TechCrunch's Sarah Lacy couldn't get into Brazil this week, supposedly because the country's visa officials are incompetent. And yet somehow the New York Times' Jenna Wortham finagled herself entry into that exact same country. It's enough to make Peter Kafka think Lacy's problems had more to do with her than with the entire nation of Brazil being somehow incompetent!

Lifestyle blogger Terri Potratz will spend this weekend knitting, and she's both stoked and proud.

BlackBook's Tricia Romano wasn't feeling very bipartisan about health-care reform.

Gizmodo's Brian Lam saw his long weekend erode before his very eyes. This frightened at least one of his Gawker Media compatriots!

MTV's Maya Baratz was impressed by nerd gear during a coffee break.

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Jeff Bercovici of Daily Finance reports:

Spanfeller did not respond to messages, but his departure is thought by insiders to be a result of pressure by Elevation Partners, the private equity group that bought a large minority stake in Forbes three years ago. In May of this year, Elevation co-founder Roger McNamee resigned from the Forbes board and was replaced by Bret Pearlman, another Elevation Partners executive whose arrival was seen to herald a round of cost-cutting. Since then, rumors have circulated that Spanfeller's days were numbered, even though he is said to be favored by president/COO Tim Forbes.

Forbes CEO Steve Forbes announced the news in a memo to company employees tonight. In it he said:

Jim has done a monumental job of bringing Forbes.com to the lead position in business websites, and secured Forbes.com as the must visit site for not only global business leaders but also anyone interested in the finest business reporting and analysis available. At present Forbes.com has 18 million unique visitors a month.

Along the way, Jim has overseen the development and growth of Forbes Digital, which includes Forbes.com, ForbesTraveler.com, Investopedia.com, RealClearPolitics.com, RealClearMarkets.com, Real Clear Sports, and Forbes Business and Finance Blog Network, which together reach 40 million unique visitors a month.

This immense growth on the digital side of the business was spearheaded, pursed, and led by Jim with enormous success. The digital world is still uncharted with few rules, and Jim's intellect, creativity, and business acumen helped bring us our number one position. For this the Forbes family is very grateful and we wish him all the success in his future plans.

Nothing further is known at this time about who will replace Spanfeller or what his future plans are.

Sources Say Forbes.com CEO Stepping Down [Jeff Bercovici/Daily Finance]
Forbes CEO Jim Sapnfeller Out: Here's the Internal Memo [Peter Kafka/All Things D]

Evan Williams doesn't want you to be worried about the intersection of his face with liquid nitrogen. He isn't! But he secretly knows it's kinda badass.

Facebook's Randi Zuckerberg had a rainy day. Cheer her up with a lipdub.

Page Six's Neel Shah spotted Ron Burkle with his hands full, as usual. No word on where his friends' hands were busy.

Peter Kafka of All Things D was hit by a clueless emission from the Washington Post.

FishbowlNY's Hunter Walker made a sacrifice play that showed how desperate Gotham journalists had become.

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Peter Kafka of All Things D knew it wouldn't be the Mirror Awards without relentless heckling and/or inside joking.

New York's Jessica Coen inadvertently stumbled into Rite Aid's obfuscated products aisle.

Ryan Seacrast eagerly devoured on opportunity to reassert his heterosexuality.

Engadget's Ryan Block recontextualized himself.

Toure was robbed of a simple, formerly non-racist pleasure.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets - or send us more Twitter usernames.

Timesman-in-chief Bill Keller shilled for the Gray Lady.

Mahalo funtrepreneur Jason Calacanis offered a metaphor for his career.

AllThingsD daddyblogger Peter Kafka experienced technical difficulties.

Rachel Nixon discovered there are media jobs to be had in Canada. (Let's all move north!)

Videoblogger talent rep George Ruiz blended in with the suits better than he thought.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets — or send us more Twitter usernames.

Ann Curry of the Today Show accused Matt Lauer of being on drugs.

New Yorker writer Susan Orlean had a drink.

Technology Review fauxmosexual-in-chief Jason Pontin kept up the appearance of working.

Gawker alumnus Alex Balk learned something new.

AllThingsD blogger Peter Kafka tried to keep the music industry afloat.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets — or send us more Twitter usernames.

Xeni Jardin, Boing Boing's sci-fi-tastic blogueuse from another galaxy, cheated on Hollywood.

Jewnadian Web-video comedienne Heather Gold lost her hat.

Political Lunch videoblogger Rob Millis smelled.

Jeff Jarvis, the world's most annoying new-media pundit, faked it.

AllThingsD blogger Peter Kafka stuck Rupert Murdoch with a recession-what-recession bill.

Dow Jones subcontractor Peter Kafka bitched about his commute.

Greensboro News & Record editor John Robinson bitched about PR people.

Space-alien actor John Lithgow bitched about the New York Times.

Macworld editor Jason Snell bitched about Bruce Springsteen's Super Bowl set.

NowPublic news director Rachel Nixon bitched about Twidiots and their Tweologisms.

Anyone else's tweets we should keep an eye on? Send us more Twitter usernames, please.

Fast Company editor Ellen McGirt grappled with a broken iPhone ...

... and so did New York Times TV blogger Brian Stelter.

AllThingsD blogger Peter Kafka kept his eye on the thermometer ...

... while CNET News reporter Caroline McCarthy worried she might turn into one. (What really should concern her: All that platonic cuddling with fameball Rex Sorgatz!)

Things got frosty for Wired contributor Clive Thompson ignored his wife, Emily Nussbaum, for a book. Nussbaum, a New York editor-at-large, took her complaints to Twitter.

CrispyGamer Must Be Running Out of Money

- If you’re not paying attention, it may seem as if the cratering economy ...
- CrispyGamer, a newish videogame site, has raised $8.25 million from J.P. Morgan’s Constellation Ventures.
- But CrispyGamer also says it has a staff of 20 people, including five full-time writers (what does everyone else do there?). That’s an awfully big staff to keep afloat on $2 CPMs–and it’s hard to imagine that CripsyGamers’s backers imagined that’s what they were getting into earlier this year.

Then Calacanis turned away from Frommer and spotted me. A look of recognition came over his face. "I just made all that up," he told me. Was he covering a slip? Or toying with Frommer — and extending the gag to me? Or seeing if he could spread a rumor sure to drive Arrington, his TechCrunch40 conference partner, completely bonkers? Calacanis is known to invent stories just for the fun of it. I asked SAI managing editor Peter Kafka. "On the record," he told me, "we're going to take the $12 million and buy a third of TechCrunch. But don't tell anyone!"

Although there's evidence of many fake press releases floating around the Internet, the scam first came to the attention of Silicon Alley Insider because one particular release mentioned Internet television, a must-cover topic on its beat. But "the world's first broadcast-quality Internet television service" raising an alleged $45 million, profitable and yet no one's heard of it? SAI managing editor Peter Kafka's eyebrows were raised.

Alas, no eyebrow raisings took place at VentureBeat or PEHub, which were suckered despite PaidContent's observation that the HD AmeriTV announcement was a ripoff of a Joost release.

The confusion was exacerbated when these bloggers contacted First Mutual Credit, the only real company listed as an investor for confirmation. Two separate sources initially confirmed First Mutual's investment, but the New Zealand company has since denied any involvement. (Maybe it was that strong Kiwi accent.)

Several other fake companies and fake press releases have been identified. But what is the scam in advertising a nonexistent company? Peter Kafka, who has been closely tracking the story for Silicon Alley Insider, is stumped, but we think he's already stumbled upon the answer: Fake press releases get picked up by a host of PR-aggregating sites that profit off of Google AdSense ads.

Fake blogs already remix existing blog posts to generate nonsensical pages that nonetheless turn up in Google search results and display Google-sold ads targeted to relevant keywords. Press releases filled with buzzwords make even more lucrative fodder for AdSense.

So who makes money here? Press release aggregators like PR Leap would never admit it, but their cash register rings whether or not their press releases are accurate. And the perpetrators of the HD AmeriTV press release? There's no proof, but we smell a search-engine optimization scam, where they get paid by clients to try to improve the ranking of websites by seeding the Web with fake pages.

There's a simple solution, of course: don't read press releases ... real or fake.