Tom Friedman, The New York Times columnist and international brand, can't get enough of the Hillary Clinton found in WikiLeaks.

“I love WikiHillary,” he told a Chicago audience last night at a fundraiser for the Chicago Humanities Festival following a public appearance at a big church, which prompted him to scan a large assemblage and crack, “A Jewish kid from Minnesota at a packed Presbyterian church. Only in America.”

His ostensible topic was an upcoming book, “Thank You For Being Late,” about the speed of change. But, in passing at the subsequent dinner, he alluded to recent email dumps that have had folks on the left and right fuming at Clinton, albeit for different reasons.

Friedman, the often aggressive pragmatist, finds 'WikiHillary' “so much more interesting than the campaign Hillary.” She strikes him in the emails as a “mature center-left politician.”

I said hi when the shebang was over and brought up the notion, which he plans to detail in a Wednesday column, about what this more alluring Clinton lost in a hyperventilating media's search for purported hard news.

“Yes,” he said. “I love it. She likes Simpson-Bowles,” referring to the bipartisan plan for deficit reduction that's gone nowhere sadly, and “she's willing to compromise!” Well, there's more to come tomorrow (in his column, if not via Julian Assange).

Finally, a newspaper endorsement for Trump

If you take America's 100 largest papers, the endorsement total so far remains at 43 for Clinton, three for Libertarian Gary Johnson and zero for Donald Trump. But now Trump can boast the backing of the 26,000-circulation St. Joseph (Missouri) News-Press.

It's gotten some initial negative feedback but is trying to keep unhappy subscribers back in the fold. (Poynter)

Did newspapers blow it?

“What if almost the entire newspaper industry got it wrong? What if, in the mad dash two decades ago to repurpose and extend editorial content onto the Web, editors and publishers made a colossal business blunder that wasted hundreds of millions of dollars? What if the industry should have stuck with its strengths — the print editions where the vast majority of their readers still reside and where the overwhelming majority of advertising and subscription revenue come from — instead of chasing the online chimera?” (Politico)

Why Tim Kaine isn't a journalist

From Evan Osnos' terrific profile of the Clinton running mate: “He went to the University of Missouri, intending to study journalism, but young reporters, he discovered, were 'a very cynical lot,' and he switched to economics.” (The New Yorker)

Drudge and Limbaugh, duped

“Just when you thought 2016 couldn’t get any stupider, a Twitter user who describes himself as 'the cool and chill guy of online' inadvertently punked two of the most powerful figures in conservative media.” (The Daily Beast) Yes, both The Drudge Report and Rush Limbaugh went for a tweeted scam about a guy working at a Columbus, Ohio post office and ripping up Trump absentee ballots. Those who live by social media occasionally get screwed by it.

Why Trump TV would be a loser

“Obvious truth: When Donald Trump loses the presidential election, he will start his own Trump TV network. Educated guess: Trump TV will fail.” (Recode)

“Trump BFF Sean Hannity, who had an extensive background in radio before he broke big on Fox, has a much better shot of making this work (Beck had the same resume). But Trump can’t hope to start a network with his name and then substitute other celebrities for himself: He’s going to have to do the work, and he’s going to have to show up.”