The Blogger MSM Trusts

TVNEWSER FAN Williams • What makes TVNewser run?: The New York Times checks in with 21-year-old Brian Stelter, about whose blog, TVNewser, NBC anchor Brian Wiliams says, "People from entry level to high and mighty check in on it." MSNBC talking head Joe Scarborough says, "The biggest TV executives, the men and women who run the top networks, look at this kid's Web site all the time ... And the genius of it is that everybody thinks they own him. Everybody says: 'Oh, I've got a great relationship with Brian. Let me leak it to him.'"

• Playing to the base: The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz looks at MSNBC's new identity as smart food for political junkies, particularly in the form of Countdown with Keith Olbermann. "His program could become a model for the newscast of the future," MSNBC's general manager Dan Abrams says. "It's a mix of straight news reporting with lighter fare and occasionally with some opinion."

• Then again, real junkies get the pure stuff: Bobby director Emilio Estevez has no time for Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert's hijinks. "I'm a C-SPAN fan," he tells Time's Julie Rawe. "I love not having a filter, and I love watching the House of Commons. We could take a few lessons from the lively debate the fellas across the pond engage in. It's certainly more entertaining."

• Leak in the S.S. Yahoo: Yahoo executives are furious over a leaked internal memo that portrays the Internet giant as losing its lead due to internal bureaucracy. It also portrays senior vice president Brad Garlinghouse, the memo's writer, as a metaphor mixer: "I've heard our strategy described as spreading peanut butter across the myriad opportunities that continue to evolve in the online world ... The result: a thin layer of investment spread across everything we do and thus we focus on nothing in particular." Peanut butter spread on evolution? Thin layer of investment? Maybe someone needs to join Mike's Writing Workshop Yahoo Group.