If you ever get an e-mail from a journalist, there’s one portion of it you should pay attention to more than any other. No, it’s not the part where they’re asking you about the tainted cheese your company sent to that day care; it’s the sign-off.

If it’s “Cheers,” you’re cool. You did OK. If it’s “Regards,” you pissed somebody off, and you better figure out how to fix things, quick.

We apply those same tenets here, every week.

CHEERS to the New York Observer’s Lee Siegel for calling out the New York Times‘ ridiculous article centering on speculation about “the Singularity,” a so-far completely fictional, hypothetical future event that no one but people who know who Orson Scott Card is care about. (KL)

REGARDS to the Washington Post for coming up with a plan that sounds like they want to drive traffic to local bloggers, but in practice is actually committing bloggers to Post-exclusive content written on a schedule for free. (KL)

CHEERS to Mark Cuban, of all people, for expanding his website dedicated to investigating the ongoing story of how the bank bailout money is being used while others have basically stopped paying attention. (MW)

REGARDS to the principal of Albemarle High School in Virginia for destroying an edition of the student paper simply for including an editorial questioning the need for physical education classes for student athletes, then saying the reason for the pulping was some typos. However, in retrospect, it may be a good lesson to the student paper’s editors for what they’ll likely experience in the real world of journalism. (MW)

CHEERS once again to the Arizona Republic for once again being the only news source seemingly in the entire country willing to lay out the harsh, complicated realities behind vague political promises like “keeping the border secure.” (KL)

REGARDS to the San Diego Union-Tribune for cutting 40 positions in favor of a new “junior staff writer” position with lower pay for less experienced reporters. Yeah, because, you know, experience and expertise aren’t all that important when your job is writing about stuff in a local and historical context, right? (MW)