Following his somewhat contentious interview with Soledad O’Brien on CNN earlier this morning, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian spoke with Bloomberg‘s Margaret Brennan on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange about Reddit’s blackout to protest SOPA.

Brennan asked the internet entrepreneur why the blackout was still happening, despite Congress not pushing forward as hard as they were.

There may be some argument over who was the winner of last night’s Bloomberg/The Washington Post Republican Presidential Debate, but from a media perspective, one victor is crystal-clear: Bloomberg TV. Hosting their first-ever televised debate, the finance-centric news network made the most of the opportunity, creating (and sticking to) a format that was right in its wheelhouse, and leveraging the new media effectively to compensate for its relative lack of broadcast reach.

Despite all of the media chatter about a Mitt Romney win at Tuesday night’s Bloomberg/Washington Post Republican presidential debate, the real stars of the show were Herman Cain and his “9-9-9 plan.” While Romney drove the fork deeper into fading rival Rick Perry, aided by Perry’s underwater tape-recorder delivery, it was Cain who gained the most from the debate, deftly deflecting criticisms of his economic plan, which was mentioned a Ron Popeil-esque 25 times during the debate.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich ratcheted up the temperature at last night’s Bloomberg/Washington Post GOP Debate when, in response to a question about the financial meltdown, Gingrich suggested the jailing of Rep. Barney Frank and former Sen. Chris Dodd.

Frank shot back last night, noting that “It’s interesting, the charge is failure to stop Newt Gingrich and Tom Delay from deregulating,” and called the charge odd “even by Gingrich’s standards.”

In perhaps the most interesting segment of tonight’s Bloomberg/Washington Post Republican presidential debate, moderator Charlie Rose stepped out of the debate and let the candidates shoot questions at each other. Not surprisingly, most of the question went to frontrunner Mitt Romney, and of those the most informative exchange occurred between Romney and Texas governor Rick Perry, who challenged Romney on the most contentious part of his resume: the passing of “Romneycare” in Massachusetts.

Tonight’s Bloomberg/Washington Post Republican Debate on the economy comes at a critical time in the GOP presidential race, as the last few weeks have seen some stunning shifts in momentum. While several candidates stand to lose big from tonight’s debate, up-and-comer Herman Cain is the only one who really stands to gain, and is in a nearly can’t-lose position. I predict that Cain will join Bloomberg TV as the big winners of tonight’s debate, and Mitt Romney will need Jedi skills to avoid a big loss.

Texas Representative and GOP Presidential hopeful Ron Paul continued his tendency to strike a contrarian note this morning last month, by openly questioning the material import of the S&P’s recent credit downgrade. Paul questioned the overall value of these ratings services, noting that they all missed the market crisis from sub-prime mortgages three years ago before suggesting that the weekend downgrade was “political theater to build up the fear.”

Adweek‘s Michael Wolff, who wrote a biography of Rupert Murdoch insists that the Murdoch who signed full page apology letters in U.K. newspapers ahead of his testimony today before a panel of the British Parliament is not apologizing for the actions of a few “rogue employees,” but rather, for what his company “is.” On Bloomberg TV, Wolff said “this is not an aberration, this is what his newspapers have always done.”

CNBC is reporting tonight that News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch–who’s due to testify in the News of the World phone hacking scandal before the British Parliament Tuesday–is “considering” stepping down as the company’s CEO. He would be replaced, CNBC reports, by COO Chase Carey.

Bloomberg, citing individuals “with knowledge of the situation” describes the elevation of Carey as something News Corp., not Murdoch, is considering.

If you’re a news geek like us, and you actually watched yesterday’s joint news conference at the White House with President Obama and Hu Jintao of China, you already know who Hans Nichols is. If you’ve got a real job of some sort and can’t be watching news conferences, maybe you heard how one reporter pinned down President Hu for seeming to dodge a question on human rights. That was Hans Nichols.

ABC News president Ben Sherwood said today he’d consider an agreement that partners ABC News and Bloomberg News, though no such deal’s been struck, according to a report by Bill Carter in The New York Times.

Sherwood, speaking to reporters and critics at a news conference in Pasadena, California, told Carter he had “nothing to report, no news to break” regarding a long-rumored relationship/partnership/merger between Bloomberg and ABC, but he said a deal would make sense:

The biggest story of the year comes (mostly) to a conclusion tomorrow night, and every network you’d expect to be covering the midterm elections will be in grand fashion.

We at Mediaite will be taking the night off (ha, kidding), but here’s a list of all the places to tune your TV to Tuesday night – and what to expect.

Well now, here is a sensational and surely reputable news report: According to Japan’s SPA! magazine, Steve Jobs was stopped by Japanese airport security for attempting to bring shuriken, or ninja throwing stars, onboard his private plane in July. Jobs was reportedly so upset by this routine stop that he vowed never to return to Japan again.

In the year that Mediaite has been around, it’s certainly been an interesting time for the media world. As Mediaite quickly established itself as one of the go-to sites covering the media industry, legacy media outlets finally began to come to terms with social media — particularly the New York Times and the Washington Post, two of the most storied newspapers in America. In the past year, these news organizations and others began to incorporate social media into their plans – but with varying objectives.

Add Bloomberg to the (short) list of people who don’t think Fox should get Helen Thomas‘ recently vacated White House briefing room seat. While the media consensus thus far has been that Fox News’ Major Garrett will get the prime spot, Bloomberg is making the case that they deserve it.

Although it just happened Monday, it seems like ages since Helen Thomas abruptly retired following a firestorm over comments she made about the Middle East. While speculation began immediately over who would end up in Helen’s front row center seat in the briefing room, a clear consensus among White House reporters has taken shape: looks like Fox News’ Major Garrett might be the big winner

Betty Liu is the Bloomberg TV anchor of “In The Loop,” live from 8-10amET each weekday. The program covers the all-important hours as the U.S. markets open, and the revamped Bloomberg TV line-up begins with Liu each day. Since joining the network in 2007, she’s interviewed Warren Buffett, Ted Turner and more. Now Liu becomes the first Bloomberg anchor to take part in our 5QQ – Five Quick Questions series.

A colleague (who is handsome and wise) recently discovered an old Media Metrix report delineating “World Wide Web Audience Ratings” for December 1998. It’s a remarkable study, categorizing thousands of sites and conglomerated web companies. all of the component elements, but it’s unrecognizable. As though they’re all brands made up for movies.

It was a big day in court for CNBC’s business news competitors – both FBN and Bloomberg won Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits against the Federal Reserve.

And they did it right next to each other in the same courthouse.

Since Norman Pearlstine, former Editor-in-Chief of Time Inc., joined Bloomberg as Chief Content Officer, many of the staffers at Timehave slowly been trickling over to join him. First, it was Josh Tyrangiel, who now serves as BusinessWeek’s Editor in Chief. Then, it was Arthur Hochstein, Time’s “legendary” art director, who stepped down in 2009 and will now be consulting for both BusinessWeek and Time. Who else is planning to “reunite” with Pearlstine?

Eat that, Web 2.0 naysayers: Twitter is profitable in 2009, Bloomberg Businessweek reports. Twitter is still at least a few months away from integrating advertising, which could be its real moneymaker further down the road. The key to Twitter’s surprise yearend profitability? Search deals with Google and Bing, which total about $25 million.

This isn’t any great surprise, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out: advertisements featuring Tiger Woods have stopped appearing on major television channels, according to CNNMoney. The last Tiger Woods ad was a Gillette ad which aired on November 29th, two days after his mysterious car crash, but before allegations of his affairs dominated the national media.

Bloomberg, which acquired Business Week last month, announced this week that they were looking to layoff 100 positions or 25% of its staff. Judging from Twitter it looks like the layoffs took place today (h/t FishbowlNY).

The smartest thing I read last night on Twitter was by Dan Kennedy. He wrote this: Does anyone really believe the nonsense that any election is a referendum on Obama? Here’s the referendum on Obama: 11/6/2012. It’s an easy headline, I know, and so tempting on this, the one-year anniversary of Obama’s history-making hope-bringing win [...]

I’ve run a few campaigns in my day, making me officially an old-timer – but why the numbers were close was obvious. Bloomberg’s vote total dropped precipitously. And Thompson, it turns out, had a base.