Four today

1. Is George Will's wisdom really scoop-worthy? Opinionator

2. Bottoms up: Did Gawker trigger a State Department investigation? Bloggasm

3. Apparently it's so easy to dismiss criticism of Ariana Huffington as jealousy that Jon Friedman, in the second part of his glowing two-part series on the founder of Huffington Post, has decided to do just that:

When Huffington speaks, it is sometimes hard to know who is doing the talking. Is it Huffington the entrepreneur? Or the optimistic visionary who routinely triumphs over obstacles, grinning devilishly all the way?

Then again, some in the media who don't like, trust or believe her suspect she has a bit of the carnival barker in her persona. It's easy to chalk up the skepticism to simple jealousy.

4. The line between reinventing journalism and dissembling about journalism is a fine one. This story on Nieman Lab serves as a good example. Wrap your head around this:

Reporting ≠ journalism. Sure, Swart worries about the future of the media. But don’t wait for him to weep for the vanishing beat reporter. He’s been watching the local web, and he doesn’t see an information shortage on the horizon. Instead, there’ll be shortages of reliability, priority and presentation.