There’s the story, and there’s always the side-story. The snarky, juicy, lip-smacking stuff. 

Case in point is last night’s news that Jerry Yang is stepping down as chief executive of Yahoo — which itself is an interesting tale. But we’d like to draw your attention to RealDanLyons.com, where you’ll find a wonderfully catty distraction.  

In his blog, Dan Lyons rips into Kara Swisher, the AllThingsD honcho and prominent tech writer, who apparently took issue with him for not crediting her with getting the scoop on Yang’s departure. 

“Kara, honey, I love you dearly, but girl-child, having a company send you a press release ten minutes before they put it on the wire isn’t a scoop. That’s called taking dictation,” he writes. ”One thing you have to admire about Kara is that in a blogosphere that all too often resembles an echo chamber, she’s managed to cut out the middleman; she just echoes herself. And while others engage in logrolling, Kara keeps it real and rolls her own log. Kara, listen. You’re not the story. Bokay? You’re the reporter. This isn’t about you. It really isn’t. Now stop it or I will fly out there and sit you down for a talk. You’re getting Mossberg Syndrome, honey, and that’s not a good thing.”

Is Swisher going to take that? No way, no chance.

“How would a snarktastic wonder like you know what a reporter was?” she responds in the comment section. ”I was teasing you, you twit, as you well know (I would dearly love to mangle emails you sent to me recently about your work, but I am too much of a gentleman!). When you come here, we’ll have a “talk” all right–my people like to call it a “sit-down” though. Love and kisses, Kara.”

What a way to start the morning.

Keep an eye on:

• AT&T Inc, the No. 1 U.S. mobile service, said it would sell LG Electronics Inc’s first smartphone aimed at the U.S. market in time for the holiday shopping season (Reuters)
• Forbes and TV Guide separately unveiled sweeping cutbacks yesterday, while The New York Times Co. shut down its critically acclaimed sports magazine Play (NY Post)
• PepsiCo has moved the high-profile advertising duties for Pepsi and Diet Pepsi to TBWA\Chiat\Day, an agency owned by Omnicom Group, as it looks to reinvigorate sales of its best-known soft drinks (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)