Click here to receive mediabistro.com's Daily Newsfeed via email.

The Strike Is Officially Over — Get Back to Work (Deadline Hollywood Daily)
Press release from studios: This is a day of relief and optimism for everyone in the entertainment industry. We can now all get back to work, with the assurance that we have concluded two groundbreaking labor agreements — with our directors and our writers — that establish a partnership through which our business can grow and prosper in the new digital age. NYT: Of 3,775 writers who cast ballots, 92.5 percent voted in favor of ending the strike. LAT: "Rather than being shut out of the future of content creation and delivery, writers will lead the way as TV migrates to the Internet and platforms for new media are developed," said Patric M. Verrone, president of the WGA, West. LAT: Strike's over, but viewers may be looking elsewhere. AP: Saturday Night Live to return on February 23. B&C: Cable networks ramp up post-strike plans.

3 Charged With Plot to Kill Mohammed Cartoonist in Denmark (AP)
Danish police said Tuesday they have arrested three people suspected of plotting to kill one of the 12 cartoonists behind the Prophet Muhammad drawings that sparked a deadly uproar in the Muslim world two years ago. According to Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the drawings on Sept. 30, 2005, the suspects were planning to kill its cartoonist Kurt Westergaard. CNN: Danish papers reprint Mohammed cartoon.

Kidnapped CBS Reporter to Be Released 'Within Hours' (Guardian)
The British CBS journalist and Iraqi interpreter kidnapped in Basra will be released later today, according to news wire reports. A deal has been reached with the kidnappers to release them, a spokesman for the Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has said, according to the Associated Press and Agence France Presse.

Yahoo Buys Maven Networks for $160 Million (LAT)
Yahoo Inc. got back to business Tuesday, announcing its first acquisition since Microsoft Corp. made its unsolicited takeover bid for the Internet company. Yahoo bought Maven Networks Inc. for about $160 million to expand its footprint in the fast-growing online video advertising market, one of the battlegrounds with Google Inc. and other rivals. Portfolio: Microsoft's Yahoo bid is good for Google. Slate: Why investors assume the Microsoft-Yahoo deal won't happen. Forbes: What Microsoft should do while Yahoo dithers.

Battle Lines Are Drawn at Los Angeles Times (NYO)
Sam Zell's verbal Molotov cocktails and his guarantee of change only further underscored the newsroom's deepest division: the debate over who should become the paper's lead editor. On this issue, the paper is literally torn in two. There's the innovation editor, Russ Stanton; and on the other side is managing editor John Arthur. "Is there a divide?" said editorial page editor Jim Newton. "Absolutely."

WSJ Developing Culture Section? (WWD)
Word around the Journal newsroom is that a prototype is being developed for a culture section, possibly to run weekly. Former House & Garden editor-in-chief Dominique Browning, who is said to be overseeing the prototype, confirmed she was consulting at The Journal. If given the green light, the culture section would be another move toward Murdoch's stated goal of competing with The New York Times.

Down Upfront: NBC Sounds for Alternatives (NYP)
With the writers' strike nearing a resolution, NBC has started reaching out to advertisers about alternatives to the annual dog-and-pony show known as the "upfront." Among the options NBC has discussed with ad buyers is holding one-on-one meetings with big advertisers instead of the glitzy group presentations the broadcast networks stage every year.

Quitting Facebook Gets Easier (NYT)
Aiming to address the privacy concerns of disenchanted users, Facebook.com said on Tuesday that it was trying to make it easier for people to delete their accounts permanently from the social networking site. Until now, Facebook has offered only a deactivation option, which keeps copies of the account's personal information on the company's servers.

Sulzberger Strikes Back With NYT Co. Board Nominees (Portfolio)
New York Times Co. chairman Arthur Sulzberger has nominated Dawn Lepore, an eBay board member and the chief executive of Drugstore.com, and Robert Denham, a Wall Street lawyer and the former chief executive of the bank formerly known as Salomon. It's clear that Sulzberger is sending a message to shareholders of the embattled media company: If you want more digital expertise and financial prowess around our board table, vote for my nominees.

BusinessWeek Outsources Mag Jobs (NYP)
The McGraw-Hill flagship magazine that was rattled by pre-Christmas editorial layoffs has pushed another 20 people with contracts closer to the door. Last Friday, executive editor John Byrne on a conference call told the contract workers they were being reassigned to a contract with Kelly Services. Technically, the moves do not involve firings, but that hasn't stopped folks at the magazine from being jittery.

iVillage Faces Staff Cuts (Hollywood Reporter)
Following an organizational streamlining, 13 positions have been eliminated at NBC Universal-owned iVillage, representing four percent of the company's 300-person workforce. Sources said the move is intended to reduce duplication among positions and streamline operations at iVillage, which insiders noted was operating as 15 disparate businesses when NBC Universal acquired it in 2006.

Richard Ford Leaves His Longtime Publisher (NYT)
In a surprise move, Richard Ford, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Independence Day and The Lay of the Land, has switched publishers. Ford sold the United States rights to two novels and a short-story collection to Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, ending his 17-year relationship with Alfred A. Knopf and more than two decades of working with Gary Fisketjon, now a prominent editor at Knopf.

Time's Up for 24's Joel Surnow (Variety)
With his contract up at 20th Century Fox TV, Joel Surnow has opted to depart the Kiefer Sutherland thriller. On 24, Surnow had already stepped back from day-to-day operations, as Howard Gordon has been running the hit Fox series for some time. But Surnow said he's been looking to move on to other things, and the writers' strike provided a natural break.

Why More and More Journalists Are Signing Up for Facebook (AJR)
More and more, journalists across the age lines are discovering the relevance of social networking sites to their lives and work. Facebook in particular has pulled in members of the field far beyond the original target college audience, leaving age-restrictive demographic delineations in the dust.

Candidates Unafraid of 60 Minutes (CJR)
Liz Cox Barrett: What struck me first about Katie Couric's questions Sunday night during her 13-minute interview of Hillary Clinton was not that they were too soft — though they weren't particularly tough, nor were those Couric's colleague, Steve Kroft, posed to Senator Barack Obama in his companion interview — it's that they were, often, too ... beside the point.