According to a new study of Twitter content that's getting a ton of play today, there's not much gold in them thar Tweets:

A short-term study of Twitter has found that 40% of the messages sent via it are "pointless babble."

Carried out by US market research firm Pear Analytics, the study aimed to produce a snapshot of what people do with the service.

I have just one small quibble with Rick Perlstein's excellent retrospective on political paranoia in today's Post. It involves Perlstein's contention that, in the current healthcare debate, the media are failing the public--not just by setting up a false equivalency between true and untrue claims, but also by lavishing too much attention on feverish distortions and those who advance them:

One of the big liberal knocks on George W. Bush has always been that, as president, he was essentially Dick Cheney's puppet.

But according to this fascinating piece in today's Washington Post, Bush's obedience to Cheney may have been greatly overstated--especially in his second term, and much to Cheney's regret:

The Globe's Robert Gavin writes that "about two months" have elapsed between the Globe's report that Goldman Sachs is soliciting bids for the Globe and the Times Co.'s acknowledgment--after some inexplicable obfuscation--that the paper is, in fact, for sale.

But Gavin is being a bit harsh here. If my math is correct, it's only been 57 days.

At a meeting between Globe management and the Globe's union leadership earlier today, publisher Steve Ainsley offered a reassuringly optimistic take on the state and direction of the paper. (He also declined comment on a possible Globe sale, citing the Times Co.'s wishes, which comes as no surprise.) An email from the Boston Newspaper Guild's executive committee that synopsizes the meeting follows:

Today in the Herald, Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa suggest that the Globe's decision to allow its sportswriters to appear on WEEI-AM has something to do with Tony Massarotti's imminent departure for the new WBZ-FM--which, you'll recall, was created by the same process that killed off WBCN.

Here's what's unclear, at least to me: if the Globe wants to keep Massarotti from jumping ship--or other sportswriters from following suit--why would this be an appropriate response? The Herald makes it sound like he'd give up his Globe gig entirely to work for WBZ--and he could do that regardless of whether the 'EEI ban was rescinded or not.

The Globe's ban on sportswriters appearing on WEEI-AM is no more. Here's the 'EEI email sent this morning:

WEEI announced today that the station and The Boston Globe have agreed that Globe sports writers will appear as guests on all WEEI talk shows, effective immediately.

“I think this is a great win for WEEI and the Globe,” said VP of Programming Jason Wolfe.

Catherine Mathis, the Times Co.'s senior VP for corporate communications, is leaving her post for a similar job at Standard & Poors.

It'll be interesting to see if--in the wake of Mathis's departure--the Times Co.'s perplexing communications M.O. changes at all. I dealt with Mathis a fair number of times over the past few months, and found her to be refreshingly responsive, despite the fact that I frequently hammered her employer's conduct vis a vis Boston and the Globe.

My hunch is that Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Janet Robinson were the authors of the Times Co.'s self-destructive reticence, and that Mathis simply had the unenviable job of relaying that reticence to the press. The performance of Mathis's successor, Ethan Riegelhaupt, might shed some light on this subject. Then again, since Reigelhaupt isn't a permanent replacement, it might not.

Robinson's memo follows; also be sure to take a look at Eric Starkman's friendly PR advice for Mathis's successor and the Times Co. as a whole.

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Dear Colleagues,

With truly mixed emotions, I am writing to inform you that Catherine Mathis, senior vice president, corporate communications, has decided to ake a new position as the senior vice president and head of Marketing & Communications for Standards & Poor’s, a McGraw-Hill Company, and will be eaving at the end of August.

Catherine has been with the Company for twelve years and has served as the chief communications strategist and spokesperson through some of the most challenging chapters in our history.  She has been a source of strength to me, our leadership team and her colleagues throughout the organization. She was always on duty, actively involved in managing the reputation of The Times brand, a major accomplishment, given the massive amount of coverage The Times Company generates on a daily basis.

For all that and much more, everyone at The New York Times Company is grateful to Catherine for her innumerable contributions and wishes her the best of luck.

Ethan Riegelhaupt, the Company’s vice president for speechwriting and internal communications, will be taking over our corporate communications department on an interim basis, pending future personnel and administrative decisions.

Sincerely,

Janet