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Icahn Plan to Break Up TW Gathers Momentum (NYT)
In a display of grand corporate theater, Bruce Wasserstein and Carl Icahn shared a podium yesterday to step up their indictment of the management of Time Warner Inc. and argue their rationale for breaking the company into four separately traded public companies. NYP: Icahn said that media companies need "visionary leaders," and suggested that Dick Parsons is clearly not one. LAT: Icahn says his proposal could lift stock price 43 percent. NY Sun Investors opt out of TW class action suit. Folio:: AOL Media president looks to future of on-demand.

Turmoil Over Cartoons Began Quietly in Denmark (WaPo)
The global furor over cartoons of the prophet Muhammad can be traced to one day last September when newspaper editor Flemming Rose smelled a good story. WaPo: Controversy may hurt U.S. efforts in Muslim world. Salon: The Danish paper that printed the cartoons wanted to stir up trouble — and the government wanted a culture war. They got more than they bargained for. TMN: Part of the problem is that the cartoons in question are so bad as to be unintelligible, so their defenders and their offendees stake their position solely on their principles, writes Choire Sicha. USAT: Media draw the line on running cartoons. NYP: Four NY Press editors resign over management decision not to publish cartoons.

Mags Willing to Pay Big Bucks for Brangelina Baby Pics (NYP)
[OK! and People "are just going to bid it up into the millions," said one editor who is sitting it out. "It could end up being the biggest photo sale of all time." The price tag could reach $4 million. CJR Daily: A Reuters and CNN.com report about the Brangelina phenomenon talked about the to the "crazed media" having "reached the point of insanity." But upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that when Reuters and CNN.com refer to the "media" they are not actually including themselves.

Chinese Newspaper Editor Murdered by Police (BBC)
A Chinese editor has died as a result of a police beating he received for his paper's reporting on corruption, journalists and rights groups say. Wu Xianghu was reportedly attacked by some 50 officers after his paper accused them of charging illegal bicycle fees.

Page Six Mag Ready for Its Close-Up (NYO)
Having long since severed its bonds to the actual sixth page of the New York Post, the rough-and-tumble daily gossip column is now transcending newsprint completely, in the form of a 76-page spin-off magazine. The pilot issue will be distributed as a free insert with the newspaper tomorrow.

Racy VF Hollywood Issue Building Buzz (WWD)
Editor Graydon Carter said Tuesday was the biggest day in vanityfair.com's history, with 700,000 hits to see the cover and B-roll from the shoot, and about 1,000 new subscribers signing up.

How Much Can You Lie in a Memoir? (Slate)
Meghan O'Rourke: Impostors have always stalked publishing, and the embellished recovery memoir is merely the latest specter to haunt the industry — trading, partly, on readers' willingness to turn a half-blind eye if they feel that the fabrications smack of emotional truth.

Showtime Joins iTunes Party (Mediaweek)
The CBS-owned premium cable channel has begun offering two of its original series, the critically acclaimed Weeds and Sleeper Cell, for sale through Apple's iTunes Music Store, following the lead of ABC and NBC, among others.

Online Gains Bring in Big Dollars for Cable News Nets (NYO)
Quietly, on the Internet, the terms of the cable-news ratings battle have been reversed: web audiences flock to CNN.com and MSNBC.com, while FoxNews.com trails badly. Even more quietly, that web traffic is rescuing the finances of the trailing networks — supplying tens of millions of dollars a month.

Does Dateline Go Too Far 'To Catch A Predator?' (Public Eye)
Brian Montopoli: It can be extremely difficult to discuss journalistic ethics when dealing with a topic such as exposing sexual predators. But I don't think we can abandon questions of journalistic conduct just because our first instinct is that the ends justify the means.

Lowest of the Lowbrow (VV)
Joy Press: MTV's The Real World originally sold itself as a show about kids from diverse backgrounds learning to live together. But soon the casting department turned the mixing of borderline personalities into a cynical science. Anger issues? Anorexia? Nymphomania? Alcoholism? Step this way!

Arianna Huffington: Politics, Punditry and the HuffPo Family [FishbowlNY]
Q: Tim Russert. After months of relentlessly critiquing him on "Meet The Press," he finally noticed.
A: I picked Tim Russert to focus on because his is the most powerful political show on TV and we wanted to make it clear that the Huffington Post is not just about taking on the low-hanging fruit like Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh but (to mix our metaphors) taking on the sacred cows of Beltway conventional wisdom.

Will CSI's Kink Turn Off Viewers? (USAT)
Bill Keveney: The CBS show has maintained its broad fan base even as its crime-scene sleuths delve into the worlds of full-grown men who favor diapers; people aroused by obese sex partners, aka "chubby chasers"; and fetishists known as "plushies and furries."

—David S. Hirschman