Tattle: 'Friday' vid tops YouTube list

REBECCA BLACK'S icky "Friday" video has topped all other YouTube vids of 2011 with 180 million views.

This is the level of non-news culture you will inherit when newspapers are no more - one of fake Jon Bon Jovi-is-dead stories that traverse the Internet like the Silver Surfer, babbling babies, genius cats and insipid songs like "Friday."

The second-most-popular video, announced yesterday by the Google-owned YouTube, was "Ultimate Dog Tease," in which an owner taunts a dog with food and voices its reactions.

Third was the "Saturday Night Live" digital short featuring Michael Bolton as a rabid "Pirates of the Caribbean" fan.

Journalism also has a crap side.

Piers Morgan stood his ground before a British inquiry into media ethics yesterday, denying any connection to illegal phone hacking, which has resulted in the closure of the newspaper he once edited (before he became a judge on "Britain's Got Talent," "America's Got Talent" and CNN's Larry King with a better accent) and the arrest of friends and former colleagues.

But Morgan refused to answer questions about the most damning link between himself and scandal - his 2006 acknowledgment that he had once listened to a poignant phone message left by former Beatle Paul McCartney for his ex-wife Heather Mills.

Mills has charged that there was no honest way Morgan could have heard the message. Morgan refused to go into any detail.

"I'm not going to discuss where I heard it or who played it to me," he told the inquiry via videolink from the U.S. Pressed by inquiry chief Lord Justice Brian Leveson as to whether he could say anything to substantiate that he had obtained the message legally, Morgan said he could not.

"I can't start any trail that leads to the identification of a source," he said.

Morgan edited News of the World between 1994 and 1995 before moving on to the Daily Mirror, where he stayed until 2004.

At one point during the questioning, Morgan acknowledged that he had made use of Benji "the Binman" Pelham, a quirky freelancer who specialized in raking though celebrities' trash.

"Did I think he was doing anything illegal? No. Did I think he was doing anything on the cusp of unethical? Yes," Morgan said.

* HBO is renewing its Golden Globes-nominated freshman series "Enlightened," but is axing "Hung," "Bored to Death" and "How to Make it in America."

* "American Idol" runner-up David Archuleta will take a break from his singing career to serve a two-year Mormon mission.

The location of Archuleta's mission has not been disclosed but if he ends up in Uganda it could be the basis for a great musical.

* So TLC aired a Detroit-based reality show called "All-American Muslim" and then Lowe's pulled its ads from the show after complaints that the chain store was supporting Muslims.

Not terrorist Muslims, mind you, but All-American Muslims.

Then about 100 protesters descended on a Lowe's in an adjacent Detroit suburb annoyed with the ad boycott.

But here's the quote from that story that hit Tattle like a Taser.

Doug Casey, manager of the store being picketed, said that those who criticized Lowe's have a right to their opinion, but that "it's not the opinion of most of the customers I spoke to in the store today. I'm deeply sorry if it's caused any divide in our community," he said.

"It was never our intention to offend or alienate anyone."

Dude, it was absolutely your (company's) intention to offend and alienate someone. Muslims.

- Daily News wire services

contributed to this report.