video Wow. This year — and this decade — will just not go quietly. Senator John Ensign apparently thought he was going on CNN to talk about terrorism — until Rick Sanchez switched topics began asking him about the ethics scandal he's now embroiled in, thanks to his affair with the wife of one of his top staffers, and ethics allegations around a lobbying gig he may have subsequently gotten for the cuckolded husband. THIS YEAR HAS BEEN SO WEIRD.

Given that media critics often describe FDR as the first “radio president” and JFK as the first “TV president,” logic dictates that 2009 brought forth the first entry in a new era: the Wifi President. With his Blackberry forever in tow, a sophisticated election campaign grounded in new social networking media, and the most YouTube friendly White House [...]

video Exactly ten years ago, we were recovering from ringing in the new year millennium in style -- with Prince's 1999 song ironically cued up throughout our homemade party mixed tapes (burning CDs and iPods were not yet on the scene.) But this wasn't just any New Year's Eve -- this was the night when we escaped the ghosts in the digital machine who threatened to get their collective revenge on a civilization grown lazy with technological advances. How did they plan to attack? Via the mysterious and scary computer glitch known as Y2K!

the aughts I’m 16 years old, and I created an international news story from my room. Ten years ago, I would have had a hard time getting people’s attention at the local barbershop, let alone getting on the Washington Post.

The Washington, D.C. area is about to become a one-newspaper sports town with the demise of the Washington Times' sports section, announced Dec. 30 by the conservative paper's top brass. The Unification Church-run paper slashed 40 percent of its staff and will focus on national news and politics, while shuttering its Sunday edition.

The age of Twitter has spawned new rituals, among them the watchdogging of reaction to the death or illness of polarizing figures. Rush Limbaugh's chest-pains scare from last night was no exception. We've got a sampling of each for you, including some very good behavior by the left's most visible media figure:

What do we call this next decade? We've got to think ahead on this — because so far, there's been no consensus. The example set by the media in the next few days will be a critical one. Whether it’s Ryan Seacrest and Dick Clark on “Rockin’ New Year’s Eve” or Anderson Cooper on CNN, anybody who’s on the air this week will have to figure out how to react to the number 2010. I say, let's call it "Twenty-Ten."

video MSNBC's Morning Joe may not have anywhere near the ratings of Fox News' morning show, Fox & Friends (or of CNN's American Morning, or HLN's Morning Express in the demo, or FNC's 3amET show Red Eye - wow), but it does have something the others don't: a free-flowing, unscripted conversation tailor-made for political junkies. Here's a look back at the year in Morning Joe:

According to a recent blog post on the Tiger Woods saga, "the reports you are reading on TMZ and RadarOnline are about 30% accurate at best." Tiger and Elin Woods aren't moving towards divorce, Arnold Palmer is trying to help Tiger patch up his marriage, and Tiger hasn't appeared in public since the incident in November because his face was damaged and he needed plastic surgery. Revealing? Maybe. But just as surprising is the person who posted the account -- 91-year-old retired sportswriting great Furman Bisher -- and his response to the 43,000+ hits the blog post has gotten: surprise and annoyance.

It was Thanksgiving when the Tiger Woods story took off, and on New Years Eve comes the newest twist - AT&T; has ended their sponsorship with the golfer. The company released a brief statement today: "We are ending our sponsorship agreement with Tiger Woods and wish him well in the future."

ratings We've documented Fox News' strong ratings throughout the year - 2009 saw their best ratings of all time...and the past few years have been huge as well. When looking at the cable news landscape as a whole, through the top 20 programs in total viewers and the demo, the dominance can be viewed in a different, but still obvious, light.

video It's been somewhat amusing this past week to hear media types express surprise over the fact that last week's attempted bombing of Flight 253 resulted in an immediate round of partisan finger-pointing on Capitol Hill. I'm not sure what people were expecting after a year that must have set the record for bitter partisanship battling, but I shudder at this point to think what it would to take place to have both parties agree on...anything

Last week, Gawker announced that Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis had won its "douche of the decade" poll. The post in question also initially called Francis a "rapist" -- leading him to threaten to sue Gawker. At the time, some observers wondered how serious the threat was. When Mediaite contacted Francis, we received a response from his publicist to the effect that he still plans on suing, and that the suit will be filed on Monday:

The impasse between FOX broadcast network and Time Warner Cable continues with less than a day remaining before the cable provider knocks the network and its cable outlets off the dial. And as each side ratchets up the rhetoric, neither seem willing to show compromise. Could Fox really be gone from homes with Time Warner Cable tomorrow?

chart As if we needed more evidence of the death of newspapers (at least in print form,) Business Insider posted this chart mapping the growth and decline of total workers employed by news papers over the 62 years. And while it seems like it could be a banal point, the graphic depiction of the contraction of the print industry is somehow still shocking.

You will be happy (or surprised, depending) to hear that Sarah Palin's Going Rogue rider, beyond the banning of four bloggers -- Todd's working the door when it comes to them -- is fairly straightforward and mostly aimed at easing the experience for fans.

funny Kathy Griffin will be co-hosting CNN's New Year's Eve coverage with Anderson Cooper tonight, live from Times Square. Last night, CNN viewers got a taste of what was to come as Griffin joined guest host Erica Hill on the set of AC 360, in what turned out to be a remarkably entertaining segment. However, the real revelation in the interview turned out to be Ms. Hill, whose comedic timing and whip-smart retorts showed that she has the chops to stay with anyone. Very funny video after the jump:

I finally got around to watching the now-famous (thanks to Drudge) video of Democratic Montana Senator Max Baucus' tirade on the Senate floor, which the right has touted as evidence of the Senator's intoxication. That's a pretty serious accusation, and one that would normally require better corroboration than this. In my search for another explanation, I discovered an alternate theory that actually springs from the left: Baucus' speech has been affected by a head injury.

Many are extremely happy to see this year come to a close, but we shouldn’t confuse the roller coaster with what is actually a stunning conjunctural moment. 2009 was a year riddled with the collisions of many different trajectories — and they all collided with techology. More than anything, this was the Year of Transparency.

video Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh has been rushed to a Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu, and is reportedly in serious condition, according to local reports. Limbaugh has had a rather dramatic fluctuation of weight gain/loss, most recently shedding 90 pounds from Spring to late Summer of 2009. ABC News is now reporting that Limbaugh is "resting comfortably." Coincidentally, the Hospital where Limbaugh is resting is the same where Barack Obama was born.