Right now the only media story of any importance is that of Judith Regan’s firing from Rupert Murdoch’s HarperCollins/News Corp. empire—umbrella company to Regan Books. The initial spark that was Regan’s failed O.J. Simpson “confessional” book soon turned into a roaring inferno just weeks later when, according to The New York Times (Dec. 18), Regan allegedly made less than flattering remarks regarding Jews during an internal manager’s meeting. Although no one has come forward to reveal exactly what those remarks were, The Times claims the remarks served as the final straw that prompted Murdoch to issue Regan’s termination order. But if anyone was expecting Regan to limp off into the sunset and lick her wounds, they haven’t been paying attention to her historic modus operandi. Mere hours after the firing story broke on Sunday, Regan’s attorney, high-profile litigator Bert Fields, told the media, “They’ve chosen war, and they will get exactly that. She won’t take this lying down … We’ll take appropriate action for everything HarperCollins has done. They chose this path and I hope they remember it.” Declaring war on Rupert Murdoch might sound foolish at first, but Fields is the same attorney who slapped Disney with a $250 million lawsuit on behalf of Jeffrey Katzenberg after an ugly corporate divorce and got the studio to settle for an undisclosed (read: multimillion dollar) sum. So, in this case, we may indeed be in for a protracted, ugly and very expensive media war.

YouTube is not the most highbrow address on the Web, but every now and then the site delivers a video gem so precious the site’s value cannot be denied. The most recent piece of gold found on the site reveals the final fall of comedian Pauly Shore (http://tinyurl.com/yz33et). Long story short: Shore does stand-up in small Odessa, Texas club, Shore gets heckled by random guy, Shore insults guy, guy walks on stage and knocks the snot out of Shore, Shore falls down, audience laughs uproariously, Shore (in whiny high school nerd voice) says, “Fuck all you fucking white trash assholes …” and runs off the stage. While we don’t condone violence, this video has become more addictive than watching YouTube hits like Michael Richards speaking skinhead jive or Rosie O’Donnell offending most of Asia with her language impressions. 

The editors of Time magazine and Wired have decided to finally give up the ghost and join the Internet party that threatens to make mega-publishing conglomerates obsolete. Time’s Person of the Year touted “You” as their selection, a choice that struck many as a cop-out and others as acknowledging the new reality of Internet social media. In the end, this cover might be remembered as Time’s white flag surrender to its new masters. Over at Wired, editor Chris Anderson used his personal blog to suggest the magazine “wikify” everything. For those not fluent in techno-babble, that means Anderson is proposing revealing the editorial process by putting it on the Web and involving readers more in the creation of the magazine. Basically, he’s talking about putting everyone on his staff (except him, of course) out of a job and letting the public run publication. Genius.