As Politico noted last month, the White House Correspondents' Association, which runs the White House pool—a resource-sharing arrangement whereby all the news organizations that are supposed to bodily cover the president during all his waking hours rotate their reporters in shifts and share their notes with everybody else—has started letting Talking Points Memo, Salon, and the Huffington Post share in the pool duty. That's a major shift considering the fact that the pool report has historically been a just-the-facts-ma'am recounting of detail (with the occasional insider joke thrown in) that can be served up to all sorts of newspapers. Throwing avowedly partisan web sites into the mix is, well, interesting.

Christina Bellatoni, a senior reporter for Talking Points Memo's Washington, D.C., bureau, is today's designated pooler, marking TPM's first time in the regular rotation (she hasn't filed any reports yet). She also filled in for Salon's Mike Madden as the travel pooler on Friday, offering this accounting of Obama's day:

Travel photo lid called. We're thankful.

First Lady's Christmas tree event is open press.

(I'm filling in for Salon, who has the day off).

Predictable liberal cant.

Salon has been in the pool rotation since January (Mike Madden has drawn the coveted Dec. 31 shift), and the Huffington Post (next up on Dec. 20) and TPM were both added in the last month. Whatever issues may surround letting outspoken Obama supporters serve as purportedly objective chroniclers of his daily routine, the main motivation for the White House Correspondents' Association in opening the door to them appears to be manpower: As newspapers close or consolidate their Washington operations, Politico's Michael Calderone noted, web upstarts are there to take over shifts from overworked ink-and-paper types.

It's a good thing that non-institutional web-based outlets have continued to infiltrate the heart of the D.C. journalistic establishment, but there's something strange about the idea of the Obama Administration becoming a playground for people who support his policies. Not that we want Michelle Malkin writing pool reports to balance things out, but—actually, we really would like to see Michelle Malkin writing pool reports. That would be fantastic.

When we asked Salon's editor in chief Joan Walsh how long Salon had been pulling pool duty, she replied, "Certainly we were not in the pool during the Bush administration."

Gosh, why not?

CNN's new look is here, and Salon's is here. Larger screengrabs below:

In a statement to Gawker, Gingras confirmed that three editors, one writer, one photo editor, and one producer were laid off last week. The only name we've heard thus far is culture editor Joy Press; let us know if you have any other intelligence.

UPDATE: Here's the complete list:

Jeanne Carstensen, managing editor
Kevin Berger, features editor
Katharine Mieszkowski, senior writer
Joy Press, culture editor
Caitlin Shamberg, multimedia editor
Julie Coburn, photo editor

Gingras says the firings are pegged to an upcoming redesign and streamlining of the site's publishing system that will put Salon in a "good position to not just weather the economic storm but emerge much stronger than ever." Salon was launched in 1995, and has, to our knowledge, been an online publication for its entire life, which makes Gingras' determination to finally become a web site somewhat disconcerting: All these years, apparently, it's been a false web publication.

But Salon is the cockroach of the web, and has managed to survive all sorts of trials and tribulations and leadership changes to remain a valuable player—their publication of previously unseen photos of torture at Abu Ghraib and editor Joan Walsh's motherly smackdown of Bill O'Reilly were both public services—so we're confident that they'll manage. We just wish they didn't have to fire a bunch of people in order to become a web site.

Here's Gingras' full statement, which corrected our earlier reporting that eight people had been let go:

For several months we have been working on a redesign of our product, that we will launch this fall, and also a redesign of our underlying systems. We are moving away from a very traditional magazine production model and becoming more of a true Web publication, with a more direct publishing system. Moving forward, we are investing most in the writers and creative participants who can help us continue to attract the smart, discerning readers attracted to Salon. We think this direction makes us a stronger company, and puts us in a good position to not just weather the economic storm but emerge much stronger than ever. Economic times are difficult and that necessitates change. But change is also healthy and you'll be seeing many new developments from Salon over the coming months.

The financial changes emphasize what we do best — publish sharp, fast takes on the important events in the world, as well as the in-depth stories, reviews and blogs that readers come to us for — and will also allow us room to grow. Salon has always been about great writing from great writers. That will continue.

Let me also clarify the facts on reductions in edit staff. There were only six positions cut out of 29 in editorial: 3 editors, 1 writer, a photo editor and a multimedia producer. Let me also point out that all those effected last week are talented and hard-working folks and they'll be missed, personally and professionally.

Richard

Responding to the question, "If I were to write to you and say, 'Dave, cheer me up about the future of writing,' what would you say?" Eggers said the following:

Our students at 826 Valencia still have a newspaper class, where we print an actual newspaper, and we do magazine classes and anthologies where they're all printed on paper. That's the main way we get them motivated, that they know it's going to be in print. It's much harder for us to motivate the students when they think it's only going to be on the Web.

The vast majority of students we work with read newspapers and books, more so than I did at their age. And I don't see that dropping off. If anything the lack of faith comes from people our age, where we just assume that it's dead or dying. I think we've given up a little too soon. We [i.e., McSweeney's] have been working every day on a prototype for a new newspaper, and a lot of what we're doing is resurrecting old things, like things from the last century that newspapers used to do, in terms of really using the full luxury of the broadsheet newspaper, with full color and all that space.

I think newspapers shouldn't try to compete directly with the Web, and should do what they can do better, which may be long-form journalism and using photos and art, and making connections with large-form graphics and really enhancing the tactile experience of paper. You know, including a full-color comic section, for example, which of course was standard in newspapers years ago, when you'd have a full broadsheet Winsor McCay comic. So we'll have a big, full-color comic section, and we're also trying to emphasize what younger readers are looking for, what directly appeals to them. It's hard to find papers these days that really do anything to appeal to anyone under 18, and the paper used to do that all the time. I think there will always be — if not the same audience and not as wide an audience — a dedicated audience that can keep print journalism alive.

Now, we like Dave Eggers, a lot, but we have to emphatically disagree with his statements here. Children attending a writing center in San Francisco do not accurately reflect the entirety of the modern American youth. Not even close. Sure, we'd love to see web and print co-exist and thrive and compliment each other, but there is no trend suggesting such a thing is on the horizon. It just isn't happening.

Dave Eggers, we like you, we really do, but your staggering genius has failed you and you are horribly, horribly wrong.

Dave Eggers Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Reality [Salon]

Here's how "Scared Journalist" described their wretched life:

I spent the last four and a half years studying print journalism in college and watching vacantly as the newspaper/magazine industry crumbled before my eyes...I always figured I had what it takes to get a job even in an extremely competitive market: Before I ever graduated, I had completed four internships at newspapers, magazines and a Web site, published almost a hundred clips (including longer, high-quality pieces), and left a good impression with everyone I worked with. I knew I wanted to be a journalist, and I knew that I wanted to write for a living.

Now, six months after graduating, my parents still pay my cellphone bill and I am working full-time making ice cream. I make a couple hundred bucks here and there freelancing for a magazine I interned at, but otherwise my "freelance" career, as well as my journalism career, is dead in the water. I find myself despondent and unable to send out any more cover letters, and I can't find the time or motivation to research a story idea enough to send it to an editor because I assume he or she will simply reject my half-baked idea. I'm panicking, but I fear failure so much that I can't even get started. Freelancing seems to be my best option career-wise, but I can't summon the willpower and enthusiasm to do it. Plus, I lost my license to a DUI conviction (that got me fired from one of those newspaper internships), which has immobilized me and left me unable to relocate to a new job until October. The DUI also contributes to my job-hunting anxiety.

What I see is that my passion for journalism and writing is waning. Working full-time has taught me that work is work and play is play, and that I need to maximize the efficiency of my hours I spend at work in order to maximize how much I can play outside of work. I am looking into jobs in other fields that pay better. Is it healthier to stick it out working at an ice cream store and desperately try to make it as a writer, or should I pursue a career where financial security is more realistic?

This person's letter launched Tennis into an almost incomprehensible treatise on the virtues of the writing life in which he cited Sartre and Boswell and "Samuel Pepys on London Bridge getting blown by whores." What he should have said is this:

Enough with the whining, Sally! From here on out for the remainder of your existence I want you to stop each time you start to feel sorry for yourself and remember that some poor sap on the other side of the world is going to be beheaded today because he trimmed his freaking beard. Got that?

So your parents are paying your cell phone bill. And? What's the problem? Why aren't they paying more of your bills? Why aren't they paying your damn rent as well? Probably because you're too much of a coward to ask them to pay it! Listen kid, you're never going to get anything in life without asking for it, so never be afraid to ask for anything, no matter how ridiculous it may seem. Milk this whole parental support crap for as long as you can. Hell, lie if you have to—Tell them you have cancer and that you need $5000 for some alternative treatment not covered by their insurance that's only available in Bulgaria. Then go to Bulgaria for a couple of weeks, where you'll be fawned over by some of the world's most beautiful people for simply being an American, and you'll still come back with enough money to pay rent for a couple of months because everything's so ridiculously cheap over there. Then tell your parents that the treatment worked and you're cured! Say it with conviction and they'll believe you, because no parent wants to believe that their child would lie about having cancer for rent money. And consider yourself lucky for simply having parents with the means to help you. I wish mine would have. I had to work from the day I left home at 18 and that sucked!

Finally, and I don't really know how to break this to you gently, but you got screwed kid. You just wasted 4 1/2 years of your life and thousands of dollars that would have been better spent traveling the world doing drugs and having sex with beautiful strangers. Then you could have come back and just started a blog making fun of a certain gay British new media overlord and he would've hired you and—Voila!—A media job! But hey, free ice cream can't be all that bad.

And about that DUI—Move to New York where you don't need a car to get around and you can take cabs home when you're bombed out of your mind. Why else do you think this city is the media capital of the world?

I Studied Print Journalism: Now What? [Salon]

The Thursday report Salon called into question found Taguba - who retired from his military career in 1997 - noting that the Abu Ghraib photos the ACLU's suing to have released show "torture, abuse, rape and every indecency." Last night, Taguba admitted that he hadn't seen the photos the ACLU is suing over:

"The photographs in that lawsuit, I have not seen," Taguba told Salon Friday night. The actual quote in the Telegraph was accurate, Taguba said — but he was referring to the hundreds of images he reviewed as an investigator of the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq — not the photos of abuse that Obama is seeking to suppress.

Taguba then went on to mention that he still thinks "no other photographs should be released" because he fears it could generate and incite more violence and retribution against American soldiers.

The Daily Telegraph, now embarrassed at getting the story wrong and trying to find cover, ran their own version of Salon's story earlier this afternoon: their spin is that despite their initial report implying that Taguba had seen the suppressed photos, he had CONFIRMED their story in CLARIFYING that the photos he had seen weren't the ones Obama was trying to suppress. Ohhhhh. Got it. Hate to admit it, but Robert Gibbs was right about one thing: the British Press - kinda stupid, sometimes.

They also cited The Daily Beast: Scott Horton, who wrote yesterday about some of the photos Obama was trying to suppress, also had sources confirming their contents! Exciting!

The photographs differ from those already officially released ... In one, a female prisoner appears to have been forced to expose her breasts to be photographed. In another, a prisoner is suspended naked upside down from the top bunk of a bed in a stress position ... In one withheld photograph, not previously described, Specialist Charles A. Graner, Jr., an Abu Ghraib guard, is shown suturing the face of a prisoner, a reliable source tells The Daily Beast.

Well, guess who else looks stupid, here: yes, The Daily Beast. Salon published those two photos in 2006, and Salon's Alex Koppelman took to the streets (blog) about an hour ago to scream that those photos were so three years ago, they had already been there (First!!11!!) and that none of you morons claiming to actually have some kind of exclusive on these photos or their content do.

So Salon's playing their own horn really loudly - fine. But both The Daily Beast and the Telegraph both look fairly ridiculous, today: they bought a story without trying it on, took it home, and wore it out to the club. And then Salon pointed out the giant skidmark near their collective ass while they were in the middle of doing the "Soulja Boy." They did a great job sussing out what they smelled as a bullshit story, and called out two fairly large media outlets in the process.

Meanwhile, despite what're probably good intentions by Taguba, he definitely screwed this one up, too. Why didn't he just come out as an opponent of the photos' release rather than someone with new information to bring to the table in the first place?

Maybe the photos don't show any of the abuses Taguba noted. But they're definitely being suppressed, and as Salon's made very evident, some pretty bad shit's already out there. One thing's certain: the desire for revealing whatever's actually in those photos - be it motivated politically, emotionally, or just out of the public's sheer masochistic curiosity - keeps growing with each story furthering this news cycle. Hopefully, none of the reporting on it will continue to be as grandstanding, shoddy, and scoop-happy as some of this. It really doesn't help.

Taguba denies he's seen abuse photos suppressed by Obama [Salon]
Telegraph report over Abu Ghraib 'abuse' photos confirmed [Daily Telegraph]
The Bogus Torture Coverup [The Daily Beast]
"New" Abu Ghraib photos aren't new [Salon]

Dear Cary,

I am a week shy of my 25th birthday, and I am back living in my parents' home. I have a degree from Harvard and a year of grad school under my belt, but lifelong depression and social phobia have crippled me such that I can't capitalize on my achievements. There's never been a problem getting good grades, but I've never been good at setting my own goals and following through with them. Only too late have I realized that one has to get good at something (besides passing tests) to be able to make a living. Everybody just assumed that because I was book-smart, I would be life-smart, and nobody pressured me to plan out what I wanted to do with my life.

I've also been so sheltered that I can't give directions to my own home, nor do I keep track of how much money there is in my bank account. Basically, I haven't had to learn the ins and outs of daily independent living and it's driving me insane, because I am 25 AND I HAVE A HARVARD DEGREE!

Since I've dropped out of graduate school I've made some attempts to get a job, but not wholeheartedly. I was fired from a fast-food job a couple of months ago, which has shot my confidence for getting a higher-paying, higher-status job. I'm scared to death of getting one, because I don't think I'll put in the effort to do well. I don't have to worry about paying the bills (my parents take care of it all) so there's no external motivation to get serious.

Besides my lack of ambition, I have trouble maintaining relationships. Never dated. Friends come in and out of my life, and I either get bored with them or I get so annoyed that they have ambitions and passions that I feel uncomfortable sticking it out. I have no loyalty to anyone and even my family says that I am duplicitous and hard to read.

I spend most of my days sleeping or surfing the Net, away from people, tuned out from the world. Whenever I try to tune back in, I feel self-conscious due to all that I've missed out on. This again makes it hard to connect with others — what the hell can I talk about?

I know I'm smart, but I'm lazy, and am nowhere near to approaching my potential. The separation between my ability and my actions is driving me crazy and has brought on suicidal thoughts.

I wouldn't mind being isolated or having a low-status job if I were independent (not relying on parents). But "settling" for a "McJob" while under their roof seems to be the very example of slacking off because there's no pressure to do better, and I feel embarrassed doing that.

I know there's a way out of this — maybe finding a different set of friends; a mentor; making a plan and not caring what other people think of it — but getting out of bed to do it is the trick. I've even thought of running away to California (I studied film) but I don't know how the hell I'd survive.

Thanks for reading.

Stalled

Ha ha ha ha. First, yes. Definitely run away to California. That will work out really well for you. Second, ha ha ha again. Third, learn where your fucking house is, Jesus Christ. Fouth, as a lazy, unambitious, clearly kind of dumb person, thank you for basically confirming most of our negative stereotypes of Harvard and Harvard grads.

No, seriously, you are just a lazy rich kid. Deal with it, maybe? Or maybe you just can't, because your parents, who are clearly still enabling you, have fucked you up beyond repair. In that case, whatever, keep mooching until they die. While you're mooching, try starting a literary journal or writing a novel about a young man who graduated from Harvard but still can't figure out "women" and "not being a tool"!

And for godssake learn where the hell your house is.

Like, it's only the mystery of existence, and don't worry, I have devices. (But I do have to get up in the morning and go to the guillotine. Just warning you. Sorry.)

Eh?

This is written just upon arising. That may be another reason. The stress, you know, of large sums of money. Yesterday was Many Forms Day, like going into the Army. We made tea with tea bags and tried not to laugh.

And?

And finally, the words I long to hear spoken to him, given his predilection: You feel me, Cuz? You feel me?
Yes, I feel you, Cuz, she'll say. I feel you loud and clear.

A lady had asked him if she should dye her hair for her boyfriend.
[Salon]

Politico's Patrick Gavin ogled the oglers.

Salon.com editor-in-chief Joan Walsh confirmed people's general opinion of her.

Geek overlord and Digg founder Kevin Rose prepared to rule Austin at SXSW, the geek spring-break festival.

Former AOL employee and Engadget alumnus Ryan Block gloated over the firing of incompetent AOL CEO Randy Falco.

Boing Boing blogger and intergalactic space princess Xeni Jardin reported in from Africa.

See something worth noting on Twitter? Please email us your favorite tweets — or send us more Twitter usernames.

Cary's answer: 462 words.
His Nut Graf (HA): "Be cool. Relax. Try to be wrong. Yep, just be wrong. Be wrong a lot — but silently! Be wrong but in the secret aura of your own thoughts! Allow yourself the luxury of extravagant error in the vast field of silence you have cleared for yourself!"
Summary: STFU.

[Salon]

He'd been clinically depressed for two decades, on "powerful" medication (and apparently also Skoal) that made it possible for him to write — this may be vulgar but I have been too thoroughly inculcated in our compulsive culture of psychopharmacological comparison shopping not to wonder why they never tell you which — but the meds had powerful side effects, so he went off them in the summer of 2007, to apparently disastrous consequences. He tried electric shock therapy and other unspecified meds; nothing worked. He couldn't write or eat, and dropped to 140 pounds. He took a medical leave from teaching. A student is quoted saying his great genius was unrelated to his great depression. That student is wrong.

When David was 5, his mother recalls, he decided that he had two careers to look forward to. He would be a professional football player, for one. In the off-season, while the other players were recuperating or doing whatever it is that pro football players do when they're not running or passing or slamming their bodies into each other, he would be a neurosurgeon. His mother has no idea how, at 5, her son might have heard about neurosurgeons or what they were or did, but he had. The first day of his medical career, he promised his mom, he would take out all of her frayed nerves and fix them. "Somehow he knew about neurosurgeons," she says, "and he knew that my nerves needed fixing."

I'm developing a purely anecdotal theory about Republican drunkenness: that it's related to ideology. The less ideological arrive back at the headquarters earlier in the evening, between midnight and 1 a.m. These are, in chronological order, the Romney and the Giuliani supporters. Both are East Coast, urban college grad, corporate types. They like to drink and reminisce about the Harvard-Yale game, but they also like to wake up early, shave and not smell like booze at committee meetings. The Giuliani people are secular and more openly lecherous. So they tend to drink a bit harder and stay out closer to 1 a.m. The Ron Paul people party past 1 a.m., but not much. And they shave but they don't showboat.

The ones who stay out the latest and come back the drunkest, I notice, are the Huckabee folks, the party's rural conservatives. They believe in Jesus, in the hard-bitten way of the true alcoholic. If they ever sober up, it'll be by the grace of the Lord; and if they intend to stay on the sauce and continue living, then they'll really need His loving kindness. If you intend to be drinking heavily until closing time — 4 a.m. in the Twin Cities during the RNC — you had better walk home with Jesus. I can't place true McCainites on the alcohol-ideology matrix. I think they were all asleep by 9:30 p.m.

Now, sure, this passage is so cliche-rife and unsubstantiated Curtis Sittenfeld might have written it over an oolong latte at Teany, but the fact remains that it was one of the few produced by last week's Convention coverage that really bothers to draw distinctions among the Republican convention goers at all. The guy didn't need to go through paramilitary training or whatever to make these observations, but generally that's the type of stunt it takes for freelancers to get assignments writing anything interesting anymore, and getting dumb jobs is a good way to remind journalists how disconnected the other journalists they normally drink with are from the drinking public.

The thing is, there are all sorts of rules and forms and time constraints in immersion journalism, and the writers willing to sacrifice the time and the "objectivity" to immerse themselves in that sort of persona are usually young, naive and apt to find boring, cliched observations actually interesting. But until more news organizations take a cue from Tyra and start sending their more experienced commentators out into the field in capacities where they are not recognized as representatives of the media elite, "Confessions of an RNC Security Guard" may be the best we got.

Related: From 2004 Hot Girls, Frisky Delegates: Diary of a strip club waitress [Village Voice]
Submersion Journalism: Reporting in the Radical First Person

I guess I've suspected the worst for a long time. Certainly the signs were there from a fairly young age: He invariably chose "Power Rangers" over joining me in marathon viewings of the work of Stephen Sondheim. He preferred to thickly carpet his bedroom floor with castoff clothing rather than use the color-coded, padded hangers I put in his closet. Worst of all, he evinced a disturbing interest in Grace's bare, bony chest rather than concentrating on absorbing Will's snappy — yet ultimately supportive — patter. If he didn't pay attention, who would I have to call me "girlfriend" in my old age? How would I keep tabs on Britney, Carrie Underwood and that creepy kid from "High School Musical" without my very own Rex Reed 2.0?

A friend of mine once said that she wants gay kids because they're going to be born anyway and she feels that she'd be a good mother to them, which was absolutely true. And that I can understand. But saying you want a little play thing, even though it's for a "humor" piece? It's just so obtuse.

So how about it? Do any of you actively wish for gay kids? Do any of you have any? Are they 24-30 and single?

To share a small anecdote, the preternaturally wise and socially gifted Manjoo managed to unintentionally charm another Bay Area reporter into a small fit of personal inhibition. But because I can only assume that Manjoo demurred when the offer of charming reciprocation was made clear, I ended up receiving the kisses meant for his hot bod and better byline in a Berkeley backyard. I'm probably misinterpreting, but still, thanks, Farhad! Better kisses than a scoop or some stupid paycheck any day.(Photo by )

See how it feels to write down, "I want to direct." Or write down, "I want to act." See how that feels. Make pictures of what you want to do. Make collages to stimulate the primary process thinking that is the creative mode.

Collages are fun.

Meditate for five minutes and notice how quickly the time goes. Narrow down. Narrow down and make a plan. Think about a year. Think about how so many corny things are true. Think about how you are not 22. Ready yourself for sacrifice.

I know I'm not 22. But Cary, do you know whereof you speak?

I am a child of Florida's warm, wet indolence, the intoxicating rot and the rough, beefy unculturedness. I am a child of that. I know how it is to hate Florida and feel better than Florida and want to live in places like California.

Final words of wisdom?

So be with the ones who know you well. Be with the ones who see your bullshit. Work it out where you're from. Work it out, whatever it is; work it out where you're from.

You have this thing you have to do. It has something to do with film. You don't know precisely what, yet. But figure it out and then if you have to go to L.A. to do it go to L.A. But figure it out first.

Thanks!

[Salon]