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VNU Buyout Complete (NYT)
The Dutch publishing and market research company that owns ACNielsen, Billboard and Editor and Publisher was sold to a consortium of private equity investors for about $9 billion in cash, or slightly more than 28.50 euros a share. Reuters: The deal marks a stark reversal for the Netherlands-based company, which was poised to double its size less than a year ago with plans to buy healthcare data provider IMS Health. Marketwatch: The company will be kept together for at least 18 months.

Google Mistakenly Puts Ad Targets Online (Reuters)
The previously undisclosed presentation notes stated that Google's core advertising business was expected to grow by nearly 60 percent to $9.5 billion in 2006 but that profit margins in its mainstay AdSense business could be squeezed this year and beyond. AP: Company tells investors to disregard leak. NYP: The blunder, which knocked down Google's shares $3.65 to $364.45, came on the heels of a similar snafu.

Pinch Gets Chilly Reception at 'State of the Times' Speech (Gawker)
The first question was about the stock options that Sulzberger got rid of to give himself and the other execs big bonuses. He deflected that question, but then business columnist Floyd Norris asked it again, quoting more numbers. Norris asked him to rescind his bonuses to save jobs. Media Mob: Sulzberger discussed the paper's efforts to expand its online and digital operations in a newspaper industry that's mired in struggle. NYP: Newspaper Guild members have already had to give up their raises for the year to rescue their embattled healthcare coverage, and 500 employees are losing their jobs.

CBS Offering March Madness Free Online (LAT)
The network plans to make all early-round games from the NCAA basketball tournament, available for free on the Internet. This will mark the first time a major broadcaster has shifted such an important programming franchise onto the Web without charging a subscription fee.

Little News About Jill Carroll, but Hope Remains (E&P)
On the two-month anniversary of freelancer Jill Carroll's abduction in Iraq, little new information on her whereabouts or status is known, according to editors at the Christian Science Monitor. The last image of her appeared in a video last month.

Absolute Savior? (NYP)
Real estate magnate William B. May says he is riding to the rescue of the upscale city magazine, which laid off its 30-plus person staff last month. May said he hoped to meet with some key people last night, and eventually restart with about eight editorial staffers. [Second item.]

As Newspapers Retreat, Will Local Communities Follow? (California Magazine)
Michael Zielenziger: When enough people congregate in a defined geographical space, a community finds its larger, formal voice, traditionally around a newspaper. But the Internet has shattered this tidy tradition, displacing a medium that built community in a defined locale.

Voice Readers Vent About Sylvester Fabrications (VV)
Mark Forman: Sylvester should be sacked. I appreciate that he apologized, but he lacks credibility, and apologies don't equate to ethics. He got caught, so he said he's sorry. Even Oprah raked what's-his-name over the coals when she found out he was writing fiction instead of alleged fact.

Bob Woodruff 'Still Has a Face for TV' (NYDN)
His speech is still only "a couple sentences here, a few words there," brother David Woodruff told ABC's Good Morning America. "He's on very heavy pain medication still. He's not talking up a blue streak, he's not sitting there having long conversations with anybody."

She is JT Leroy (Salon)
How did a 40-year-old woman fool the world into thinking she was teenage prostitute and wunderkind author JT LeRoy? As a punk rocker, porn writer and phone sex operator, Laura Albert had been inventing herself for years.

Unsolicited Advice for New Atlantic Editor (Slate)
Jack Shafer: James Bennet will have to tell owner David Bradley that his approach to running a magazine devoted to narrative journalism is flawed and have a good retort when Bradley answers that the same system netted him $142 million when his company went public in the late 1990s.

VF's Cover Whims (WWD)
Vanity Fair editor in chief Graydon Carter is developing a fickle reputation. After replacing Sheryl Crow and Lance Armstrong with Natalie Portman for April's cover, he's now given the front to Teri Hatcher, who is talking publicly about an uncle who sexually abused her when she was a child.

—David S. Hirschman