The huge resources required to cover the disaster in Japan, uprisings in Egypt and war in Libya have drained budgets at American news networks, according to an analysis by TheWrap. “We’ve already had a year’s worth of breaking news coverage, and it’s not even the end of March,” David Verdi, NBC News VP of worldwide newsgathering, told TheWrap.

Brent Lang and Dylan Stableford ran the numbers, adding up all the airfare to shuttle correspondents around the world, plus the costs of keeping them on scene and the satellite costs of getting their stories on television, and concluded a continued big news year could be a problem:

HollywoodLife, a website that has an entire section devoted to Justin Bieber, thinks they have an “EXCLUSIVE!” – that Piers Morgan is “probably not” going to take over for Larry King on CNN!

They’re wrong. All signs point to the Morgan-to-CNN announcement coming soon. > Update: And…the link is now down – post has been deleted.

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The growing battle over content aggregation, web ethics and linking legality between TheWrap’s Sharon Waxman and Newser’s Michael Wolff continued this morning on CNN’s Reliable Sources.

Howard Kurtz served as “referee,” but the battle was mostly a rehash of both sides’ talking points.

poll

Last week, Mediaite asked you who was the top online editor of 2009. This time around, we’re recognizing sites which are too vast and ambitious in scope to describe in terms of the work of just one editor. You know the drill, loyal, smart, and attractive readers: below is a list of our nominees for the top site of 2009, including The Business Insider, Ars Technica, and Talking Points Memo. Vote for your favorite, or leave any deserving candidates you think we left out in the comments: