Going into a commercial break, Hemmer was trying to segue out of a piece on the importance of food donations, especially during the holiday season. The current Dow Jones activity then flashed on the screen, clearly showing that the Dow was down over 200 points.

“Hey, here’s something for the holidays,” Hemmer declared, “Dow’s up 211!”

“Woohooo!!” MacCallum shouted.

“Yippee!”

After teasing a quick piece on the re-opening of the investigation of actress Natalie Wood’s death, Hemmer returned with a somber-sounding mea culpa: “I meant the Dow is down,” he said, “not up.”

Maybe it was the timing, maybe it was Hemmer, in full newsman voice, adding the “Yippee” after MacCallum’s joyous outburst. Either way, it’s some early-morning good, clean fun.

Enjoy the clip below, courtesy of Fox News:

He’s the guy rumored to have been at Rupert Murdoch‘s side for so long he used to get the boss’ sandwiches–rising to become trusted deputy to Murdoch and chief at News Corp.-owned Dow Jones. Now Les Hinton‘s reportedly on his way out, another domino to fall as the phone hacking scandal that has engulfed Murdoch and his empire continues to spread. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Hinton is stepping down.

Questions have been raised about Hinton’s role in the hacking scandal since he previously served as boss at News International during the editorships of scandal-tarred editors Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks. Like Brooks, Hinton’s departure means another significant loss from Murdoch’s innermost circle:

“He runs interference for Rupert,” said one source who knows both men. “He’s a very nice guy — congenial, easy going and smart.” Hinton lives in an elegant townhouse — fitted out with a Jacuzzi and a deck — on Manhattan’s upper east side with his wife, Kath, a former aide to Gordon Brown.

He and Murdoch have spent more than 50 years working alongside each other, so it’s not surprising that insiders describe Hinton as one of the newspaper baron’s consiglieri, trusted to sort through sticky business issues or smooth political flaps.

Watch it here, from CNN:

This new endeavor is just the latest in a string of recent additions to the WSJ, which include a soon-to-be-launched standalone book review section and the “Greater New York” section that launched in April.

Here’s the first paragraph of the memo, which gives a tiny bit of information about the paper’s latest enigmatic enterprise:

I am pleased to announce that two of our most talented editorial executives will be leading a Special Project (notice the capital letters) crucial to our success as a company. Jim Pensiero will become Editor-in-Chief and Gabriella Stern will become Managing Editor for the WSJ/DJ Special Project, about which you will be hearing much more in coming days and weeks. In the meantime, my apologies for being necessarily vague. They will have a large and dedicated (in both senses of the word) editorial staff and will be tapping the combined reporting might of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, which comprise the world’s most powerful engine for news and analysis.

Obviously, this news prompts a few burning questions, namely:

1. What could this “Special Project” be?

2. Will it be evil?

3. Assuming the answer to #2 is “yes,” exactly how evil are we talking?

Kidding aside, what do you think Rupert Murdoch might have up his sleeve?

[h/t Huffington Post]

–Dow Jones CEO Les Hinton, railing against the “content kleptomaniacs” who dominate the Web

In a blistering speech at the World Newspaper Conference, Hinton echoed his boss Rupert Murdoch‘s suspicions about the Internet. Along with the pugnacious quote above (though who actually says “the news is viral?”), he compared old media entering the web to “an over-eager middle-aged dad,” criticized aggregators and “thieves” for the newspaper industry’s nosedive, and called out Jeff Jarvis as a moony-eyed leader of “the information-must-be-free imperative.”

To which Jarvis replied on his blog: a. I’m not actually a member of that crowd, and b. hey, remember when Rupert Murdoch favorably referenced me in a speech in 2005?

Read the full speech at paidcontent.org.

(via paidcontent; h/t Romenesko)