This week, Forbes tech (!?) writer Gene Marks wrote “If I Was A Poor Black Kid”, a bold exercise in white privilege myopia, detailing what he would do to teach African-American children how to succeed in life, like “learn Google scholar.” Marks, a self-described “middle-aged white guy” wrote this ill-advised article in response to President [...]

What happens when you get Brian Williams, Mario Batali, Anita Hill, Jesse Eisenberg, Grover Norquist, and Seth Meyers together in a room to discuss TIME‘s Person of The Year? Hitler references, of course!

Forbes has come out with its annual list of “The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women” and, as is to be expected, several recognizable names in media made the cut. According to Forbes, the women on the list were selected “not just for being on top” but also for “being smack in the middle of Richter-registering events.” (Quite literally in some instances, if yesterday’s east coast earthquake is taken into account.)

That “smoking gun” that was supposed to link CNN’s Piers Morgan directly to phone hacking and other outrageous practices of the U.K. tabloid press? Well, not so much. As we reported Tuesday, a British blogger claimed to have a recording of Morgan that–he said–”contracts” Morgans flat denials that he ever “hacked a phone, told anybody to hack a phone or published any story based on the hacking of a phone.” As it turns out, that recording’s a 2009 interview Morgan gave to the BBC, appearing on a radio show, Desert Island Discs.The host, Kirsty Young asked Morgan about “all that nasty down-in-the-gutter stuff” that Morgan was exposed to by being a tabloid newspaper editor. He never says that he personally was involved in any of it.

A British blogger who has repeatedly claimed that CNN’s Piers Morgan can be linked to phone hacking during his days as a tabloid newspaper editor in the U.K. now says he’s got “smoking gun” proof to back up his charges. The blogger, Paul Staines, who writes under the name Guido Fawkes, has told Forbes‘ Jeff Bercovici that a recording exists “which contradicts (Morgan’s) recent claims” that he has never been involved in phone hacking in any way.

Well, this explains that parody commercial. Subversive online group Wikileaks is threatening to sue Visa, Mastercard, and Paypal, among others, for preventing the group from collecting donations. This week, the group announced that they are waiting another five days to sue the companies for blocking their money flows.

Forbes has come out with its annual list of the world’s most powerful celebrities – its “Celebrity 100.” Strewn among the requisite Hollywood actors, pop singers, supermodels and major athletes are a few names that are likely all too familiar to regular Mediaite readers.

While other potential presidential candidates are doing their best to ingratiate themselves with the general American public, Donald Trump has adopted the bizarre and profoundly entertaining strategy of calling up his detractors in the media individually and making them explain themselves. Yesterday’s victim was Eliot Spitzer, who had mocked Trump’s financial hyperbole, and was now presented with the task of doing so to Trump on national television.

And you laughed. Well okay, a lot of people have. And yet all that mockery has led to lots of buzz, millions of clicks, and all of that adds up to cash. About a million dollars’ worth. Forbes reports Rebecca Black, the 13 year old “singer” behind the viral sensation Friday, could see a windfall of about $1 million from the song.

Black’s family paid $2,000 to record two songs and the video for Friday, and that investment seems to have been–artistic merit notwithstanding–a good one:

Today on his show, Glenn Beck seemed particularly irked (and funny). One thing that was getting his dander up the most, was an article on Forbes.com entitled “Soros Warns U.S. Could Be On Verge Of Dictatorial Democracy, Slams Fox, Glenn Beck” and, most of all, its assertion that the host had been “falsely vilifying Soros publicly.” Beck was so angry that he demanded an apology from Forbes. Pretty interesting. What’s more interesting, is imagining whether or not this will be broached next Saturday at 11am during Forbes on Fox.

Mark this down as a Great Moment in Journalism: Kashmir Hill, a writer at Forbes.com, has just written a blog post in which she exclusively quotes source’s Twitter feeds, rather than using traditional quotes obtained by contacting sources directly.

The post, funny enough, is an analysis of a recent Wall Street Journal article that charges Facebook with transmitting its users’ personal information to advertisers and Internet tracking companies. (Side note: this is news, still?) Hill examines the Twitter streams of several tech experts and media types, noting how they reacted to the WSJ piece via Twitter. Here’s a typical paragraph:

Facebook may have been down yesterday, but its cofounder Mark Zuckerberg is up. The 26-year-old social-media whiz kid has been listed in the Forbes 400 as the 35th richest person in America, shooting past older media barons like Newscorp’s Rupert Murdoch, who is ranked 38th, and Apple’s Steve Jobs, who is ranked 42nd. Software kingpin Bill Gates of Microsoft still reigns on top of the Forbes list of rich people.

Business Insider is reporting that Forbes.com will be completely overhauling their blog section. The new section of the site is supposed to go live later this afternoon. The most interesting part of the report, however, was the fact that each one of their reporters will be required to maintain a blog.

Andrew Sullivan’s blog at The Atlantic is adding a major name to the masthead with news that Conor Friedersdorf is joining the blog as a “senior editor.” In addition to Friedersdorf, Sullivan is adding a new staffer–Zoe Pollock–to focus on behinds-the-scene work and to some “underblogging.”

Larry King is ready to be a team player, even if he’s not familiar with his likely replacement.

Forbes‘ Lacey Rose talked to King about Piers Morgan, Ryan Seacrest and more.

Forbes magazine has released their annual list of 100 Most Powerful Celebrities, and after a year off, Oprah Winfrey has returned to the top of the list.

To praise his ABC colleague, Jimmy Kimmel and his audience performed the “Oprah Song” – a dictatorial-themed tune that begins “All Hail Oprah.”

Forbes released its annual list of the 100 most powerful celebrities today, and look! Some of your favorite media moguls, TV hosts, and radio personalities made the cut. Here at Mediaite, we rank these folks against each other on the regular with our trusty Power Grid. Granted, the numbers on the two lists differ with Forbes’ inclusion of other types of celebrities (like Britney Spears, coming in at #6 – nice comeback, girl!) but let’s take a look at how they compare, shall we?

We know Glenn Beck is a huge radio and TV star, but do you know how big?

A Forbes profile and cover story by Lacey Rose breaks down the $32 million the Beck brand brought in last year.

So why can’t the Grey Lady scrape by with a little more profit? Forbes just announced it’s annual rankings for billionaires, and Carlos Slim Helu – who in 2008 became the largest shareholder in The Times and arguably saved the paper from bankruptcy – has been announced the #1 wealthiest person in the world.

This morning the Associated Press joined Talking Points Memo and Gawker as practitioners of the ‘open notebook’ method of reporting — well, inadvertently. One reporter’s notes about the developing news of Roman Polanski‘s arrest were sent out on the wire instead of the text of his article and published online by the New York Times and Forbes.

The media loves one-year anniversaries, hundred-day anniversaries — any excuse to zoom in on the thing they’ve been covering all along. This week’s one-year anniversary of the financial crisis — a gold mine for business magazines! Or a call for gold spray paint, if you’re BusinessWeek.

After a strong showing in The September Issue, Vogue‘s Anna Wintour tops Forbes‘ “2009′s Most Powerful Fashion Magazine Editors” list. But more interesting than the number one spot are the multimedia moves Wintour and her fellow editors made to retain relevance, not to mention Forbes‘ overlap with our own Power Grid rankings.

Online advertising, for a variety of reasons, does not generate the same revenue that print advertising has traditionally done. To make up for the lack, publishers have been considering any manner of income generators. However according to an piece on Forbes.com today, the solution may be as simple as getting readers to cough up a whole lot of personal information.

Yesterday we reported news that Jim Spanfeller was stepping down as the CEO of Forbes.com. Many saw it as yet another by-product of a declining ad market which has hit the business journals particularly hard.

Jeff Bercovici of Daily Finance saw it differently:

It’s been a tough few months for businesss journals. First Portfolio folded in April. Then this week it was reported that BusinessWeek was for sale – some even suggested that its price tag was $1 for anyone who wants to take on its annual losses. Fortune just announced a re-design in light of a 39% decrease in ad pages. And now the CEO of Forbes.com has stepped down.