Good morning FishbowlDC! Got a blind item, interesting link, funny note, comment, birthday, anniversary or anything of the sort for Morning Reading List? Drop us a line.

Happy belated birthday to NBC’s Courtney Kube! What we know and what we’re reading this Wednesday morning…

TV | RADIO | ONLINE | WEST WING REPORTAGE | QUOTE OF THE DAY | JOBS

TV

Check out cable ratings on TVNewser: Fox News Channel continued its cable news dominance in July not only beating CNN and MSNBC combined, but showing the most growth in the younger demo. In A25-54 viewers, FNC is up 48% in total day, and up 70% in primetime, compared to July ’08

RADIO

NPR’s Morning Edition host Renee Montagne will file a series of special reports beginning this week from Afghanistan, focusing on the presidential election there. She’ll have interviews with the two leading challengers to President Karzai- independent Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, as well as US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Amb. Richard Holbrooke. In a release, she says this election is “most important event in Afghanistan this year.” This is Montagne’s fourth time reporting from Afghanistan since 2001.

ONLINE

Is a deal between Microsoft and Yahoo imminent? AllThingsDigital: The online search and advertising deal between Microsoft and Yahoo has been struck and will be announced within the next 24 hours. Sources said negotiations are complete on a deal that is less sweeping than originally conceived.

NEWS NOTES

E&P: About 100 Associated Press employees in news, technology and business units have accepted a voluntary buyout, according to the news cooperative, which said the deadline for taking the offer was Monday.

WEST WING REPORTAGE

Camera Hog-in-Chief? That’s what Forbes is calling President Obama.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I love Sarah Palin. I mean, I love her more than anyone because, as a journalist, she is the best story ever. It’s like Hollywood casting, when you have Meg Ryan playing a nuclear physicist… She is the first person to ever fuse politics with reality TV. I think she could ABSOLUTELY be the nominee. She sort of plays to people’s darker impulses. And that core of the Republican Party that is left, and is very bitter, is loving her.” -NYT‘s Maureen Dowd on Willie Geist‘s 5:30am MSNBC show (h/t Playbook, clearly we were not up that early).

HAT TIPS: mediabistro, TVNewser, Politico

JOBS after the jump…

JOBS

Check out MediaJobsDaily.