The Richard Nixon Presidential Library released 500,000 documents today, and among them is an operatically abject and desperate letter of apology from a then-25-year-old young press aide named Diane Sawyer.

Blotchy Gong Show revivalist and CNN host Piers Morgan came off looking good in his confrontation with a British MP who accused him—falsely, as it turns out—on Tuesday of having confessed in his memoir to phone hacking while he was editor of the Daily Mirror. So we decided to catalog all the other—far more…

Add Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour to the list of GOP pols that Fox News CEO Roger Ailes schmoozes with. According to records obtained by Gawker under the Mississippi Public Records Act, Barbour met with Ailes at News Corporation's New York headquarters for an hour on October 14, 2010—just three weeks before the…

Last month ABC News' Diane Sawyer traveled to the decimated town of Joplin, Mo., to anchor World News in the wake of those horrible tornadoes. The brilliant Harry Shearer managed to catch some behind-the-scenes footage of an anxious, tentative, and confounded Sawyer huddling in a shawl against oncoming storms with…

Brad Woodard from Houston's KHOU went to cover the fire at an oil storage tank, but the smoke seen billowing on camera wasn't just from the fire, it was coming from Woodard's mouth as well. When the camera cut to him, he was still smoking a cigarette.

Congratulations to Brian Ross, America's Wrongest Reporter, for winning a coveted Edward R. Murrow Award honoring his coverage of the Toyota unintended acceleration story. The award, oddly, is for "Video Continuing Coverage" rather than "Fostering Global Panic Based on Bullshit Story." Still, a Murrow is a Murrow,…

Katie Couric is gone for good! The Scott Pelley era at CBS has begun! Try to control your excitement, ha. But hey, Pelley debuted last night, and signs are somewhat promising!

Remember Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, the amazing airline pilot who cured 9/11 by safely landing a damaged plane in the Hudson? Yeah, he's great. Well, he was great.

While reporting on a gruesome murder in the Mid-Wilshire area of LA, a KTLA news reporter managed to seem cheery and excited, and conducted a charming little interview with a neighborhood eccentric.

In your hijacked Friday media column: Tina Brown has breasts and used to do it, sexually speaking, to Martin Amis; the Washington Post Co. falls from the profit curve; Robin Roberts may or may not be too tall for morning television, and Howard Kurtz once again acquits himself with the dignity and effortless charisma…

In your moody Tuesday media column: Bin Laden saves the White House press corps, HuffPo people moves, Andrew Sullivan's traffic, a missing Al-Jazeera reporter, and Michael Wolff speaks (some more).

Oh, blah. CBS News has announced that scold-face white man Scott Pelley will be Katie Couric's replacement on the CBS Evening News. No surprise whatsoever. I guess CBS went with the surprise candidate last time, and that didn't turn out too well. Still, it's a shame that Watson the Jeopardy Robot won't get his chance.

In your ardent Monday media column: accountability comes to punditry, PR replaces journalism, the NYT's front page quick change artistry, longer newscasts tonight, and everybody loves People.com.

Quizzical mustache John Stossel, the former ABC Newsman who took his stories about how poor people are faking it to Fox News two years ago, continues to humiliate his former employer in his absence. Today, four years after Stossel falsely accused a pastor of leading a lavish lifestyle in a 20/20 segment, the network…

The day after CBS News' Washington Bureau chief was revealed as an FBI informant, the Smoking Gun has published another account of a TV news personality snitching for the FBI. This time, it was a local Fox television anchor.

Emotionally unstable television host Glenn Beck is pulling a Palin and quitting his Fox News Channel show later this year, according to a cryptic and confusing press release published on his web site, The Blaze. (The site is down right now, apparently from all the "Beck is quitting" traffic, but the Google cache is…

The Center for Public Integrity is reporting that an unnamed former ABC News journalist was an FBI informant during and after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, passing along tips and revealing a source. We know who it is.

It's semi-official: Katie Couric is leaving as the CBS Evening News anchor. Although only old people watch evening newscasts, the position still carries a definite cultural cachet. Who's next? We handicap, below.

Philadelphia's misbehaving news anchors are the most exciting thing to come out of the Philly media scene since AJ Daulerio! Former Philly CBS anchor Alycia Lane (pictured) is famous for slugging a cop and emailing bikini photos of herself; fellow former Philly anchor Larry Mendte made his name by hacking into Lane's…

Serene Branson, the reporter for L.A.'s CBS affiliate who rather scarily descended into gibberish during Grammy coverage last night, did not have an on-air stroke. According to the New York Daily News, she wasn't hospitalized, is "feeling fine this morning," and was given the OK by paramedics at the scene after…