On Wednesday’s Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough agreed with Former President Bill Clinton’s assertion on The O’Reilly Factor that the press favored Barack Obama, saying the “press favored Barack Obama by a long shot over Hillary Clinton.”

The host at the core of MSNBC’s primetime lineup, the head of Newsweek and the President of the United States are all among the “Least Influential People Alive,” at least according to GQ, set to dole out the full list of dubious distinctions next month. The ego-crushing list also includes some random no-brainers like Tim Pawlenty and Tia and Tamara Mowry, but also seems to consider President Obama among those least relevant.

Newsweek/Daily Beast Editor-in-Chief Tina Brown appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, as she does every week, to discuss some of the most notable features in the weekly edition of her magazine. The topic of conversation today centered on the Howard Kurtz article about Fox News chair Roger Ailes, specifically how the dominant cable news channel has allegedly “corrected course” in their coverage, ostensibly going from a predictably hard-charging conservative point of view, to a more moderate one.

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.)

Michele Bachmann and you are running for president, today is a good day to be you. The congresswoman won the Iowa straw poll, she appeared on every single Sunday news show, and she is steadily building momentum that could lead her to win several primaries in the upcoming election season. So it was only appropriate for CNN’s Reliable Sources to revisit that controversial Newsweek cover depicting Bachmann as… as… well, I’m not quite sure, but it wasn’t exactly favorable.

Funny bearded dude Dennis Miller paid a visit to Fox News’ The Factor to discuss the Newsweek‘s silly Michele Bachmann cover, which frankly seems to be bothering everyone… with the exception of Bachmann herself. Miller told Bill O’Reilly that Newsweek‘s Tina Brown is a “mean girl” and that Bachmann shouldn’t trust women on the left simply because they happen to be in possession of ovaries.

This week’s issue of Newsweek, featuring a cover photo of GOP hopeful Michele Bachmann, has sparked a slew of criticism and brought attention to a still struggling Newsweek. Editor in Chief Tina Brown is a regular on Morning Joe, and host Joe Scarborough flat out asked her “Be honest, you used that photo to make Michele Bachmann look crazy.” Brown’s defense seemed less than convincing, but what did she care, they were talking about her magazine!

It seems that Newsweek‘s cover photo of Rep. Michele Bachmann has already proven to be a game-changer: it got Jon Stewart to defend the Republican presidential candidate for an entire segment– not an easy feat. Stewart blasted the magazine for deliberately finding an unflattering photo of the Congresswoman, arguing “you’ve got to go pretty far” to find an unflattering one, listing examples of Bachmann making “yelling into a bullhorn” look attractive, and giving editor Tina Brown a dose of her own medicine.

Apparently in response to the uproar over their “crazy” cover photo of GOP presidential hopeful Rep. Michele Bachmann, Newsweek magazine has cleverly published a slideshow of cover outtakes that seems to make the case that Bachmann is incapable of being photographed without sporting the gaze of a Cujo stunt double. Their “See, she always looks crazy” defense is probably appealing to most Bachmann detractors, but I call “bullshit.”

The rhetoric against the Tea Party movement has escalated in extremism during the debt ceiling debate, partially because many on the left and in the center considered the Tea Party members of Congress the only thing standing between America maintaining its credit rating and defaulting on the debt. On tonight’s O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly and Bernie Goldberg differed on the level of outrage about that, but both took the time to chuckle about their aversion to labeling “real terrorists” but quickness to drop the word on domestic opponents.

Tina Brown is planning to extend the Daily Beast’s brand and reach with an online talk show that is being described as having a format similar to that of The View.

According to the Observer, the Newsweek Daily Beast company has already hired producers Kathy O’Hearn, formerly of CNN, and Susie Banikarim, who was “poached from Diane Sawyer.” O’Hearn has previously worked with Brown as the executive producer of CNBC’s relatively short-lived weekly talk show, Topic [A].

One of the biggest questions remaining after Rupert Murdoch‘s testimony to a British Parliamentary committee yesterday is how much did the News Corp. CEO know specifically about the phone hacking scandal and alleged corruption surrounding it. This was the topic today on Morning Joe, and Joe Scarborough relayed that Murdoch is a spry micro-manager, but how to explain the doddering testimony yesterday? Tina Brown compared him to Vinny “The Chin” Gigante who feigned legal senility to avoid doing time. Whoa.

The Newsweek editorial predicting what life would be like for Princess Diana made many readers uneasy about resurrecting the dead, but for Fox News’ Liz Trotta, it was no surprise. During her Saturday commentary segment today, Trotta noted that “you can expect more of the same” from editor Tina Brown, who peddles in “the lowest of the low” and is “desperate” to sell her “pamphlet.”

Yesterday, we wrote about the disturbing Newsweek cover and cover story in which Tina Brown and some photoshop artists resurrected Princess Diana. Today on Morning Joe, Brown was asked about the less than thrilled response and she mostly settled on the “no such thing as bad publicity” reasoning.

As the merger between Newsweek and the Daily Beast continues to find its footing, 16 of the magazine’s employees have agreed to take a buyout and walk. That’s more than were expected to, meaning future layoffs could be avoided.

On Morning Joe, Tina Brown appeared to echo the sentiments of Jon Stewart as she declared, “I don’t feel the passion on the Democratic side to force the debate into the terms that it needs to be forced into.” Although she was impressed with Republican Congressman Paul Ryan and his effort to tackle the budget, she was afraid many Republican proposals were “obscene.”

Tina Brown isn’t too worried about bloggers weighing in on her latest project – remaking the ailing Newsweek brand into something people will read, discuss and pay for. In an interview with The Guardian, Brown takes the criticism hurled her way (which includes a rather unfortunate and problematic comparison to a hagfish by Gawker editor [...]

Bill Maher was startled by the results of some polls on Republicans’ beliefs he read recently, and devoted a segment on tonight’s Real Time to analyzing them. And while any segment where Maher discusses Republicans is in danger of turning into a bash-fest filled with accusations of racism, this one stayed calmer…and produced a pretty good segment of television.

Between the Middle East’s sovereignty as we know it breaking down, myriad natural disasters and a less-than-stellar economy, no one would doubt that being the leader of the free world in 2011 is no easy task. Luckily for President Obama, there is some sympathy for him out in the media world– take, for instance, Newsweek editor Tina Brown, who suggested on Morning Joe this morning that “with the world exploding as it is, I have to say that Obama has the worst inbox of any president maybe in history.”

On ABC’s This Week, Tina Brown, Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Beast and Newsweek participated in a panel discussion on “female freedom fighters” across the Middle East and also revealed the new, redesigned cover for the revamped Newsweek.

Daily Beast/Newsweek Editor in Chief Tina Brown joined the set of Morning Joe this morning, and by all accounts, she absolutely hated last night’s Academy Awards, or more to the point, the job that Anne Hathaway did co-hosting the show. The Morning Joe crew vociferously disagreed with Brown; it was her co-host James Franco who ruined the Oscars, most likely because he was stoned (allegedly!) Rarely does one see such uncut loathing towards a non-political subject on any cable news channel.

Conservative author and blogger Andrew Sullivan announced over the weekend that he is leaving TheAtlantic.com, where he writes his “Daily Dish” blog, to join the Tina Brown-helmed Daily Beast / Newsweek merger.

With so much attention being given to the recent deal between Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington and Aol, it’s worth it to see what sort of impact this has on other media companies – namely, the recent merger between Newsweek and Tina Brown‘s Daily Beast.

Ten years ago, Arianna Huffington was best known for appearances on the now-defunct Politically Incorrect, and Tina Brown was throwing lavish parties for the now-defunct Talk magazine. Meanwhile, Time was chugging along, covering news and politics just as it had been for decades. It’s this that the publication is trying to seize upon with its new TimeFrames initiative, which begins with a new issue that looks back on the magazine’s coverage of the last decade.

hough the Daily Beast’s upcoming merger with Newsweek drew much fanfare and back-patting on all sides when it was announced last week, not everyone is happy about the imminent marriage. In fact, some people are completely opposed to it—people like the staff of Newsweek.com, an entity that seems unlikely exist once the merger takes place.