I’ve always thought of Nora Ephron (Heartburn, When Harry Met Sally) as an extremely creative multimedia talent. In addition to writing books, essays and screenplays, not to mention directing and producing movies, she blogs for the Huffington Post. Blogging apparently brings out her vicious side. At a media conference in New York on Wednesday, sponsored by Adweek parent Nielsen and Dow Jones, Ephron said bloggers live to have their comments dispersed virally around the Web. She noted what a “great week it was for the blogosphere” a few years back when Dick Cheney shot a man in the face while hunting small birds in Texas. When the moderator of the panel, Michael Schrage of the MIT Media Lab, asked if it would have been a better week for bloggers if Cheney had actually killed the guy, Ephron replied with a big fat you betcha. Actually, she said, “Yes, for many reasons, including the fact that he might not be vice president anymore.” She said this matter-of-factly, not in a deadpan I’m-joking kind of way. Is it me, or is that a tad cold? Schrage then asked if Ephron found herself being more provocative in the blog world because she wants the feedback. “No, of course not,” she said, but added that she does see the medium as a shoot-from-the-hip kind of platform. So to speak.

—Posted by Steve McClellan