Getting out of Iowa today was a complete bitch, thanks to the throngs of reporters fleeing frozen Iowa for frozen New Hampshire. The airport is supposedly 50% busier than usual and nearly 2,000 rental cars were returned. Luckyduck New York Times reporters on the other hand, had no reason to fret. They got a ride home in Daddy Sulzberger's corporate jet! A Times rep told Politico that "for The Times Company, it was 'most cost-effective.'" Anyone know how much jet fuel for several round-trip cross-country treks will set you back? Finding out involves math and you know, work, so we have no idea, but we suspect the answer is: a hell of a lot more than coach fares on JetBlue.

CNN shouting-head Glenn Beck had mysterious surgery that went terribly awry and now he hates the American health care system. We have no clue what the surgery was for (anyone?), but things went bad. At a hospital that the President of GE goes to! We wish him a speedy recovery, obv, and are excited to see what his righteous, Raymond Chandlerian doctor-hatred will bring forth when he returns to the air. Also we are very seriously (or perhaps ghoulishly) curious as to what the hell this is all about. [TVNewser]

Now Naomi Klein turned down Colbert! Didn't anyone tell her and Katrina that the Colbert writers' "strike" is just an elaborate meta-media joke? No...? [NYO, Previously]

Rachel Marsden, former "Red Eye" on-air eye-candy who was once allegedly "escorted" from Fox studios, and who has been accused of being a bit stalky, wrote into Gawker this morning to let us know that she's officially been exonerated of all wrongdoing ever. Or at least she won't be charged with harassing her Candian counterterrorism officer ex. The emails from the gentleman that she made public and those nudes allegedly of him she sent to the papers have finally proven her innocence! Canada's National Post helpfully adds: "Ms. Marsden, a former Republican Babe of the Week who has appeared on Fox News and CNN, has a history of criminal harassment, having pleaded guilty to stalking a Vancouver radio host in 2004. Her swim coach at Simon Fraser University also accused her of stalking him in the 1990s, but the allegation was never proven." [National Post]

Today's puzzler: 24-hour cable news nets are more interested in missing white lady hiker and successful black guy candidate than crazy hospitalized pop starlet. ALSO it could snow at any second in California!

Is this the heavy hand of Rupert Murdoch at work? Identical ledes on separate page 1 stories in today's Journal insist that common folk want their electronic thinking machines to be flashy and eye-catching, not boring, gray, and business-like. HINT HINT, Journal staffers!

Salon recently asked "some of [their] favorite experts and opinion makers" who they were supporting in the Presidential election. One of the respondents was Dan Savage—his response is reprinted above. It had to be screengrabbed because Salon took down his answer once they realized they'd emailed this Dan Savage and not this Dan Savage. Designer Dan Savage even included his URL in his response, figuring they'd catch on. Not until they ran it last night, falsely attributed! We kinda love that Salon would just run this nonsense as long as it was from the right Dan Savage.

"It's easy to reduce all of what is wrong with American journalism to the near industrywide ban on booze in the newsroom. So I will." [Slate; Illustration via HuffPo]

Helicopters. Hot metal print. Faked photos. Police scanners and running engines. Even if you're not a journalism wonk, outgoing Wall Street Journal managing editor Paul Steiger's recap of his years in the golden age of newspaper reporting is an engaging read, all 2,963 words of it. If you just want the dirt, I've pullquoted Steiger's dead-bird story, plus the time he asked for a helicopter to do some reporting. Does Pajamas Media have one of those?

The Weather Channel, one of the few privately held cable channels and one of the most mind-numbing, is for sale. The pricetag: $5bn.

Time Inc. has mostly erased Business 2.0 from its CNNMoney website after shutting the magazine down last year. But newsstands across the country, and readers, have not gotten the memo.

When Portfolio lost Gabe Sherman to the New Republic, the troubled Conde Nast business magazine claimed the young reporter would remain as a contributing editor. (At this point, is anybody not a contributing editor to Joanne Lipman's free-spending title?) Portfolio, which has lost a slew of writers despite lavish contracts, seemed to save face, at a price. Which would make it embarrassing if, as we're hearing, Portfolio's golden boy hadn't in fact come to terms. Some magazines are so toxic that they can't even pay people to do nothing. Hear anything?

The Los Angeles Times recently offered an intriguing report on "cognitive enhancers," the batch of attention-focusing and memory-helping drugs such as Adderall and Ritalin. (Also known as amphetamines, but that sounds so low-rent.) A 2005 survey that found 4-7% of college students had used. The real question: how many of them continued beyond graduation when they moved to the big city and took jobs at glamorous magazine companies and blog conglomerates? The LAT says use of amphetamines—sorry, cognitive enhancers—is widespread in the creative professions. Well, that's what an unprincipled drug marketer, and a headline-grubbing writer, would want to believe. The mundane reality? Probably caffeine abuse. But you tell us. Let's talk.

The world's biggest fag rag, Playgirl, is planning a "Scenesters of New York" issue. In talks to be the centerfold is Randy Jones, best known as the original cowboy of The Village People and owner of the most obviously dyed moustache since Saddam Hussein's. If Playgirl's few remaining female readers haven't realized the beefcake magazine has been taken over by the gays, they will now. A rep for Playgirl notes that Jones has "an amazing body". Leotard Fantastic is apparently not in consideration for a spread.

Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz are not engaged, Us Weekly reports in a confessional apology for getting the story wrong (twice). They're getting good at confirming stories, especially when the stories are denials. But then they follow up with a reader poll: "Should Simpson and Wentz get married?" So at least they're focus-grouping the lies now. [RM]

I swear the San Francisco Chronicle updates its front page by replacing the words "Cosco Busan" with "Tatiana" and running the same damn angles again. The Chron's reports on failed systems, beleaguered bureaucrats, and oh-the-humanity handwringing are all framed by the big question: How could this have been prevented? I keep hoping some rival paper will court Valley engineers with a headline like TIGER IN CITY, WHAT A STUPID IDEA.

Forbes.com's Brian Caulfield has scored the magazine's latest cover story, a profile of graphics chipmaker Nvidia. Quite a coup, especially for a writer whose personal manner is so unassuming. But we wonder if some repressed aspects of his personality are starting to come out in recent headlines.

Yahoo career-advice columnist Penelope Trunk took on a familiar topic today: "How to deal with getting fired (from Yahoo.)" Her boss, she said, told her the column didn't pull in a high enough CPM — the rate advertisers pay. Stock talk draws pricier ads than job advice. So far, all business. But then came the gratuitous insult: When Trunk asked if there were any other opportunities at Yahoo for her, the Yahoos recommended she try Lifestyles, a Yahoo division for food, horoscopes, and the like.

ESPN and Yahoo Sports are on a hiring binge, bringing six-figure salaries to the generally tame world of sportswriting and stealing talent from print publications who can't afford anything close to the lucrative offers Yahoo and ESPN are serving up. The Washington Post has lost three writers to ESPN in 18 months. ESPN poached longtime Sports Illustrated scribe Rick Reilly for $3 million a year — substantially more than the $1 million he was already rumored to get from the Time Warner-owned magazine. "We are seeing free agency for sports journalists," says Leigh Steinberg, a top sports agent.

An actual headline from Om Malik at GigaOm today: "Like Gaboogie, Foonz Losing Its Voice Too." The extra "too" really clears things up, doesn't it? TechCrunch picked up the story with a sardonic cliche: "News flash. There's just no money in giving people free calls." The actual news flash: There's just no money in drawing conclusions about technology from the failures of startups no one has even heard of.