​In a mishap that sent tremors through the media consciousness, the New York Times earlier today sent out an email that was first attributed to spam, possibly a hack, and then acknowledged to be from the Times. It was supposed to go to 300 subscribers; instead it went to 8 million. It was, as they say, an accident. But was it, as FoxNews writes, the New York Times's Anthony Weiner moment? Let us investigate the email. It went like this:

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​Yesterday, a 21-year-old man named Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez was charged with attempting to assassinate Barack Obama. There's a lengthy complaint available that includes quite a bit of information, including scary stuff he said about Obama to people who knew him well, referring to the president as 'the anti-Christ," the devil, and indicating he wouldn't stop "until it's done." There's information about what he had in his car, about how he conducted the alleged shooting, and even what he was wearing. There is NO mention of any Occupy movement -- the word "occupy" doesn't even appear in the document. So, why is it in this Fox Nation headline?

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via the "Support Stacey Hessler" Facebook Page

​Stacey Hessler is a 38-year-old mother of four from Florida who was so inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement she moved to Zuccotti to join the protestors. Hessler made the trip almost two weeks ago and has been living in the park ever since. The New York Post reports she "ditched her banker husband and four kids," but would the paper turn Hessler into some sort of caricature? Why, they would never do that to the "Flower-power flake," as she is described in the headline that graces the top band of the Post's website when you open the story.

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​In case you missed it, President Obama threw a "hip-hop barbecue" yesterday for his birthday, which somehow failed to create jobs. Or so shrieks this headline from Fox Nation, Fox News' aggregation organ. Non-hip-hop artists Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock performed while "Rome burned" (look at the URL). The race-baiting and unethically edited aggregation have been mentioned elsewhere, so we'll raise a somewhat different question: where was Philips Andover's stable of up-and-coming young rappers during the Obama Hip Hop BBQ, such an important event in the genre?

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They've outdone themselves!

I mean, damn. The obviousness of it. The comparison of the News Corp hacking scandal to the hacking incidents at the Pentagon and Citibank boggles the mind, since the Pentagon and Citibank were the victims of hacking, while News of the World was the perpetrator. Not that that should even have to be spelled out.

[The Atlantic]

[@_rosiegray]

​Although the website is still offering a four-week free trial, today's announcement that News Corporation will shutter its long-running Sunday tabloid News of the World because of a now officially out of control phone hacking scandal reverberated through the media news sphere for hours today, and will therefore dominate Press Clips, our daily -- back from a break! -- media column. After the initial shock of the announcement, in which international mogul Rupert Murdoch chose to eviscerate a whole brand rather than face the economic fallout of shady reporting on missing children and war veterans, came the speculation. Amid the swirl, questions about the leadership capabilities of Murdoch's likely successor, son James, and top executive Rebekah Brooks, editor of the tabloid at the time of the evildoing. Plus, which News Corp. publication will fill the gap, where will the (almost entirely) innocent staff go and what will become of Murdoch's pending business deals? Let's find out together.

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"I suggest you look at the unedited version online, where my emotional states don't seem to change so arbitrarily," said Jon Stewart on The Daily Show last night, his first show since exclaiming, "You're insane!" at Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday. Stewart, of course, said more about the state of the media, on bias and sensationalism, with the "insane" quip coming out as his soundbitiest soundbite, and that's precisely why he wants everyone to watch the full chat, which can be seen here. But that's not all!More >>

​Fox News boss Roger Ailes loves Chris Christie and has made no secret of his desire for the New Jersey governor to run for president in 2012. Christie maintains that he's 100% not running this time around, though that hasn't stopped a relationship from blooming between the powerful Republican pair, with Ailes working in some capacity as a "confidential adviser" to Christie, which according to the governor's office, protects correspondence between the two. Gawker reporter John Cook filed an Open Records Act request -- not unlike the ones we've followed in the cases of Osama Bin Laden and Sarah Palin -- "seeking any correspondence between the two men, as well as any records of meetings or phone calls with Ailes from Christie's schedule or call logs." As these things tend to go, the reporter was denied. More details inside a Friday evening edition of Press Clips, our daily media column, also including more dirty on AOL and the week's whiniest lawsuit.

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​As interest in Anthony Weiner's penis and the dirty messages that brought it out to play begins to wane, we focus instead on the media coverage of Anthony Weiner, thereby proliferating Anthony Weiner coverage. Hm! It's a conundrum, especially for those who go on television to proclaim, "The degree of piling on: the way it hijacks cable news, the way it hijacks the morning shows, the way it is all over the Internet says to me that we are more interested in covering salacious topics than matters of the economy, on matters of war and peace," while simultaneously writing for a news organization doing just that. Oh, hello there -- Howard Kurtz, is that you? Why yes, it is. More on this Weiner-centric balancing act in Press Clips, our daily media column, as well as news bits on New York magazine and the Wall Street Journal's shrinking local circulation.

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Fox Business's Eric Bolling, the dude who was offended by Obama "chugging 40s," is at it again. He opened a segment about Obama's meeting with the president of Gabon with this gem: "Guess who's coming to dinner? A dictator. Mr. Obama shares a laugh with one of Africa's kleptocrats. It's not first time he's had a hoodlum in the hizzouse." The hizzouse! It's not racist, it's just what the kids are saying. "Big crib," too. Guess who the other "hoodlum" in the "hizzouse" was? Common, obviously. The most dangerous thug in America.

[The Atlantic]

[@_rosiegray]