Keith Kelly really rolls around in the news of Bonnie Fuller's "resignation" from American Media today like a puppy rolls around on a dead thing lying on the beach. He relishes her recent failure to raise the circulation of Star, quotes ex-employees talking about how much they hated her, and slaps a witch's cap on her head for good measure. Why? Because Bonnie told Keith terrible, terrible lies. "I know how this started," she said when he called her about a rumor she was leaving the company a couple of weeks ago.

Yesterday Rupert Murdoch surprised us a little by expressing total confidence that his News Corp. would win the bidding war for Newsday, even though his offer for the company was $70 million lower than the one from Cablevision and the Dolan Family. "I trust Mr. Zell absolutely," said Murdoch, referring to a reported "handshake deal" between the two a couple of weeks ago. "He's famous for being a man of his word. We think everything's in hand." But today the Chicago Tribune says Murdoch's overconfidence may be his weakness (Murdoch: "Your faith in your sources is yours!"). Zell's Tribune Co. is "seriously considering" the Cablevision offer, not only because of the money but because of the lack of regulatory problems that come with it. Murdoch already owns two major newspapers in the New York region, and a third would likely face federal challenges. "Interest in working with Cablevision has increased with the passage of time," a source involved with the talks told Newsday. Also Mort Zuckerman, owner of the Daily News, is revising his bid to better compete with Cablevision. As the competition heats up and Murdoch makes no move to improve his offer, the real mind games begin. Just how powerful is Murdoch's side of the Force? Only time will tell.

Sources: Cablevision's Newsday bid taken seriously [Newsday]

Allow us to go all Nick Denton on you for a moment and tell you way too much about a media personality whose byline you may know but whose personal life you never wondered about. His name is Spencer Morgan, and if you're anyone in the 25–35-year-old range of media party hoppers, you know him. And if you know him well (as we do), you'll know he's gone through a grand transition over the last year. The end result of this transition? Today's 1,500-word Observer story about the glories of taking a bath. But let's start at the beginning.

Young Spencer, 30, started in the gossip world by stringing on and off for the Daily News's "Rush & Molloy" column in 2004. Shortly after, he became a stringer for the Observer's "Transom" column. It took only a few months of this for his editors to see what they had on their hands, and they hired him permanently. What, specifically, they had on their hands spilling out of their paws, was a fun, boozy party reporter who knew everyone, stayed out late, and could always be relied upon for a little action (in print or just verbally). He, like Chris Wilson of "Page Six," George Gurley of the Observer, Neel Shah of Radar, and Hud Morgan of the Daily News (not all friends, mind you), took the term "party coverage" at face value.

The Harvard Political Review interviewed Times columnist Maureen Dowd, and she came clean about her longtime affection for comedy-show hosts Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart (once, at the Time 100 dinner a few years back, MoDo confessed to us that she had spent the evening tossing notes to Stewart from her table one level above his). According to Dowd, like many young people she watches The Colbert Report and The Daily Show more than she watches the nightly news. "I really think the alarm about that is silly, because I think if you watch Colbert and Stewart, you learn a lot," Dowd points out. It's better than, say, trying to learn about the world by watching Letterman. Explains the Ginger Zinger:

I went on the Colbert show for my first book, and it spoiled me because you’re talking about all this kind of politics stuff and either the audience is really savvy from watching him every night, or they just love him and laugh a lot. Then I went on Letterman and made a joke about Paul Krugman and Letterman and the audience were just dead silent. And at the break, I said to Letterman I promise if you ever invite me back I’ll never make another Paul Krugman joke.

Dowd also defended her use of humor (not "her use of humor" as in, how she thinks writing in a tortured, circuitous manner is the same as being funny, but the actual use of comedy in general). "When I first started my columns, Michael Kinsley and Bill Safire said to me, 'You have to stop doing humor columns because you’ll be seen as too girly,'" Dowd said. "And I said I would never take humor out of politics. I think it’s a fantastic way to tell the truth, but to take a fresh angle that can lure people in and tell them something true. And I grew up loving Johnathan Swift and Evelyn Wong [sic], and I think we can use humor and satire to get at the truth and a larger and different audience." Good point, Maureen! Except only you do it. We don't think we could handle it if William Kristol started cracking blonde jokes — and you know he's dying to.

The More Things Change… [Harvard Political Review via Romenesko]

Over a week after the first Bancroft family member called out Rupert Murdoch for violating the terms of his Dow Jones purchase agreement, the editorial oversight board has said that the media baron "failed to meet the letter and the spirit of the agreement." By pushing out managing editor Marcus Brauchli without asking the oversight board's permission (or even notifying them in advance), Murdoch rendered them completely powerless. The board was set up at the request of the Bancroft family when they sold the paper to Murdoch's News Corp. as an effort to protect the paper's editorial integrity. "It was not our view that I had to report to the committee my voluntary resignation under the terms of the editorial agreement," Brauchli told his former paper today. "I regret that they first learned of my resignation late in the process." The committee is sort of at a loss, they said in a statement, because there is "no practical way to 'unresign' Brauchli and start the process over." So they're trying to remain content by exercising "fully its role in the approval of a successor managing editor." Of course, Robert Thomson is already firmly installed as "head of content." Looks like the editorial oversight committee was, in fact, blindsided.

Dow Jones Committee Criticizes Handling of Brauchli Resignation [WSJ]
Earlier: ‘Journal’ Managing Editor Out, Murdoch In?
A Bancroft Calls Out Rupert Murdoch for Going Against His Word

Salon advice columnist Cary Tennis really earned his paycheck this week. In this week’s edition of “Since You Asked,” an aspiring writer asks the question all journalists ask themselves when they’re first starting out: How do we know if writing is supposed to be your career or your hobby? “A Writer or a Fool” writes in:

How can you tell if you have talent? I submit to magazines and they reject me. I submit to contests and I lose. I try for the creative writing awards at my university every year, and never get so much as an honorable mention. I work and work and work on my craft … There must be someone who could read one of my manuscripts and then whack me across the face with it — or tell me, yes, keep on trying, there's something here. Where do I find him?

Cary’s response came in just under 1,300 words. Somebody wants to show he can earn his keep during this recession! It’s mostly a lot of touchy-feely mumbo jumbo about giving voice to the voiceless and includes an overextended metaphor having something to do with a dog lying on a deck. But that's all unnecessary. Rather than spending the rest of your good years trying to decipher that answer, Writer or Fool, just take our advice. It’s very easy to find out what people think of your writing. It’s called blogging and the magic words are “What do you think? Leave it in the comments section below!” But honey, don’t say we didn’t warn you. —Noelle Hancock

Since You Asked [Salon]

Actually, that's not true. We know him very well — Ben was a fixture on the gossip circuit for nearly a decade in New York. He moved to the city from Australia in 1998 to write the column "Chic Happens" for Hint Mag with Horacio Silva (now fashion guru at T), then started as a legman for the Daily News' "Rush & Molloy" column. After a year and a half of that business*, he launched his weekend column "Gatecrasher" four years ago. The column expanded to its current five-day iteration when Lloyd Grove's "Lowdown" column left the tabloid. As anyone who read "Gatecrasher" knows, it's really the only column in the city that is as funny as it is dishy. (It also had the best daily blind items.) So it is with great sadness that we learned from Gawker over the weekend that Ben is leaving the gossip world. Today's column includes this quick, last biting good-bye:

Oh no! After four years (which is 28 in liver years) Gatecrasher has crashed its last gate for the Daily News. I hope you've had as much fun reading the column as I have had writing it, but today I am leaving to pursue my ambition of becoming the world's first plus-size hand supermodel. Wish me luck!

Ben tells us he's taking some "me" time to travel with friends now, though his liver will probably take years to recover. By our estimation, so will the city's gossip landscape.

Gatecrasher [NYDN]

*Do we seem a little fawning this morning? If so, it's because when Widdicombe left "Rush & Molloy," he was replaced by an inexperienced young gay who completely idolized his wit, writing, and charm. That boy grew up to be Daily Intel editor Chris, and he remains a fan to this day.

You saw this coming a mile away: Robert Thomson, Rupert Murdoch's right-hand man, will be running the newsroom at Murdoch's Wall Street Journal after torturing old-line Journal believer Marcus Brauchli out of his managing editorship. What does Rupert see in Thomson? Not surprisingly, himself! With apologies to Murdoch's Post, let's go to the tape:

Birthday:
THOMSON: March 11, 1961
MURDOCH: March 11, 1931

Big Break:
THOMSON: Errand boy at the Herald, a Melbourne paper once edited by Sir Keith Arthur Murdoch.
MURDOCH: Working for News Limited, the media company owned by his father, Sir
Keith Arthur Murdoch.

Maternal Relations:
THOMSON: According to the Canberra Times, he "visits his mum in Melbourne's St. Kilda once a year, with wife and kids in tow."
MURDOCH: Frequently heads home to Melbourne to visit his mum, Dame Elisabeth Murdoch — most recently for her 99th birthday on February 8.

The ouster of Marcus Brauchli as managing editor of The Wall Street Journal has raised the issue of whether the move conflicts with the editorial-independence agreement that Rupert Murdoch signed with Dow Jones when his News Corp. bought the company last year. In that agreement, an independent special committee was set up to oversee various editorial issues, including content and the hiring and firing of staff. Their job was to make sure that Murdoch wasn't unduly affecting the edit process. Now that Brauchli has been asked to leave (a development that Murdoch merely told the committee about, rather than asking for their approval), that seems to have been pretty much compromised. And at least one member of the Bancroft family, who sold Dow Jones to News Corp., is crying foul. "I'm not surprised," Jane Cox MacElree, who controlled 15 percent of the family's Dow Jones shares, told Portfolio's Jeff Bercovici. "This is why I was not in favor of selling the paper to that man. Words mean nothing to him, unless they're his." Ooh, snap. Not that we're particularly surprised either. "How long did it last?" she asked wryly. "A couple of months?" Just over six, actually. In Murdoch time, that's an eternity.

Bancroft Doyenne on 'WSJ' Editor's Ouster [Mixed Media/Portfolio]
Earlier: Know Your Bancrofts

This morning's Observer and Journal stories about Rupert Murdoch and outgoing Journal managing editor Marcus Brauchli deserve a second look, if only because they provide a meta-example of the issue that they are essentially covering. It turns out that Marcus Brauchli was basically asked to quit, the Journal reports, because he was acting as a middleman between the current edit staff and the new News Corp. regime. Murdoch and his publisher/henchman Robert Thomson wanted a company lackey instead. But Brauchli seemed relatively disgusted with all of the things Murdoch was trying to force him to do anyway, so he was happy to leave. In other words, these are stories about how Murdoch is trying to control the content of the august paper, even though he's technically not allowed to, per his purchase agreement. The Journal published a long story about the ordeal, which actually seems to be pretty accurate in terms of events and ideas. But the phrasing is just different. As you'd expect, John Koblin's excellent piece in the Observer is more critical and, well, observational than the Journal's version. Whether it's reporters and editors being afraid to piss off their overlord, or actual manipulation by News Corp brass, or merely nothing at all, it's subtle but noticeable.