Beck was already a popular author before his Fox gig boosted his fame, having published two nonfiction books and a novel, all with Simon & Schuster, and all bestsellers, topping out at 775,000 copies for the fiction, The Christmas Sweater.

The ascendant shouting head's new "multi-book" deal must be worth a bundle. No one has yet affixed a price tag to it, but the Wall Street Journal notes Beck is accepting a lower advance in exchange for a full 15 percent royalty on hardcovers and 7-10 percent on paperbacks.

The evening anchor will somehow find time to write three new titles this year, including audio- and e-books, most of them predictably radical-right-wing titles like America's March to Socialism.

But Beck, not known for his emotional stability, will also be reaching out to children. In the fall comes his "picture book" for children (based on Sweater), followed at some point by "young adult" literature, aka stories for teens.

Between the books, the Fox show and his next comedy tour (sure to be huge with your religious-right college kids), Beck is building a collection of media designed to take conservatives from cradle to grave. He should hope his benefactors at News Corporation don't get too jealous.

Pinch Sulzberger said at the NYT Co. shareholders meeting today that "There are no plans to take this company private." Which doesn't change the fact that they never should have gone public in the first place. Related: Winning Pulitzers won't save newspapers, says Pulitzer administrator.


BET is launching a new network called Centric, aimed at middle-aged black people. "A perfect example" of their target demographic would be Barack and Michelle Obama, an exec said, naming the only middle-aged black people he could think of.


Sad sad newspaper news of the day: The Homeland Security Department is canceling newspaper (and magazine!) subscriptions. McClatchy's revenue was down 25% in the first quarter. And most heartbreaking of all, financial backers are pulling back on InDenverTimes, the online news project that a bunch of laid-off Denver newspaper vets wanted to launch, which you just knew would not work out but you really wanted to root for, regardless. They needed 50,000 subscribers, but they only got 3,000.


The Washington Post profiles some guy who just launched a print music magazine, of all the fucking things. We admire his "spunk" even while questioning his ability to read and process written information.

Oh hey, humanoid hunk of angry beef Sean Hannity said on air yesterday that he'd be willing to get waterboarded "for charity." Can we get somebody on that right away?


And a late-breaking rumor: a tipster tells us that there were several editorial layoffs at Scientific American yesterday. More info? Email us.

The video is at left. All we'll add is that each of Smith's heated on-air outbursts only makes us want to "Fox on" him, as his quarterback, in a piano bar even more.

Video via marcaeld on YouTube.

The shows sound pretty awful. Fox News host Beck told USA Today his live shows are a sort of "poor man's Seinfeld," which would make them conservative shows about nothing. "Conservative" in this context apparently means "not funny, to anyone," judging from the clip at left.

But Beck, a self-described "rodeo clown," has been drawing unexpectedly high ratings to Fox with his new show and angry faux populism. He's chosen cities with strong conservative constituencies: Denver, Phoenix, San Diego, Kansas City, Houston and Richmond, Va.

Presumably, then, Beck will draw to his events plenty of people ready to lose themselves in rage — the same folks showing up for those not-so-grassroots tea parties.

If the angry mobs get large enough, Beck may be able to demagogue his way into some real political clout. Rush Limbaugh, watch your cheese.

If nothing else, all this attention from Comedy Central's designated right-wing newswatcher marks Beck as, in his own very twisted way, a rising star. Sure, the front-page New York Times profile was nice, but who reads newspapers anymore? The old viewers Fox already has.

Colbert, though, will get Beck all over Twitter, dominated by the young whippersnappers the shouting head needs to truly "surround" his enemies. Not that the microblogging service's wired hipsters will join up, but, who knows, between Colbert and the buzz maybe Beck becomes Saturday Night Live worthy and gets to mainstream his creepy, creepy brand a little bit more.

Judging from a preview of tonight's Late Show, O'Reilly spent a lot of time answering questions about... Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

To preserve his ego, the O'Reilly Factor host called his rival Limbaugh a "straw man" who "nobody takes seriously" as the purported head of the Republican party. He also claimed personal credit for the right-wing radio host's recent ratings surge (since O'Reilly recently ended his own radio show).

Beck apparently emerged unscathed. O'Reilly will presumably leave his rising-star, Fox News colleague to the likes of Dennis Miller and Shep Smith.

There's no sign yet that Letterman asked O'Reilly about his producers' stalking and ambush of ThinkProgress' Amanda Terkel.

A quick excerpt of O'Reilly's appearance is above, taken from the longer YouTube outtake below.

[YouTube/CBS]

O'Reilly's version: My crappy show has been #1 in its time slot for 100 months—"I don't think it's ever been done in any kind of TV milieu. We had our people research all programs going back to the' 50s, like Gunsmoke and things like that. Nobody's ever stayed on top this long," he told B&C.

Keith Olbermann sez: Both the Today show and Meet the Press have been #1 longer than that. Your researchers suck. [TV Newser]

For example: where Amato instructs you to memorize the URL of The Smoking Gun's transcript of the O'Reilly sexual harrassment suit, so that you can repeat it on camera, we'd recommend making sure they get no usable footage by simply shouting the following things:

• "Falafel."
• "FUCK IT, WE'LL DO IT LIVE."
• "Cup your hands under your breasts and hold them for ten seconds."

Also please consider this post our open invitation for Bill to sent Jesse after us! It'd be an honor. A hilarious honor. (Now it will never happen, of course.)

The NBC cable network refused to share salary details with the New York Times, save for the most humiliating one: Matthews is still making more or less $5 million per year. In October that would have been 25 percent more than Olbermann made. Now it's roughly 33 percent less.

One executive involved in the negotiations said, “Whether he took a slight cut or got a slight raise, it’s nobody’s business.”

It is apparently everyone's business that Matthews will be around through the next presidential election, so that his famously accurate leg can call the results, months in advance.

Matthews' flirtation with running for the U.S. Senate didn't help him at all in salary talks. That much has been apparent since at least December, when the Hardball host announced he would definitely not run for office, thus losing any leverage he might have once had.

At least his ratings are up. Not Rachel Maddow "up," mind you, or Keith's Very Special Once In A Lifetime Comment "up," but up.

[NY Times]

In this top-notch sexy clip, our crack video department weaves a tangled, sexy web of Bill's sexiest sex quotes—pro and con! Ha, remember when he had that sexual harassment suit with the loofah and the falafel and the, who knows, erections and whatnot? Reconsider it. He doesn't look any better now, just funnier.

("Pipe.")

Dobbs wished everyone "Happy St. Patrick's Day" on his radio show, because otherwise the UN guys in black helicopters will sniper him to death, immediately. Then, in defiance, he said he detests the drunken Irish holiday, along with that one for the Eye-talians, the Catholics and filthy Anglicans ("St. Joseph") and whatever those Asians do, "you know, 'St. Jin-Tao-Wow."

And also what's with the Jews? Don't they have some kind of day to worship their version of "Saints?" No? Of course not.

Thanks to Media Matters for discovering and recording this gem, a fine basis for a drinking game. How about a shot every time Lou insults, oh, a million ethnics? That will make it a short night.

At left, enjoy a quick burst of a meek, deferential Cramer. Enjoy it now, because who knows when the shouting head will appear this humble again.

Ari calls Chris "shameful" and says "how dare you" and then they talk over each other for a few minutes and Chris mentions how Bush is the least popular president ever and says "don't call me shameful," and then says, "Ari, Ari...." It went on for what felt like another half-hour or so of crosstalk.

God, Ari Fleischer. He really looks like shit these days! Retirement, like Chris Matthews, is not agreeing with him.

After Maddow reamed Burson for working for a laundry list of the world's dirtiest companies, Penn sent out an internal memo, obtained by PRWeek, which said in part: "Her commentary also significantly mischaracterized the nature of the firm's past – for example, we never took a dime from Blackwater[.]" Oh that's where you fucked up, Mark Penn. Sometimes the best PR is silence. But fight on, please!

[PRWeek, my former gig]

CNN: The stimulus package: Is it a good deal for you? Let's calmly discuss it, with Anderson Cooper.


Fox News: The stimulus package: Is it just a black man trying to take your money? Sean Hannity explores, while pretending he knows how to read.


MSNBC: The stimulus package: Obama stroking a pen; flexing his muscles; Chris Matthews is Hardball. If you know what we mean.