• Busted! Chicago reporter Amy Jacobson fingered for showing up at a friend of a friend's poolside BBQ wearing a "swimming top."

• Dan Patrick is leaving SportsCenter! Related: MediaWeek capitalizes on opportunity to use outdated colloquialisms "scuttlebut" and "scotched."

• Graydon Carter may have inadvertently made a big mistake in choosing Shia Laboeuf over that far more lucrative dead horse.

• Katie Couric is a not a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She's simply a woman who likes to bitch and moan about her $60 million contract.

CONTINUED »

New York associate editor Ben Wasserstein, obviously not given his job because dad Bruce owns the magazine, is taking off for The New Republic, where he'll be online editor. Finally, he and Jesse Oxfeld will have something to talk about.

(Meanwhile, New Republic's Ryan Lizza is leaving for The New Yorker, where he'll be a Washington correspondent. Exciting stuff, indeed.)

We aren't sure if there is more confusion over whether or not the New York Observer will sell, or over what color the newspaper actually is.

Bruce Wasserstein's interest in the New York Observer is cooling, according to a source close to the situation.

Allen & Co. is handling the sale for the Observer's founder and longtime owner, Arthur Carter. The peach-colored weekly has carved a niche covering the media elite and the political and society whirl in uptown Manhattan — but it has never rung up a profit. Currently, it is said to be losing about $2 million a year.

Keith Kelly reports that Harvey and Bob Weinstein, don't want the Observer, nor do Mort Zuckerman and Jeffrey Epstein. Michael Steinhardt? Nope — he doesn't want it either.

But, the same rumors have been swirling for months, with the same reporting mistakes being made. Obviously learning nothing from the crap everyone gave David Carr when he labled the paper "pink," Kelly describes the paper as "peach."

Since we know it has been decided that the official cover of the Observer is "salmon," we just don't know how much of these stories we actually believe.

BRUCE LOSES JUICE [Keith J. Kelly, NYP]

It's really unlike us to focus on the other side of the media industry (biz=yawn).

But when a three parts Bruce Wasserstein, and a splash of Jessica Simpson, are mixed with pineapple juice, and served fresh, we are drunk on the business section of the New York Times.

Besides having a job in which thinking matters, Wasserstein's ownership of New York magazine and participation in the fight over Time Warner make him a media spotlighter — not to mention that he's probably going to own us all someday. (Start sending the cases of pineapple juice now, guys. And throw down the $2.50 for the card.)

Look how funny business gossip is:

Mr. Wasserstein's choice to work with Mr. Icahn, however, was no accident. But it was a decision that sent Wall Street into a tizzy because Lazard, a white-shoe firm, had done the unspeakable: it had signed up with a corporate raider to take aim at Mr. Wasserstein's former client.

A tizzy? We think we'll stick with the sex tapes and stripper rumors.

He Likes Challenges. But Time Warner? [Andrew Ross Sorkin, NYT]

• John "Junior" Gotti's racketeering and kidnapping trial begins today here in New York, bringing back the good old days of mafia crime defendants.

• Paula Abdul won't be appearing as a "roving correspondent" for Fox's So You Think You Can Dance after all. Even while her American Idol investigation rolls on, she'll be too busy wrapped up in promoting the show's DVD and preparing for the show's new season.

• Gawker claims Peter Jennings for New Yorkers, leaving plenty of Canadians ultimately confused. Oh, and this just in: Jennings was, uh, not really liked by colleagues. But they surely make good with their naked Heidi Klum shot.

• Pamela Anderson is getting sprayed with a lawsuit from United Licensing Group, the manufacturer of her perfume and clothing lines, for not making herself available for promotions.

• David Remnick looks like he'll be picking up Washington Post managing editor Steve Coll for his masthead-less masthead at the New Yorker, with the WaPo newsroom brewing substantiated rumors.

• Sequilogy (pause for collective "Huh?") wants the New York Post to stop gloating over its Martha Stewart extended house arrest story, since they got most of it wrong. That yoga class she attended was indeed for business purposes (she was researching a Sirius satellite show segment) and she knew her ankle bracelet-wearing days would go on longer than expected well before her birthday.

• Ted Turner is telling friends he'll step down from Time Warner's board as soon as the mega media company settles shareholder lawsuits stemming from the AOL merger. Chief Dick Parsons couldn't be happier.

• The Washington Post is v. sorry about that critical review of John Irving's Until I Find You, the 824-page novel. The critique was penned last month by Marianne Wiggins, who never reminded her editors that ex-husband Salman Rushdie was a friend of Irving.

• Primedia continues its property sale, unloading another item to Bruce Wasserstein. In 2003 it was New York magazine, now it's exciting B2B titles like Corn & Soybean Digest, Trusts & Estates and Wireless Review.