The Washington Post Company

—Lonely Planet : Lonely Planet, the travel brand owned by BBC Worldwide, has hired Dow Jones' digital strategy and operations SVP Matthew Goldberg as its new CEO. He will replace Judy Slatyer. Goldberg had led the Wall Street Journal Digital Network's business operations, including those for WSJ.com, MarketWatch, Barrons.com and AllThingsDigital.com. When he starts with Lonely Planet in March, he will be charged with maintaining its core printed travel guides business and growing its digital and multiplatform opportunities.

-Scribner has won the bidding war, such as it was, for Laura Bush's memoir. It'll come out in 2010. [AP]

-Washington Post managing editor Phil Bennett is stepping down in favor of a non-news job; he says it's his decision. [E&P]

Notice something unusual about this morning's copy of The New York Times?

It features the paper's first-ever page-one display ad -- a promo for CBS whose copy playfully reads "Front Page News."

"It is easy and satisfying to be a critic of the Times. Almost every reader, and certainly anyone who operates in the political, business, cultural, or sports precincts, among others, can tell you what the paper has done wrong. Times reporters and editors are so powerful in their fields that they tend to be regarded with fear and loathing. But inside the institution, there are roiling insecurities and other symptoms of abundant talent vying for prominence in one place.

With a $400 million revolving credit line expiring in May, the New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT) continues to put its fund-raising ducks in a row. The latest: an SEC filing setting the stage to secure debt or raise equity.

Required reading: This op-ed piece in today’s Washington Post. In it, author and former NPR correspondent Eric Weiner explores how the recession is bad enough, but a relentless news cycle has made it worse. Send your disagreements to him, not me. Although I agree with every word in it.

Gannett (NYSE: GCI) flagship USA Today is the latest paper to be sold through Amazon's Kindle. The top-selling U.S. paper has yet to show up in the Kindle Store but Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) told Kindle subscribers on Christmas morning that they'll be able to download the Dec. 26 edition for free.

Another sign of how newspapers and other media outlets are trying to change models in tough times ... In one of the highest-profile examples of news sharing between major media, the Baltimore Sun and the Washington Post have agreed to share some sports and Maryland coverage. Both papers have been trimming staff to cut costs as revenues drop; the Sun is under the extra financial pressure of being owned by the bankrupt Tribune Co.

-Fox News has named a replacement for Brit Hume, who retires at the end of the year. Chief White House correspondent Bret Baier will take over as anchor of Special Report. [TVNewser]

Reading through some clips in the wake of the news that Jim Brady is leaving WashingtonPost.com, I was struck by the rapid shift from separate but cooperating news operations to Russian nesting dolls following Katharine Weymouth's promotion to Washington Post (NYSE: WPO) publisher and CEO of the Media Group: