More Hispanic media and minority publications have had more access to the White House and President Obama this year, the Washington Post reports, and it all stems from Obama’s strategy to be more inclusive.

“We should have a conscious strategy of communicating through Hispanic media,” White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel says in an interview. “It’s one of the fastest-growing groups in the country. Telemundo is one of the most significant media outlets.”

Every administration does some outreach to minority outlets. But by talking to Black Enterprise well before the New York Times, which last week got its first sit-down interview since Election Day, Obama is shaking up the existing media order. Just as he took a question from the Huffington Post — but not from the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune or Wall Street Journal – at his first news conference, the president is broadening the circle of access to include more sympathetic outlets.

The Washington Post is the latest major news outlet to change its stand-alone book section. Book World will no longer appear in print, but book coverage will be folded into the Style & Arts and Outlook sections. The last day of Book World in print will be February 15, and then its coverage can be found online.

Previously, outlets including the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Sun-Times, NPR, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution have decreased or changed book coverage. Now, the and San Francisco Chronicle are the only two major newspapers with a stand-alone books section.

With 10 Oscar nominations, Slumdog Millionaire is taking its place at the top of the Academy Awards. And India, where the movie is set, is celebrating the success of the film and its Indian actors and musicians, with parades, premieres, and the like.

“A frontpage headline in the Times of India trumpeted “RAH RAH RAHMAN” [for composer A.R. Rahman] while a parade of Bollywood stars attending the Thursday night premiere in Mumbai rejoiced that the celebrated songwriter was earning international accolades,” the Washington Post reports.

But not all Indians are happy with the film, as protesters say the title is offensive.

Despite your thoughts on Slumdog, it is definitely bringing some attention to India and its entertainment community.

The Washington Post recently asked Drew Carey, the host of Who’s Line is it Anyway? and The Price is Right, what he would be doing if he wasn’t in acting and his reply was: “Probably managing a restaurant… I’d be at a Chili’s near you. I’d be the boss that everybody liked.”

Chili’s jumped on the mention, releasing a statement on January 9 offering Carey a job, a donation to a charity of his choice, and a $100 Chili’s gift card to “get a firsthand taste of Chili’s familiar favorites with a twist.”

“I’d like to invite you to fulfill your long-held desire by managing one of our Chili’s Grill & Bar restaurants for a few hours,” said Todd Diener, president of Chili’s in an open letter to Carey. “I hope you seriously consider this offer to bring your fun-loving personality to the Chili’s family. I’m confident our team members will help fulfill your dream to be ‘the boss that everybody liked.’”

PRWeek will definitely follow-up to see if Carey goes through with the offer.

In terms of stereotypes, the worlds of professional athletes and the tech-savvy users of Twitter don’t seem to be made for each other, but both Phoenix Suns center and the NBA club are proving that misconception wrong.

It turns out the Suns organization at large is also the microblogging service as part of its digital outreach, an effort that also contains PlanetOrange.net, a social networking Web site. The organization is also planning a “TweetUp” – a physical meet-up for Twittering Suns’ aficionados – for mid-January, Amy Martin, Suns director of digital media and research, told PRWeek. “I think we are just at the tip of the iceberg here, and more than anything, one of the things you can gain as an organization [by using Twitter] is just listening to the fans and being able to understand their perspectives better, because that’s the environment, as opposed to the more controlled properties,” she said.

Sports media is also getting in on the act. The Washington Post’s sports department is to communicate with the DC region’s rabid Washington Redskins fanbase during games and throughout the NFL season at large. The updates came in handy during player injuries, and when a parking lot fire spread to numerous cars at Maryland’s FedEx field, Cindy Boren, deputy sports editor at the Post, told PRWeek. “It has a purpose journalistically, and it has its moments when you’re just complaining about the Metro [subway system], but overall it’s great,” she said. “It’s a more convenient form of blogging. I was skeptical at first, but I like it, for one, because it cuts down on the pontificating and it cuts down on the trolling.”

Soon-to-be-executive-editor Marcus Brauchli, pronunciation guide included, met with Washington Post staffers for the first time on July 8. He didn’t reveal sweeping restructuring plans for the Post and WashingtonPost.com newsrooms, which are expected eventually, and appeared a bit nervous, one staff member told Politico.com.

Managing editor Phil Bennett, passed over for the job, was in attendance, as was former executive editor Ben Bradlee, who Editor & Publisher that publisher Katharine Weymouth’s choice of an outsider signals that “they didn’t think they had a guy ready.”

Meanwhile, Rem Rieder, American Journalism Review editor and SVP and a former Post deputy metro editor, commented that the choice of Brauchli shows Weymouth is off to an impressive start.

Marcus Brauchli, former Wall Street Journal managing editor, is likely to be publisher Katharine Weymouth’s choice as the next executive editor of the Washington Post.

Brauchli would be a clean departure from the Post’s genealogy. Executive editor Len Downie was named executive editor in 1991, replacing legendary editor Ben Bradlee, who served in that capacity since 1968. Downie became managing editor in 1984.

FishbowlDC’s Patrick Gavin reports that Post sources tell him, “People are acting like [Brauchli’s hire is] a done deal,” and that “the Post will have more than one managing editor under Brauchli.”

Politico.com’s Michael Calderone reports that the announcement will likely take place July 7 or 8.

Portfolio’s Jeff Bercovici says he’s hearing that Brauchli’s lawyer met with News Corp. officials to ensure that the non-compete agreement built into his contract won’t be an issue if he relocates to Washington.

Many politically focused Web sites and blogs are enjoying the popularity wave of this year’s presidential election, but no doubt worrying about where their readers will go afterwards. The Huffington Post, for instance, announced last month that it will launch a Chicago edition, focused on local news.

The Washington Post may be going in the opposite direction. With its Web site already filled with local, international, business, sports, and lifestyle news – in addition to its leading political coverage – the newspaper is reportedly considering launching a politics-only site. Ironically, former Post staffers John Harris and Jim VandeHei in November 2006 with a similar idea, which evolved into Politico.com.

However, Jim Brady, WashingtonPost.com executive editor, speaking to the Washington City Paper, didn’t exactly give the idea a ringing endorsement.

“I don’t know what it is yet,” he said. “The question is, basically, that we already have a politics page that kind of aggregates everything we do in politics.”

Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth has narrowed the field of prospective executive editors down to two candidates: former Wall Street Journal managing editor Marcus Brauchli and Post managing editor Phil Bennett, according to Radar’s Charles Kaiser.

Newsweek editor Jon Meacham took himself out of consideration weeks ago, according to Kaiser, who adds that Post employees say New York Times managing editor Jonathan Landman is no longer being considered for the job.

Post executive editor Len Downie, in a long suspected move, told his staff this week that he plans to step down in September.

A Landman hire could have been a boon for upward-looking Web editors everywhere, according to MarketWatch media columnist Jon Friedman. Hiring Landman could put an editor with an intricate understanding of the Web into one of the top positions in journalism, while also striking a blow at the rival Times, Friedman says.

Meanwhile, The New York Observer’s Felix Gillette reports that network sources have told him that NBC News SVP Mark Whitaker is the leading contender to replace Tim Russert as Washington bureau chief. Whitaker joined NBC News last May after spending most of his career at Newsweek.

In one of what is sure to be many commentaries on Tribune Co. CEO Sam Zell’s planned personnel and content cuts for his 12 newspapers, the Washington Post’s Harold Meyerson compares the real estate mogul’s influence on Los Angeles – home of the Tribune-owned Los Angeles Times – to that of the Bloods, Crips, and Mexican mafia.

However, if PR professionals are wondering how the newspaper landscape will change if major metropolitan dailies enact production-based cuts, Meyerson makes a good point about Tribune’s column-inch-centric method of deciding.

If the [Washington] Post’s Dana Priest and Anne Hull, who spent months uncovering the scandalous conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and whose reporting not only won a Pulitzer but caused a shake-up in the Army’s treatment of wounded veterans, had been subjected to the Zellometer productivity index, they’d be prime candidates for termination.