People in glass houses… In an editorial today criticising Channel Seven for its coverage of shit happens-gate, The Australian states it isn’t “published from within a glass house; all media and all reporters are capable of errors of judgement”. It’s a well-timed admission from The Oz because yesterday the paper published a “scoop” that turned sour quicker than a tub of yogurt left out in the Alice Springs sun.

John Durie yesterday “revealed” that Peter Costello will be a special advisor to Barry O’Farrell if he wins office in NSW. The only problem: the story was a crock. As O’Farrell announced in an unequivocal statement: “A report Peter Costello will be a special advisor to me is incorrect. While Mr Costello was an outstanding Federal Treasurer, we have no plans for him to have any role in a NSW Liberals & Nationals Government.”

Even before O’Farrell’s announcement, Durie’s report had a bad whiff about it. Costello, after all, is a Victorian through and through. And an already busy one at that with gigs at investment bank BKK Partners and the Future Fund. And, if O’Farrell had scored such a coup, surely he would announce it as soon as possible to boost the Coalition’s economic credentials? Or at least confirm it to Durie — had the journo checked the veracity of his story with Liberal HQ before publication.

But as The Oz is not “published from within a glass house”, surely they corrected the record today with an apology for misleading its readers? No. Instead they served up, with jaw-dropping chutzpa, a follow-up story stating O’Farrell’s denial shows he thinks that Costello is “a political liability”. What was that about glass houses again? — Jason Whittaker

Herald loses count. Who could count at The Sydney Morning Herald website early today? The same story, firstly in the business section:

MOST Australians have at least 15 television channels available on the box for free, yet they now give Foxtel more than a billion dollars every six months for even more of it.

And then the same story in the general section of the website:

MOST Australians have 17 television channels available for free, yet they now give Foxtel more than $1 billion every six months for even more.

There are 15 free-to-air network channels (that are rated), plus community channels (but not in every market), plus other channels such as federal parliament, a teachers channels and a couple of odds and sods. — Glenn Dyer

What’s Twitter worth? About $8-10b, says market

“As internet valuations climb and bankers and would-be buyers circle Silicon Valley in an increasingly frothy tech market, many eyes are on one particularly desirable, if still enigmatic, target: Twitter. Discussions with at least some potential suitors have produced an estimated valuation of $8 billion to $10 billion.” — The Wall Street Journal

6711: the number of subscribers to AFR.com

“Fairfax Media has for the first time disclosed how many online subscribers it has to the Australian Financial Review. The company has revealed that afr.com.au has 6711 subscribers.” — mUmBRELLA

After acquisition, HuffPo explains how it really works

“In the wake of the AOL acquisition, I’ve been reading a lot about The Huffington Post from a lot of people who, as outsiders, don’t really have any idea about what we do, here… I thought it would be useful to address the issue of our content model, and who gets paid and who doesn’t, from the perspective of someone who actually knows something about it.” — The Huffington Post

Is Hey Hey finally dead? Daryl’s not hopeful

“A return of Hey Hey it’s Saturday looks off the table for the first half of 2011 and is no guarantee for the second half. Host Daryl Somers has told Facebook fans that the news is not good for the show’s prospects.” — TV Tonight