Pol Succumbed to Flynt's Hustle and Flow (Page Six)
Hustler magazine tricked conservative former House Speaker-elect Bob Livingston into thinking it had proof of his extramarital affairs in 1998, forcing him to resign and taking the heat off then-sex-scandal-beleaguered President Bill Clinton, claims the mag's former editor Allan MacDonell.

U.S. Infected by Scourge of Product Placement (Independent)
Donald Trump and Apprentice producer Mark Burnett are accused of stretching the rules on product placement to breaking point. In a viral campaign Trump is satirized as "Subservient Donald" — played by a lookalike whose only role is to act as the mouthpiece for advertising messages.

The Corporate Toll on the Internet (Salon)
Telecom giant AT&T plans to charge online businesses to speed their services through its DSL lines. Critics say the scheme violates every principle of the Internet, favors deep-pocketed companies, and is bound to limit what we see and hear online.

Novelist Muriel Spark Dies at 88 (Independent)
Dame Muriel Spark, known for her finely polished, darkly comic prose and for the unforgettable Miss Jean Brodie, one of the funniest and most sinister characters in modern fiction, died Friday at a hospital in Florence, Italy.

Why Not Pay-Per-Channel Cable? (NYT)
Without bundling, programmers like Disney and Viacom might no longer be able to afford shows with smaller but loyal followings. Under the current system, they can produce niche channels like ESPN Classic because they are bundled with ESPN and other channels. LAT: If local cable service is a monopoly, then it's overprices, writes Michael Hiltzik.

A Mogul in Full (Newsweek)
A quiet retirement? Not for Sumner Redstone, whose media empire has been making plenty of front-page news of late, thanks to Brad, Katie and Howard.

Is Katie's 'Perky' Descriptive or Sexist? (LAT)
Like the VW Beetle with its dash-mounted daisy vase, SpongeBob SquarePants and Molly Ringwald's breasts in Sixteen Candles, perkiness is an ephemeral, know-it-when-you-see-it quality, combining cuteness, a certain bubbly energy and optimism.

TV Is 'My Favorite Wasteland' (Wilson Quarterly)
James Morris: Even after you concede the worst about broadcast TV, there's a case to be made that, on many evenings, an intelligent adult is better off spending an hour or two in front of a TV set than in a movie theater.

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