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West Wing a Lame Duck (AP)
Struggling to regain its footing after the worst season in its history, NBC announced Sunday it was pulling the plug on the Emmy-winning political drama after seven seasons. NYT: Will and Grace also canceled. Mediaweek: NBC virtually guaranteed fourth-place finish. Newsweek: NBC's CEO Jeff Zucker is working fast to revive the Peacock Network's fortunes. Will his moves be a big hit?

Disney May Be Near Deal to Sell ABC Radio Unit (NYT)
After receiving bids last week from several suitors, including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Entercom Communications, Disney selected Citadel as the preferred bidder and entered into exclusive negotiations. Sources say a deal will be reached within the next two weeks. NYT: Iger in the grip of technological change. LAT: Walt's shoes at Disney could be a fit for Jobs. WSJ: Jobs could face conflicts of interest as a director of Walt Disney Co. Independent: "Jobs is an odd cheese. But now the cheese is about to own a part of Mickey Mouse." Newsweek: As any couple knows, things change when you get married. Will Jobs's and Iger's bliss continue once the glow fades?

Specter of Kidnapping in Iraq Keeps Journos on Edge (USAT)
CBS News correspondent Lara Logan, who has traveled back and forth to Iraq frequently in recent years, says, "Your whole ability to function is affected by the possibility of being kidnapped, and you trying to limit the possibility of anything like that happening to you." E&P: Deadline passes with little progress in finding Jill Carroll. CSM: Chorus of support for Carroll from Muslim leaders. NYT: The seizure of Carroll has underscored the risks to foreigners of working in Iraq.

2005 a Record Year for Journalist Deaths (AP via Jerusalem Post)
The loss of dozens of journalists in an Iranian plane crash and relentless targeting of the press in Iraq pushed the total number of media professionals killed around the world to a record 150 in 2005.

Mouth Trap (NYP)
Howard Stern may be coming down with a Sirius case of the bleeps. High-level executives of the satellite broadcaster are developing an internal standards-and-practices document that will set boundaries for Stern and other shock jocks. Wired: Real Stern shocker is lack of podcast.

Newspapers' Blogs Deal With Reverb (NYT)
David Carr: Feedback, as any rock guitarist can tell you, is not always a pleasant-sounding thing. The trouble with a community built of one-way email messages posing as two-way communication is that when people can say anything, they frequently do. E&P: WaPo ombud vows to stay on job despite uproar.

This Time, the Revolution Will Be Televised (NYT)
The big question is whether television industry constituents are better served by preserving the industry's current pecking order or by pursuing a more fundamental revamping of its business model to satisfy the "anytime, anywhere" demands of digital consumers.

CNN Drifts Rightward (Marketwatch)
Jon Friedman: The cable network is poised to give a primetime slot to talk-show host Glenn Beck. He goes against everything that CNN has claimed to stand for—a first-rate pedigree, a non-biased point of view and understated excellence. Beck's chief qualification is that he personifies controversy.

New Disney Mag for Education-Obsessed Parents (NYT)
Wondertime, Disney's first new magazine since 1991, "is for parents, and more specifically moms, of children from birth to age 6," said Alexandra Kennedy, the vice president and editorial director of the United States consumer magazine group at Disney.

MPA Honors Hearst's Cathie Black (Mediaweek)
Black has shattered glass ceilings, launched groundbreaking magazines and for the past decade overseen 19 of America's leading consumer publications. And on Jan. 25, the Hearst Magazines president will be honored by the MPA for her lifetime achievements.

Persona Non Grata (WWD)
The recent exposure of writer JT LeRoy as an apparent fraud has made life somewhat awkward for those who have been party to the charade, knowingly or otherwise.

The Murrow Doctrine (The New Yorker)
Nick Lemann: The best journalists, like Edward R. Murrow, are often sentimentalists who subscribe to the great-man theory of history and see public affairs as a titanic struggle between heroes and villains.

Watching Our Language (Guardian)
Lynn Eaton: Media reporting of mental health often contains discrimination that would not be tolerated in coverage of other sensitive issues. A new campaign hopes to change journalists' approach. Independent: A global charity has launched a campaign to stop journalists using easy but inaccurate and offensive epithets to describe tribal people.

Murdoch Savors New Media Era (AP via MSNBC)
Rupert Murdoch said News Corp. needed to do more to take advantage of strong growth in global broadband and Internet use and defended the media conglomerate's controversial anti-takeover provision.

Coverage Does Bode Well (WaPo)
Howard Kurtz: Journalists can't resist a troublemaking athlete who produces a blizzard of controversy instead of the usual sports cliches. And in the media world, doing bad things only fuels your celebrity, as Martha Stewart's post-jail television and radio gigs make clear.

Taking the Company Line on Sports (Slate)
Jack Shafer: Most journalists scorn corporate-scripted media, and the NFL is nothing if not a corporate behemoth, producing $5.7 billion in annual revenues. But on the continuum from pure entertainment to hard news, where does sports journalism reside?

Blogs Becoming More Respectable in D.C.? (National Journal)
K. Daniel Glover: These days, there is little serious talk in Washington about immediately reforming Social Security, but there is plenty of chatter about blogs—and with good reason. The technology has taken firm root in the capital.

The 'New' Black (Newsday)
Robert S. Boynton: So what really "killed" New Journalism? I would say it was the twin evils of all magazine journalism: service and sensationalism. The journalistic form with which writers like Wolfe chronicled postwar consumerism eventually succumbed to it.

A Novelist for the Sandbox Set (Slate)
Bryan Curtis: Children's novels often depend in some part on the confinement of their protagonists—whether in algebra class or a dusty old country house—but Louis Sachar takes the conceit to its extreme.

Osama's Book Club (Sploid)
Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden has gone from terror bogeyman to the guy who kindly recommends favorite books—and a thumbs up from Bin Laden guarantees a book will shoot up the bestseller lists.

It's All About 'Truthiness' (Time)
Lev Grossman: Nobody questions that James Frey was an alcoholic and a drug addict. And one of the habits addicts pick up is bending and breaking the truth. If you look at the distortions in Frey's book not as acts of cynical calculation or self-aggrandizement but as symptoms of his disease, they have a pathos.

Moody Blues (NYRB)
John Leonard: "Rick Moody" has turned into something about which it is necessary to have a position, like sport-utility vehicles, stem cell research, or waterboarding. Permit me to hold these paragraphs in reserve until we have actually read what he's written.

—David S. Hirschman