Mr. Beaujon (Image via TBD.com)

Beginning next month, Andrew Beaujon will join the Poynter Institute as a media reporter, filling out the void left when Jim Romenesko quit late last year. Mr. Beaujon is currently the arts and entertainment editor at TBD.com, a Washington D.C. news site.

Prior to TBD, Mr. Beaujon worked at Washington City Paper, Martha Stewart Living and SPIN. He is the author of Body Piercing Saved My Life, a nonfiction book about Christian rock.

Reached by phone this afternoon, Mr. Beaujon told the Observer that "just trying to live through" the changes in the industry fueled his interest in the media beat. Recently, he's written about Dan Snyder's legal battle with the Washington City Paper, staff buyouts at the Washington Post, and the local media ecosystem of Alexandria.

Mr. Beaujon said he pitched Poynter editors a blog/column that wouldn't look much like Mr. Romenesko's eponymous vertical. In between aggregated links, it will be a reported blog that "tells the stories of media." It will also define "media" more broadly.

"I'm interested in community media, ethnic media, overseas media, blogs and online publications," Mr. Beaujon said. "I try to cast a pretty wide net."

He will work out of Washington, D.C., where he lives with his wife and two children.

"Unless I can get a space in Jeff Sonderman's apartment," he joked.

It all began early in the morning when a recent college grad named Simmi Aujla published a story on Politico that uncovered a series of political contributions made by MSNBC host Keith Olbermann in violation of the network's ethics policy.

Aujla's story led MSNBC to suspend Olbermann and name Chris Hayes as his replacement, but within an hour, Hayes was out amid revelations that he also donated to political campaigns.

The news about Olbermann and Hayes prompted Yahoo's Michael Calderone to identify several other media figures who have made campaign contributions.

MSNBC's mess may have dominated the headlines, but it was hardly the only major media story on Friday.

Shortly before five o'clock, Keith Kelly broke the news that U.S. News & World Report will be shutting down its weekly print magazine after over 60 years. At least some staffers were apparently blindsided by the announcement.

There were also a pair of high-level departures at Essence and TBD.com, the local D.C. news site run by Albritton.

At Essence, editor-in-chief Angela Burt-Murray told staffers that she is leaving the company to relocate to Atlanta with her family. Sheryl Tucker will serve as an interim replacement for Burt-Murray. At TBD, top editor Jim Brady is out after ongoing creative differences with his Albritton overlords.

Clearly, everybody in the media business needs to go home and relax this weekend. It's been one hell of a week.