CBS News wants you to know that reporters at The New York Times, Mediaite, The Huffington Post and Entertainment Weekly all got it wrong in comparing Scott Pelley‘s first week as anchor of The CBS Evening News to the final weeks of Katie Couric‘s time in the chair. As we put it yesterday, “it’s too early to fairly judge the CBS Evening News‘ transition from Katie Couric to Scott Pelley in terms of ratings, but in his first week on the job, Pelley largely held on to the viewers Couric had, but seems to have lost some of the viewers who tuned in for the post-Couric newscasts with interim anchor Harry Smith.”

In the usual absence of any real, meaty (not a pun, thank you) political stories each summer, it’s usually something completely absurd, wild and/or scandalous that captures the attention of the media and the general public. Summer of ’11 has, so far, been a Summer of Weiner. The so-called “Weinergate” scandal has been the gift that keeps on giving, as far as many media outlets have been concerned, and it’s interesting to see how each has managed to put its own spin on the story. Let’s take a look at how they (and, yes, we) managed it, shall we?

Let it be known that the first person to find a tie between Rep. Anthony Weiner and lewd material was former CNN anchor Rick Sanchez. Sanchez tweeted out a Huffington Post article yesterday from April, in which he found that former pornography salesman Ben Suky had donated to Rep. Weiner’s Congressional campaign– as well as that of Rep. Eric Cantor, and called for both legislators to return the donations.

Most Americans who casually follow news may just be catching up on the summer’s first tragicomic mystery, the story of how a lewd photo ended up being sent to a 21-year-old college student from the Twitter account of Rep. Anthony Weiner. While concrete facts in this story are few and far between, and the Congressman certainly hasn’t been helping, those who first heard of the story on The Last Word tonight may have missed the little information there is out there, and in lieu got an update on Andrew Breitbart and Shirley Sherrod. Wait a minute, wasn’t that last summer?

As the relatively recently-formed Aol / HuffPo hybrid prepares to fold Aol News into the Huffington Post, the company has revealed that it will replace Jai Singh with longtime “HuffPostian” Nico Pitney as the sites’ managing editor.

In this week’s New York magazine, John Swansbourg takes an entertaining look at the deft comic stylings of NBC News Anchor Brian Williams and how he has developed a legitimate side career in comedy. As one who was an early chronicler of same (see: SNL maiden voyage, Colbert WristStrong stunt, Jon Stewart spar-fests, earnestly following up on a 2005 quip about Bea Arthur). I appreciated seeing how Swansbourg traced his gestation from anchor-who-hosts-lots-of-dinners to legit OMG-is-this-a-residuals-check? funnyman. And it’s nice to see BriWi no longer apologizing for cracking a few jokes outside the 6:30 – 7pm timeslot. Good times all around.

Its no surprise to anyone that Huffington Post and Aol News will be merging, but what surprised us, is that in the days to come, Aol News will no longer be producing any original content, and will instead be entirely serviced by Huffington Post. Since Aol CEO Tim Armstrong and Arianna Huffington jointly announced plans [...]

Tom Zeller has left his job as the NYT‘s energy to take on the role of the Huffington Post’s senior reporter, energy and environment. According to the site’s founder, Arianna Huffington, Zeller will be charged with covering “the economic and social implications of energy and climate policy, including the impact on the health of our communities.”

This makes Zeller the third big name that has left the New York Times for HuffPost after national editor Tim O’Brien and business editor Peter Goodman. And with good reason, apparently: according to a source at the paper, the move is “all about the money.”

Rachel Maddow tonight devoted some time to “the Paul Ryan thing;” namely, that “Republicans voted for [it]” and now must defend it at town hall meetings. They haven’t always done so with great success, but Maddow noted a lack of coverage of this, save for liberal websites…plus one site she apparently doesn’t think is so liberal these days.

Andrew Breitbart isn’t angry; he’s just enlightened. That’s the message of his contentiously-titled new book, Righteous Indignation, a work that may look and sound like the fruit of rage, but at its core, is an exposition of the power structure Breitbart sees himself fighting against. It’s a recruiting tool to build his army in the war against what he calls “Democratic media complex” that leaves no stone unturned on the left. In turn, Breitbart leaves many questions on how to police the right unanswered. I sat down with Breitbart on Monday to get a deeper look into who he’s fighting, why he’s fighting them, and just how much bad behavior he is willing to overlook from conservatives in order to take liberals down.

As it turns out, Jonathan Tasini, the journalist and union leader behind the lawsuit filed against the Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington and Aol for not paying its contributors, also keeps a blog off his own – called Working Life – that offers interested writers the opportunity to produce content… for free.

Jonathan Tasini, the journalist who spearheaded the much-discussed lawsuit against the Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington and Aol for lack of payment to bloggers, spoke to paidContent, appropriately enough, about his reasons for filing.

While the Huffington Post immediately released a response to the lawsuit filed against it by a group of disgruntled bloggers seeking payment – calling the suit “baseless” before having read it, its founder, Arianna Huffington, has now issued a more in-depth criticism of the document.

(Note – this post was originally published on March 21, but has been re-posted given the news of a class-action lawsuit brought against Aol, Huffington Post and Arianna Huffington) What have I missed in the recent hullabaloo over the Huffington Post bloggers who write for free? As I understand it, last week, the Newspaper Guild and its 26,000-member union called for all unpaid Huffington Post contributors to withhold their work in support of a “strike” launched earlier this year by another organization. OK, fair enough: a newspaper guild rightly wants writers to get paid. In these tough times for the industry, it’s important to have those vigorous advocates, and anyone who has qualms about writing for free, either morally or practically, should refrain from so doing. Writing is not just an art – for many, it is also their only source of income.

Well, now it’s official: Several Huffington Post contributors have come together to launch a lawsuit against the site. The suit comes after weeks of very public complaints about the lack of monetary compensation bloggers have received in the wake of HuffPost’s $315 million deal with Aol.

The Center for Public Integrity, the DC-based nonprofit focused on “ethics and public service issues,” is set to launch iWatch News, a website on investigative journalism. Specifically, the site, which will be up on April 12th, will focus on stories relating to government, politics, money, health care, the environment and national security. So you’ll just have to get your Snooki news elsewhere.

In case your day has yet to been made completely miserable, allow us to remind you that it happens to be “April Fools’ Day.” Yeah, we know: Blegh. The Huffington Post decided to get in the holiday spirit, as it were, by telling readers about a brand new feature they’ve just introduced: digital subscriptions to HuffPost especially for New York Times employees. (This is the part where you go “Teehee!”)

Arianna Huffington sat down with The New York Times to discuss pleasant topics like whether her father, a former newspaperman, would feel about accusations that her site is responsible for that whole death of print thing we keep reading about in newspapers.

The Times broached another contentious and persistent criticism the Huffington Post has been contending with since it’s inception, and especially in the wake of its deal with Aol: That HuffPost is too “lefty.”

The fallout from the short-lived editorial relationship between The Huffington Post and Andrew Breitbart continues as CNN’s Howard Kurtz has now stepped into the conflict. On today’s Reliable Sources, Kurtz criticized Breitbart and agreed with the decision to remove him from the front page of The Huffington Post. Now Breitbart returns the favor with some criticism of Kurtz’s report.

Lawrence O’Donnell is popping some popcorn to watch Republican presidential hopefuls sharpening their claws on their way to the 2012 primaries, and he is hoping they are at least as respectable as Alan Keyes. Blasting the Tea Party as “anti-information” and “the most forgiving movement in American political history,” he proceeded to ridicule front-runners (?) Rep. Michele Bachmann, Gov. Haley Barbour, and the ubiquitous Newt Gingrich.

Looks like the golden era of bipartisanship at the Huffington Post has ended, no more than two weeks after it started. The publication turned many heads after agreeing to publish a post by conservative rabble-rouser Andrew Breitbart on the recent NPR/James O’Keefe kerfuffle, initially standing by the editorial decision. In light of Breitbart’s recent comments on Van Jones, however, HuffPo spokesman Mario Ruiz announced today they would no longer promote him.

First PopEater, then the world. Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington, who recently sold the brand to Aol for $315 million, is taking steps to expand the Huffington Post beyond the U.S.

Aol / HuffPost wants freelancers with professional journalism backgrounds to come on board as staffers. According to TechCrunch, the company does not view the ability to blog – not even about adorable kitten antics – as synonymous with journalism. Who’da thunk?

And you thought the spat between CNN and Fox News would be a one day story. Ha! Welcome to Day Three, my people! And we begin with Fox News correspondent Steve Harrigan finally delivering his counterpunch to CNN’s Nic Robertson, who notably suggested that Harrigan was–essentially–a lazy liar. Or a lying lazybones. In an interview with The Huffington Post, Harrigan fights back, saying Robertson has “a screw loose.”

Well, this was bound to happen: On the heels of its $315 million Huffington Post deal, Aol has announced that it will shut down 30 of its blogs, electing to absorb some of these into other brands, including a few existing HuffPost verticals.