Actress Diablo Cody is so badly addicted to cultural references, she can't stop dropping them, on Twitter even, about her own therapy, even. (We'd suggest counseling, but that would apparently just feed the cycle.)

CNET's Rafe Needleman scolded his inner geek, via his outer geek.

News anchor Rick Sanchez actually apologized for the lack of savage physical violence on CNN. ABOUT TIME.

Joe Randazzo, Onion editor, questioned the ethics of New York Times, actual serious newspaper. And he had a point!

LA Weekly's Alexia Tsotsis, recently of Gawker, found Nikki Finke's tech coverage highly inappropriate.

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

The social-media obsessive defended his network's coverage in no uncertain terms when in front of the camears. "The story was reported every hour on CNN in some form or fashion," he said during a forceful on-air monologue (see attached clip).

But Sanchez was reportedly more revealing yesterday when speaking to fellow Twitter fans at a conference on the microblogging service, disclosing he'd written an email memo to superiors, prodding them to significantly expand their Iran coverage. Wrote one conference participant:

After his comments on the panel, Sanchez described to me and others how his email about #CNNFail on Twitter went up to the highest levels of the network. And, after the network's business, PR and marketing staff was pulled in, coverage the next day shifted...During the panel, Sanchez that "at no time did CNN drop the ball" - based upon his remarks following, however, I have to wonder whether there was an appreciation in the C-suite at CNN that the online backlash on Twitter was a hint that Amanpour reporting live from Tehran wasn't capturing the whole scene, and that US citizens were hungry for more information about what was happening on the streets and rooftaps of Iran.

The double-talk has already been noted on — where else — Twitter. Wrote NYU professor Jay Rosen, "Rick Sanchez told a different story to CNN viewers than he shared with participants" at the Twitter-fest. Sanchez's bragging about his clout at CNN would seem less duplicitous if only he'd posted it to Twitter himself; he'd hardly be the first journalist to use the service for naked self-promotion.

On Saturday, as things turned from bad to worse in Iran as thousands of protesters took to the streets in anger to revolt against the sham election in that country, CNN, a cable news network that rose to prominence largely because of its reporting of strife in foreign lands, was virtually silent about the uprising on television and on the web. As pointed out by ReadWriteWeb's Marshall Kirkpatrick, "hours after Iranian police began clashing with tens of thousands of people in the street, the top story on CNN.com remains peoples' confusion about the switch from analog TV signals."

CNN's lack of coverage of the burgeoning revolution in Iran and the highly questionable re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, arguably America's leading bogeyman at this moment in time, didn't go unnoticed on Twitter, where the hashtag "#CNNFAIL" spread like wildfire and was one of the site's trending topics for a large portion of the day.

In a story posted to their website tonight titled "Internet Brings Events In Iran to Life," the BBC said this:

All over the world people are monitoring unfolding events in Iran via the internet, where an apparently decisive election victory by the ruling party is being challenged on the streets.

Although there are signs the Iranian government is trying to cut some communications with the outside world, citizen journalism appears to be thriving on the web.

To that end, Twitter served as a vital mode of Iranian citizen communication and as a channel to the outside world after the government shut down much of the web and blocked virtually all cell phone communications. An example:


The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.


In what could be viewed as a watershed moment for social networking and the internet in general, here you have an oppressive regime with little tolerance for dissent doing everything in its power to stymie an uprising and failing miserably because of the ability of individuals to bypass the state-controlled media outlets and communicate with each another directly. To think that the very social networking tools conceived as intangible ideas by young Americans just a few short years ago in dorm rooms and basements and garages have now come to fruition as something tangible with the power to influence the course of events halfway across the world—Well, it's kind of breathtaking.

Meanwhile, Howard Kurtz had Rick Sanchez and sportswriter Gregg Doyel on Reliable Sources for an utterly useless but incredibly ironic debate over Twitter's relevance. To his credit Sanchez, a mildly obsessive Twitterer, sort of gets it, mentioning that he interviewed someone in Tehran on his show that he'd met on Twitter, but no one on the show seemed to grasp the fact that the Twitter was in midst of handing CNN its proverbial ass as a news source before, during and after the airing of Reliable Sources.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Finally, though there are some valid criticisms of Twitter, everyone working at CNN should be thoroughly embarrassed of their efforts over the weekend.

Twitter going down for scheduled maintenance during Sanchez's show, though? Everyone freak the fuck out! He's going to Facebook. He's going to MySpace. Somehow, we'll get through this disaster together.

Martha Stewart looked down on New Yorkers intimidated by snow, a group which includes home-bound Gawker editor Gabriel "I'm taking a snow day" Snyder. And then she got into a crazy Twitter conversation with Perez Hilton about cupcakes. Which is pretty much what she deserved.

CNET's Twitter beat reporter, Caroline McCarthy, lived up to Stewart's haughty expectations.

New York editrix Jessica Coen watched television in the middle of the day.

CNN's Rick Sanchez had an all-caps freakout over AIG.

Gourmet editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl gave us a disturbing view of her larder and psyche.

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

Internet gossip (we like those!) Perez Hilton sought refreshment after an exhausting twitterfight with Ashton Kutcher.

CNN's Rick Sanchez GOT SO MAD HE HIT THE CAPS LOCK KEY.

Late-night funny guy Jimmy Fallon looked forward to meeting Martha Stewart.

Fast Company's Ellen McGirt expressed her enthusiasm.

Conservative punditrix Michelle Malkin did her part to ensure the survival of the blogger species.

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

Well, yes, in fact — everyone who doesn't click on crazy emails that claim to be from Twitter but aren't. Twitter is the latest target of a "phishing" campaign — an attempt by hackers to gather usernames and passwords through deceptive means.

Typically, the victim receives an email that directs them to a website where they're asked to log in. The website is controlled by hackers who then use the credentials to take over an account. In Spears's case, the anonymous troublemakers on 4chan's /b/ bulletin board are claiming credit.

Just one question: Why would the b-tards bother? Online banking accounts have long been a target of phishers, since there's money to be made. But there's no money in Twitter. The service, which lets users post short updates to their friends, doesn't carry advertising, and hasn't figured out a way to charge people. Like Twitter itself, this hacking stunt is good entertainment, but not a clever business.

Seen a high-profile Twitter account hacked? Send it in. We'll keep a running list.

HACKED:

Fox News

Britney Spears

Rick Sanchez, CNN anchor:

Barack Obama:

Facebook:

The Huffington Post:

Current and Twitter's debate stream was interesting, but not new. Mashable and VentureBeat covered the launch of Sanchez's show three weeks ago, noting that CNN's arrival had forced Twitter's management to exempt Sanchez, like Robert Scoble, from their usual limit on the number of feeds one user could follow.

If you thought Current's lazy stream of debate tweets was hot, watch the above compilation of the always-slighty-overexuberant Sanchez: "My Twitterboard's about to explode." (Video by 23/6)