Bolt’s ex exists and returns fire. Nice to see Andrew Bolt’s one-time fiancée Sue Walshe coming out in Saturday’s Age following Crikey‘s revelations last Tuesday that she actually existed and that the duo were definitely engaged. The paper went big with a page-one pointer to the swingeing Insight article, with Walshe saying Bolt had “created his own monster” by denying their relationship.

“Andrew claimed on his blog that he was unaware that he had had a fiancée. This seems more like selective amnesia. It is though he is intentionally attempting to rewrite history. I do not know what has happened to the Andrew I knew so well. The person he has become bears no resemblance to the ethical, highly principled and idealistic young man I loved,” she wrote. — Andrew Crook

Turning Japanese a stretch for NYT. Orientalism dies hard, especially in The New York Times. Sam Anderson’s much reproduced interview with Haruki Murakami has the correspondent reading the author’s works before arriving in Japan and thus being lulled into believing it will be “… a world capital whose straight-talking citizens were fluent not only in English but also in all the nooks and crannies of Western culture”. But oh, no. Descending into the Tokyo subway, Sam gets lost, no-one speaks English, and he misses the appointment. The strangeness! The otherness!

All impressive save for one fact — the Tokyo subway system map has the English (or Romanised) name on every one of the thousands of maps throughout the system. The same map is available in leaflet form at every station. The automatic ticket machines work in several languages. The colour-coded tube style map is crystal clear. In fact, you would have to be genuinely stupid to get lost on the Tokyo subway. But not so stupid you can’t dodge up a few cliches about Japan — mysterious insular East blah blah — to fill out a standard book release interview. — Guy Rundle

Front page(s) of the day. Turkish newspaper Hurriyet leads its front page today with the devastating 7.2 Richter scale earthquake that rocked the Turkish city of Van:

Meanwhile, New Zealand are probably still partying today after the All Blacks beat France 8-7 in last night’s Rugby World Cup final:

The Department of Corrections. The Daily Telegraph ran a clarification on Saturday about the journalist from Papeete, French Polynesia, who was never in Papeete, French Polynesia …

Seven rejects Sunrise break-up story

“Seven has rejected claims made in a story in The Sunday Telegraph yesterday that its Sunrise team is set to break up in a ‘dramatic overhaul’ of the breakfast time show.” — mUmBRELLA

Free-to-air networks spend $1.23b on local content

“Free to Air commercial broadcasters invested over $1.23 billion on Australian TV productions last year ––an all-time high.” — TV Tonight

Group says newspapers aren’t dead, they’re alluring

“With more people getting their daily dose of news online through blogs and social media sites, traditional newspapers have gotten short shrift. Print is dead or dying, say media experts, and advertising can’t keep pace.” — The New York Times

Spoiler alert: Jobs enjoyed many types of tea

“Like many of you I’ve been watching the steady stream of incremental Steve Jobs-related news stories for the past couple days, resulting from the imminent launch of Walter Issacson’s Jobs biography.” — TechCrunch