STANDING ‘PAT’ –

WHAT HAPPENS next indeed. There’s a funny little exchange playing out between this column and NY1’s beloved morning crew. Don’t try to read about it online. Until now, it’s only been in the papers.

On Thursday, NY1 host Jamie Stelter posted an Instagram photo of herself and anchorman Pat

Kiernan sneaking a peek at the Confidential section while one of their colleagues was finishing up a different segment on camera.

“Caught reading the gossip pages while we’re supposed to be listening to @mgscotto’s package about struggling newspaper stands,” she captioned the shot.

We saw Stelter’s picture and used it as our Photo of the Day in Friday’s paper. That morning, before doing his “In the Papers” segment, Kiernan held up our photo of Stelter’s screenshot of the two of them reading this column and kept the ball rolling.

“Here it is in the paper this morning,” he grinned, holding up the Confidential page.

“Yeah, it’s in the paper this morning,” Stelter sportingly followed before stepping things up a notch.

“It’s in the paper this morning so naturally, I just Instagrammed the photo of our Instagram,” Stelter said.

“In the paper reading the paper,” Kiernan (photo) laughed. “What comes next?” Stelter asked. The two of them mischievously snickered, then Kiernan tried to move on.

“I don’t know what comes next for the Daily News — what comes next on this program is the ‘In the Papers’ segment,” he said. But Stelter wasn’t ready to let the issue rest.

“Are you going to discuss our photo in the Confidential page?” she asked. “It is their photo of the day.”

Kiernan respectfully acknowledged that fact, but pointed out they’d just finished talking about the Confidential column and suggested that discussing it again after the commercial break might be a bit much.

“I’d have no problem with that,” Stelter laughed.

Kiernan soon after tweeted “I’m very proud of how far we took this cycle.” See you in the morning, gang.