The parents of missing British toddler Madeleine McCann reportedly met in December with IMG Media to discuss making a film about their daughter's May disappearance. Um, okay, did something suspicious happen to their famous team of image-conscious publicists too? [Times UK]

Ha. After everyone on the internet watched Glenn Beck's nutty, rambling YouTube video about his mysterious surgery, we all forgot to watch his damn show on Monday. Turns out it was hemorrhoid surgery. Or as Beck referred to it, "ass surgery." The drug cocktail that sent his mind into the heart of darkness? Morphine, Toradol, Fentanyl patches, Percocet every three hours, and a synthetic morphine drip. Which explains the YouTube clip, sort of, but certainly not his outrage. Where is this hospital, in a William Burroughs novel? [HuffPo]

"The Sunday Times inadvertently ran an article at the weekend that plagiarised ... a list, '100 Reasons You're Still Single,' that appeared is US pop culture Radar magazine last September." [Media Guardian]

Portfolio magazine takes diversification to a new extreme: The mag leads January's issue with Robert Reich's admonition to "get corporate money out of politics" since companies often "set the agenda" and "pour millions of dollars into the system." Flip to the back pages, and veteran business journalist Roger Lowenstein is slamming a book on responsible investing with the argument that corporate "donations seem too small to encourage any meaningful and lasting shifts in government policy."

In 2007 the Los Angeles Times won a Pulitzer Prize, Risser Prize and SPJ award for some serious regional reporting about ocean pollution and migrant workers and uranium mining. So what sorts of stories did latimes.com readers actually click on that year? A sex-change journal, Paris Hilton in jail, something about Kelly Clarkson and lots of national news. Obviously readers want a site "heavy on local news and politcs" an ingenious LA Times editor concludes. Riiight. The sorts of stories they should be running instead, after the jump.

Kelly Tilghman—an anchor at the most exciting channel on TV, the Golf Channel—was suspended for two weeks because of a crude and racist remark. Just how crude and racist was it? "Lynch him in a back alley," she said, referring to young players challenging Tiger Woods. Well hell, we all let things slip sometimes. Woods' agent didn't much care, because the two are actually friends, but no matter—now Al Sharpton has jumped into the fray! Which means we have about three more days of crazy-talk on this particular story. [AP]

Oh, cute! The New Yorker is having a contest where you can create a modern version of Eustace Tilley, that stuffy ascot-wearing dandy from their first cover who has been peering at us through his monocle ever since! Tilley was created as an "ironic" character, they explain. As it never fails to surprise, "The New Yorker was launched as a gossipy, facetious weekly for in-the-know Manhattanites, a sort of Jazz-age Spy." (Oh...really?) Anyone can play, anyone can win! But can anyone really beat R. Crumb's interpretation? [New Yorker contest]

Shouty mad man Chris Matthews' primary selling point and liability is that he will loudly say any damn thing that comes to him. This morning, on Scarborough, this came to him: "Let's not forget, and I'll be brutal, the reason she's a US Senator, the reason she's a candidate for President, the reason she may be a front runner, is that her husband messed around." That's Hillary Clinton he's talking about, in case you thought he was maybe referring to Pat Leahy. See, Chris, unless "messed around" means "secretly gave Rudy Giuliani cancer and replaced him with this lunatic," that statement really makes no sense. Of course, it is the Clintons, so you never really know. Crooks and Liars has the video, plus a thousand angry lefty internet nerds piling on in the comments. [Crooks & Liars]

One person who won't be hit by layoffs at the Chicago Sun-Times: Garry Steckles. The newspaper "consultant" is a restaurant owner in Saint Kitts, and spends as much time as he can on the beach, but "help[s] out" at the newspaper whenever he's needed. And he's just been promoted, so he's exempt from the job cuts. His secret? Steckles grew up with Editor-in-Chief Michael Cooke. [Chicago Reader]

Yesterday, Fox News reported, repeatedly, that former Democratic consultant and current CNN talking head Paul Begala was going to join the Hillary Clinton campaign. He wasn't going to do this thing, but they reported it anyway. Begala emailed his "friend" Major "Square-Jawed" Garrett to correct the story. Garrett promised to take Begala's denial "under advisement." Then continued reporting it, only with a few extra made-up details. Then Hillary won the election and everyone forgot about it except Paul Begala, who angrily wrote a "blog" about it at the HuffPo. Their email exchange, below. [HuffPo]

Celebrity chef and "bad boy" Anthony Bourdain dishes about his life: he travels so much, it "never stops." He has no time to cook anymore. Sometimes he wakes up in a bland hotel and doesn't know where the hell he is. He's an absentee father. Does he plan on taking time off to spend time with his infant daughter? "I don't know." But he brought her to a shoot! He avoids endorsements and thinks those other people who endorse Dunkin Donuts or the Olive Garden are "silly and degrading...Of course it's for the money! Why can't I get that through my head, and why am I having such a problem doing that myself?" We wonder that every day as well. [Onion AV Club]

Ever since the late night talk shows returned to the air, Leno has been beating Letterman in the ratings, as he has for a good dozen years. This despite Leno still working without his writers (a terrible, uncomfortable sight), all of whom are still on strike. Letterman's production company's deal with the WGA gave him back his staff, but hasn't awarded him a ratings edge—until Monday! "In the overnight ratings, measuring the country's 65 largest cities, Mr. Letterman had a 4 rating on Monday to Mr. Leno's 3.8. (Each point is worth 787,659 households.)." Of course, Leno still won the first half-hour. But once they brought the guests out, Letterman had America's favorite Oscar-whoring not-funny-anymore superstar Tom Hanks! Leno had Ron Paul. Enough to win an unscientific online poll, yes, but not to beat Forrest Gump in Nielsen households. So writers finally have some proof that their contributions are important! Specifically, their contribution of a sad picket line that SAG members and bleeding-heart superstars will hopefully continue to refuse to cross. [NYT]

The Editor of the San Jose Mercury News has resigned after making a "controversial" proposal to reduce the number of sections in the newspaper from five to three. Like that's going to make a difference, either way.

Drew Schutte, the longtime publisher of Conde Nast's Wired, will now run the sales side of The New Yorker and its website. David Carey, publisher of Portfolio, is adding Wired to his responsibilities. [BusinessWeek]

As Brian Williams reported that a CNN correspondent admits that they all find it nigh impossible not to be "biased" toward Barack Obama, a CBS-2 reporter (funny how so few outlets reported the questioner's affiliation btw!) had the following exchange with Hillary Clinton:

The former editor of Vanity Fair and the New Yorker (let's not mention the now-silent Talk) is to receive a lifetime achievement award from her magazine industry peers. Intelligencer's harsh conclusion: that the 54-year-old magazine legend is "at that point in her career when the final retrospective is in order".

There are many economic factors that might have possibly driven the housing boom, all of which are bo-ring. House Lust: America's Obsession With Our Homes, a new book by Newsweek reporter Daniel McGinn, reveals the truth: it was actually driven by idiots with a herdlike, pathological need to fixate on every aspect of their home, much like Freud's analysis of anal-retentive children examining their own feces. Actual quote: "My house is really pretty, with plenty of room, but it just doesn't do it for me... my artistic imagination isn't lit up by it—it's too much 'practical,' and not enough 'dreamy.'" Here's to the idiot in all of us—now, I'm off to look at Floor Plan Porn on Curbed!

In an internal email issued this afternoon, Los Angeles Associated Press assistant bureau chief Frank Baker notified his staff of a major policy change."Now and for the foreseeable future," he wrote, "virtually everything involving Britney is a big deal." OMG, did you hear? Britney is a BIG DEAL, y'all! Nervous breakdowns are totes the most efficient way to achieve household name status. Memo after the jump.

Three guesses as to the identity of the anonymous S.N.L. staffer describing himself this week in the New Yorker's "Talk of the Town" as being "physically incapable of growing a strike beard, or any beard." You really only need one guess—ours is that it's 22-year-old boy wonder Simon Rich, son of Times heavyset heavyweight Frank Rich. Isn't he just positively adorable? Ordering a drink must be a complete nightmare for him. You have to admire the New Yorker for its diligent commitment to pursuing a diverse range of sources. It would be so simple to take the easy way out and gather quotes from friends and colleagues. Like, say, for instance, contributors to the magazine's "Shouts & Murmurs" column!

No one may get too close to Barack Obama. He's nervous—Hillary's killed before, after all. But The Guardian's Suzanne Goldenberg was dissuaded by Obama staffers from questioning their volunteers on three separate occasions in New Hampshire last Sunday. The video proof is on The Guardian's site. It's chilling, if your idea of chilling is petite 20-something women nervously telling people not to film in a high school gym. Which is, we think, a plot of an upcoming feature from M. Night Shyamalan. [Guardian]