A short while ago, Drudge Report tweeted out this quote: “When my friend told me his wife was Caucasian, I felt my spirit wince.” Intrigued, I clicked the accompanying link to find a column the singer Jill Scott wrote for Essence about her feelings on interracial dating posted in March of 2010. At first, I wondered why on earth Drudge Report was interested in a year old column by a singer. Then it hit me; she’s going to the White House, isn’t she? Sure enough, Scott is the latest guest of the First Lady’s poetry event to come under fire from the Right.

Last week, Stephen Colbert went on a truly epic rant, absolutely skewering Sarah Palin. The genuinely amount of the insults leveled at the former Governor made the segment especially harsh (or, as some would say, hilarious). This was not lost on the folks at Big Hollywood who wrote an angry post and made a poll decrying Colbert’s “ugly and mean-spirited rhetoric.” Either someone on the Colbert Report staff reads Big Hollywood or they have a Google Alert for their boss’ name because, last night, Colbert responded and clarified his statements. Of course, if you have even a passing familiarity with how comedy works, you can probably guess that “clarify” just means “making more Sarah Palin jokes.”

Keith Olbermann broke his non-Twitter silence last night on the matter of his suspension, alleging that he “knew nothing about” the NBC policy requiring approval for personal campaign donations from MSNBC anchors. His note was as candidly appreciative to fans as it was backhandedly scathing to those permitting him to return to air tonight, but rings inconsistent with the some of the anchor’s previous statements.

Did you know that the film that is potentially the magnum opus of the Tea Party movement is being split in three? And that, despite initial dire reports of economic woes and an inexperienced cast, production on the set of Atlas Shrugged is sailing smoothly? No, you don’t, because you were too busy staring at Andrew Breitbart’s Photoshop doodle of a literal “race card”— not that he didn’t also break that news.

Oh Alvin Greene and Anna Chapman, what have you do to our political culture? Big Hollywood editor-in-chief John Nolte is taking Congressman James Clyburn‘s cue and finding Republican plants in strange places– specifically, in Hugo Chavez buddy and liberal activist director Oliver Stone.

Big Hollywood is usually not the go-to site on the web for the latest Lady Gaga news, but this morning readers woke up to an in-depth book review of the Gaga biography Behind the Fame denouncing the “‘liberal’ political prudery” of critics concerned with the violent, sexual content of her latest video for “Telephone.” Wait, “liberal?”

Much has been written about the current era of opinion media and how consumers now often get their news from media outlets that reaffirm their pre-existing opinions. In fact, part of the reason that Mediaite exists is because there are so few unbiased arbiters in this new and deteriorating media landscape. So yesterday we received criticism from stalwarts on both the right AND the left. People often ask us “whose side are you on?” Whoever said that we had to be on a side?

The year 2009 had many media bright spots, break-out stars, dominating networks and game-changing technologies. The Mediaite 50 collects the finest, most exemplary innovators and influencers of the year, defining a media moment in time and setting the agenda as we move forward. See the full list after the jump:

When Andrew Breitbart launched Big Government in September, we asked if he was gearing up to be the next Arianna Huffington: an opinion blog rainmaker with a one-stop digital powerhouse, but presented from the opposite end of the political spectrum. Three months later, hyperbole has become reality as Breitbart is adding to his network of vertical blogs, starting with Big Journalism, which will launch in January. In an exclusive interview with Mediaite, Breitbart shared his vision for his expanding network of “Big” right-of-center sites:

Andrew Breitbart‘s new political blog, Big Government, launched with a splash today, thanks to a much-hyped investigative piece on ACORN. Could Breitbart, who worked as a researcher for Arianna Huffington back in the day and who already has a small family of successful blogs, be following in her footsteps as an opinion blog rainmaker with a powerful one-stop shop?