In your hacked Wednesday media column: Rachel Maddow's less fascinating, 4Chan's smarter than Time, online news fails, and newspaper layoffs reported not in newspapers:

The Chicago Tribune is bankrupt and will lay off 20 percent of its staff on Wednesday. So how is it going to survive? By making its reporters rewrite items from gossip blogs!

Looks like we have some competition for tracking the media elite's bleat-replete tweets! Our competitive edge: We bring you the very worst of the Twitterati. Today's targets:

Feeling out of it? Then go read what media types like Amanda Congdon and Sarah Lacy are saying about themselves on Twitter. You'll feel better instantly!

Just when you think it can't get any worse in Chicago media—that's right, it gets worse! Both major papers are already bankrupt. Now the Chicago Tribune is cutting another 20% of its newsroom. Ehhhhh.

If you have no idea what people on Twitter are talking about, fear not. They have no idea what they're talking about, either. The latest mutterings from Chris Anderson, John Byrne, and other online twits:

Why gripe in your cubicle when you can "cc:" the entire Internet? That's what a Daily Show producer, a Chicago Tribune columnist, and a Time critic did on Twitter:

Anyone have a handkerchief? What? Oh, nothing in particular — just the tearjerking phenomenon of seemingly intelligent people like Jake Tapper, Rachel Sklar, and Paul Carr spending so much time sharing so little on Twitter:

Chicago Tribune editors sat on the Rod Blagojevich story starting in October. Publishing Dec. 5th seems to have only pissed off the Justice Department and wrecked what might have been a much bigger scoop.

Wiretap transcripts yesterday indicated that Tribune Company honcho Sam Zell might have subtly conveyed (wink-wink) that he might just have to restructure (wink wink) one or more bothersome Chicago Trib editorial writers out of their jobs in response to demands from Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, who was delaying…

Lee Abrams, Tribune Co.'s "Chief Innovation Officer" of AWESOMENESS (pictured, with top advisers) is back with another hard-rockin', mind-shockin' memo to blow the socks off all you naysayers who thought newspapers could never change! Abrams is already single-handedly responsible for the ten dumbest things said about…

As errors continue to mount at Bloomberg News, the question isn't just whose heads will roll, but from how high up on the org chart. The financial newswire avoided cratering Apple Inc stock with its premature Steve Jobs obituary last month because markets had been closed for half an hour by the time the false item was…

In these uncertain times for the newspaper industry, it pays to think "outside of the newspaper box" when it comes to coverage of breaking news events. So the Chicago Tribune is trying its hand at live-blogging! And they picked the perfect unfolding story: Droopy-eyed comedian Bill Murray's parachute jump at the…

Ann Marie Lipinski, who went from summer intern to editor of the Chicago Tribune, is stepping down. Why? She won't really say! Except that "this position is not the fit it once was." Which is to say, not the position it was from 2001 until crazy billionaire Sam Zell bought the Tribune Company in 2007? Maybe? "Her…

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…