed” is a better description of the wide reaction to the magazine yesterday.

Newsweek succeeded in getting pundits to talk about the piece — and the magazine is making sure we know that.

* Is Tina Brown serious about Newsweek anymore? (capitalnewyork.com)

UPDATE: Ferguson appeared on Bloomberg Television this morning and said “the liberal blogosphere has a very tried and tested method of attacking an argument it disagrees with… it seems to me we’re dealing with a very carefully organized campaign to try to discredit the piece by those who are ideologically loyal to the president.”

He also claimed that “Krugman is being disingenuous. And sadly, my old friend Andrew Sullivan does not really understand the issue that well, which is clear from his recent post.”

More interview excerpts after the jump. Read More

Steve Brill

Steve Brill says Time and CNN owe their readers and viewers “a lot more” than what they’ve said so far about Fareed Zakaria’s plagiarism “and the rest of the press should be embarrassed if it lets those statements end the story.” (Here is CNN’s statement and this is what Time released.)

Brill’s hope is that a reporter sits down with Zakaria “and gets a full and verifiable explanation of exactly what his ‘lapse’ was – and then asks Time and CNN to explain exactly what their six-day ‘investigations’ consisted of.”

* Stories I’d like to see: Fareed Zararia’s mistake (reuters.com)
* Zakaria resigns from his Yale Corporation position (yaledailynews.com)

Letter to Romenesko

From RICHARD WELLS: And thus the Huffington Post cancer spreads to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The headline specifically, which is so common on HuffPo (“So-and-so said WHAT?”), is designed to get the viewer to click on to the story. I find this trend very annoying and frequently misleading, since the story behind the headline is so often of little or no consequence. A more appropriate headline, in my view, would have been something along the lines of “Exploding Toilet Tank Leads to Lawsuit.” It’s all part of the dumbing down of journalism, in my opinion.

(Richard: Try the Inquirer’s online version: “Toilet system recalled due to explosion danger”)

* Politico pulls Dave Catanese off Todd Akin story, says he “crossed a line a reporter shouldn’t cross on Twitter.” (nytimes.com)
* NPR didn’t fix Romney’s veep announcement mistake, says ombud; he got it right the first time Ryan’s name was mentioned. (NPR.org)
* Matt Groening: “If ‘Life in Hell’ were still in LA Weekly, it would probably have kept me going.” (editorandpublisher.com)
* Michael C. Moynihan describes the dramatic moment when he confronted Jonah Lehrer. (slate.com)
* Adam Penenberg is named editor of PandoDaily. (pandodaily.com)
* A Twitter mystery: Is Matt Drudge an Israeli house music fan? (buzzfeed.com)
* Toronto Star reporter makes a grisly discovery in a creek. (thestar.com)