Morning Links: Sesame Street Exec to ‘Depoliticize’ NPR

Bits writer Nick Bilton leveraged a big job offer/book deal from CBS and Simon and Schuster into a better gig

Bits writer Nick Bilton leveraged a big job offer/book deal from CBS and Simon and Schuster into a better gig at the Times: a weekly column and only sporadic blogging. [Uncrunched]

Like Nora Ephron to Huffington Post Divorce, Rita Wilson is the celebrity editor-at-large of Huff Post/50, the Baby Boomers vertical launching today. [WWD]

Even the Times is confused by Saturday’s Occupy Wall Street march across the Brooklyn Bridge (where one of their reporters was among the 700 arrested, no less). Did the police allow protesters to occupy it or not? Should we trust NYPD-issued video footage? [Village Voice]

The city is participating in a month-long promotional event for SyFy network (part of NBC Universal) called “31 Days of HalloweeNYC.” [Decoder]

The Groupon bubble is popping. Merchants are disillusioned with the service, which is now so widely used that consumers never develop merchant loyalty, are always willing to try a new place in the name of a discount. [NY Times]

Gary Knell, head of Sesame Street Workshop, has been named president of NPR, replacing Vivian Schiller, who had to step down after she was caught calling the tea party racist. Mr. Knell vowed to “depoliticize” Sesame Street, but that should do little to appease the far right, which has previously accused the PBS children’s program of pushing a liberal agenda. [WSJ]

Sharon Waxman will now be airing her Nikki Finke grievances on The Wrap. The first one is that she wrote an email to Wrap partner Reuters saying one of their stories was inaccurate, even though it wasn’t. We hope future installments of “Nikki Finke Exposed” are a little juicier.  [The Wrap] Morning Links: Sesame Street Exec to ‘Depoliticize’ NPR