(UPDATED) Despite reports he was fired for reviewing a pirated copy of Wolverine, Fox News columnist Roger Friedman will have a chance to argue for his job, a Fox News source said.

Is Jared Kushner's family real estate business having trouble subsidizing the cash-bleeding New York Observer? Maybe: Editors told one writer about orders to delay freelancer payments.

The Associated Press is alleging copyright infringement by street artist and graphic designer Shepard Fairey, who based his famous Barack Obama posters on an AP image. Why now?

Why would you think that? Ty Inc., creator of the Beanie Babies, just happened to pick those names, since they are "beautiful." Here, let the flack sort this out for you:

Bob Dickey promised he would "be sharing the financial hardship" after furloughing his workers. He warned the Tucson Citizen might shut. Then he joined fellow Gannett bigwigs at a golf resort.

To discourage people from actually attending Barack Obama's presidential inauguration, the Democratic Congress is promising the ceremony will be hell on Earth, like Katrina, except planned by Congress.

Rolling Stone overlord Jann Wenner forgot to do some layoffs in his last round, two weeks ago, so he just fired some more people, less than a week before Christmas.

MTV claims checks are in the mail to the "citizen journalists" it really didn't want to pay, even though it got a big charity grant on their behalf. The network feels just terrible.

An MTV "citizen journalist," Erica Anderson, has gone public to describe "grueling" work conditions on a charity-sponsored project, and to confirm what anonymous coworkers told us Friday: The network isn't paying project staff.

Following our request for information yesterday, we heard from a good number of freelancers who said MTV was stiffing them on paychecks. Including people MTV got charity money to support.

Freelancers: Is MTV slow paying your recent invoices? Because one tipster tells us the Viacom subsidiary followed hundreds of layoffs with a policy to freeze outgoing payments October through January.

With this "holiday" card, Fox is again on the wrong side of the "War On Christmas" it's so worried about. And apparently this is supposed to totally make up for smearing all those reporters:

Bob Dylan's new album of outtakes, "Tell Tale Signs," has some great countrified blues numbers for coping with the coming depression. And in a seeming nod to the tough times, the folksinger streamed the album for free on NPR's website for a week ("Bob Dylan Understand The Weak Economy," said the Times). And yet when…

You're the leader of a global jihad and spend all your time fleeing from cave to cave and plotting only the vilest of terror attacks (gotta stay focused!). But extremist Middle Eastern editors are burning up your satellite phone with urgent demands for a book on how one "dispenses money, logistical support and…

Someone is lying at Nike. The only question is who. The mystery surrounds how the shoe company approached the thuggish Chinese dictatorship over online rumors about an athlete it sponsors. No one disputes that Nike, which recently claimed its shoes have "become an icon of self-expression and a symbol of Democratic…

The Olympic Games have long promoted more than the amateur athletic spirit. Sponsors this year sell pharmaceuticals, laptop computers and luxury watches, among other things, mostly to consumers outside of China. But there's something particularly sad about the way the games have been co-opted to push sugary treats…

Right in sync with the meltdown of America's subsidized mortgage giants comes still more evidence the nation's vaunted free market is broken: Fox News Channel chief Roger Ailes just took home a $4.5 million performance bonus, bringing his total annual compensation to $20 million. It's true, as Silicon Alley Insider …

To pimp its sugary, 200-calorie iced coffees, fast food giant McDonald's offered to pay some local TV newscasts for product placement. And of course the newscasts went for it, since local TV journalism is where ethical standards go to die. Meredith Corporation is putting the drinks in front of anchors at the Fox…