The bus line that is shipping reporters from the media tents outside the Pepsi Center to Invesco Field is getting awfully long, but it's moving fast. David Carr, who was right behind Lynn Sweet, and directly ahead of Newsweek's Andrew Romano, was on line for only about five minutes before he got onto the bus. Mr. Carr was smoking a Camel and thrilled that his new book, The Night of the Gun, would land at #11 on The New York Times' nonfiction best-seller list this Sunday. But, he added, it was only a matter of time before he was going to get kicked from the list once Labor Day hit and an avalanche of campaign books flood the market.  read more »

Today in Off the Record, New York Times managing editor Jill Abramson talks about the hiring of new metro columnist Susan Dominus. Two additional pieces of information that were not in the piece:

Ms. Abramson said that the idea of hiring Ms. Dominus originally came from deputy metro editor Jodi Rudoren, who recommended Ms. Dominus while Ms. Abramson and Ms. Rudoren were riding a Metro-North train from New Haven to New York.

And when Ms. Abramson was asked whether the hiring of Ms. Dominus--a career magazine writer--suggested a desire by Metro to hire magazine writers more generally, she had this to say: "That wasn't at all a part of the equation. It was just Jodi saying it and me having an immediate, great association with her work and her writing voice, and thinking, Wow, that could be totally interesting. It was just one of those cool ideas that came up in a conversation."

The news raises a question: Does the decision to hire Susan Dominus to write a column suggest that the paper is looking to take the section in a different direction—something closer to Metro Styles?  read more »

Weeks after getting hit by a truck, The Times’ managing editor started a secret project from her hospital bed.  read more »

Citing the fact that Baquet would become the first black executive editor if he rose to the top, and Jill Abramson the first woman were she to reach the post, one staffer dubbed them the "Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton of The New York Times."

TIMELY MONIKERS: Though the presidential race is heating up, there's another campaign garnering attention in the hallways of The New York Times. Managing editor Jill Abramson and ousted Los Angeles Times editor in chief Dean Baquet, who returns to the Times in March as Washington bureau chief, are favored candidates to succeed Times executive editor Bill Keller, 58, who is seven years away from the company's mandatory retirement age of 65. Though Keller's got some time, insiders jokingly refer to Abramson as Hillary Clinton and to Baquet as Barack Obama."

"The Washington bureau knows the topic will be Judy and where the bureau goes from here," a Times source said.