Pop Culture Wars - Ben, did you know one of the beefs against ousted NYTimes Executive Editor Howell Raines was that he allowed "soft news" to creep into the A Section? As this WSJ article notes,

Mr. Raines's activism included picking and assigning stories for the front page very different from the Times's usual serious fare. Both editors and reporters alike were reluctant to report back that the story wasn't correct or interesting, staffers say. One staffer dubbed Mr. Raines's interest in pop culture as "charge of the lite brigade." Two reporters spent five days reporting Mr. Raines's contention that Britney Spears's career was over without feeling confident they could prove his hypothesis, according to a person involved with the process. The resulting story ran on the front page on Oct. 6 headlined, "Schoolyard Superstar Aims for a Second Act, as an Adult."

How's that strike you, Ben?