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Kate Christensen Wins PEN/Faulkner Award (WaPo)
Kate Christensen has won the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction for her novel The Great Man, whose ironic title refers to a recently deceased painter but whose focus is on the women in his life. "They're vibrant, curious, eccentric, and fresh," said Molly Giles, one of the three judges who picked Christensen's novel out of around 350 submissions.

CBS Says Advertising for NCAA Webcast Will More Than Double (Bloomberg)
CBS Corp.'s Webcast of the U.S. national college basketball tournament will produce as much as $25 million in ad sales, more than double last year's tally. The total would make the three-year-old Internet event as popular with advertisers as the pre-game show for the Super Bowl on network television, John Bogusz, a CBS Sports executive vice president, said yesterday at a press conference.

Weymouth: WaPo 'Regrettably' Forced to Offer More Buyouts (FishbowlDC)
Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth yesterday announced what everybody had long feared: That the Post would be offering employees buyout packages. "As we move forward, barring a dramatic turn around in the business conditions, our path is pretty straightforward: we will have to reduce our cost structure," she said in a memo outlining the offers.

Disney's Iger Opens Up on Yahoo, Economy (Variety)
Walt Disney Co. chief exec Robert Iger has no regrets about buying Pixar, doesn't want to go after Yahoo, and doesn't think the Mouse House will be dinged too badly by the economic slowdown. In a Q&A Wednesday at the McGraw-Hill media conference in New York, Iger also reiterated that he expects the company to pull in $1 billion in digital revenue this year, up from about $750 million last year.

McCain to Media: Let's Stay Together (Salon)
Offering reporters the sort of face time no other candidate gives them has clearly reaped rewards for John McCain in both the tone and content of press coverage. But if McCain is forced by the realities of being a presidential nominee to restrict that access, will his portrayal in the media change too?

Australian Author Wins Lindgren Award (AP via WaPo)
Australian author Sonya Hartnett is the winner of the $818,000 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for Literature, the largest children's book award in the world. Hartnett, 39, published her first novel, Trouble All the Way, at the age of 15 and since then has written 18 novels for children, young people, and adults.

Radar's New Columnist: Spencer 'Machiavellian' Pratt (FishbowlNY)
As if Spencer Pratt's head couldn't get any bigger, it appears as though someone will now pay him to provide counsel to the unsuspecting masses. Radar signed The Hills resident dick star to be its advice columnist. His first article, called "Yo Spencer!," will appear in the April issue. New York/Daily Intel: Pratt's first column.

Jossip Up for Sale; Condé Looking? (NYP)
Jossip Initiative, the company that owns the snarky, mediacentric Web site Jossip.com and other ventures, is on the block, sources say. The company is believed to be making money, although it remains something of a boutique industry. Pumping the price somewhat is a wild rumor that Condé Nast might have taken a look. How serious that interest may be is open to debate.

Portfolio Turns a Page (WWD)
Lauren Goldstein Crowe and Portfolio.com are parting ways. Goldstein Crowe, who's been at the site for a year, said she will leave when her contract expires later this month. She said she decided not to renew under the terms offered to her. "It was always meant to be a part-time gig I could do while writing the unauthorized Jimmy Choo story," she said.

Charter to Sell L.A. TV Viewing Data (LAT)
Charter Communications Inc. said Wednesday that it would sell information it collects about the viewing preferences of 330,000 of its cable TV customers in the Los Angeles area. Charter has agreed to provide Nielsen Co. with data from subscribers' digital set-top boxes in an effort to give advertisers and TV programmers a clearer picture of the channels and commercials people are watching.

Google Could Be Superseded, Says Web Inventor (Times of London)
While Google has developed an extremely effective way of searching for pages on the Internet, Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee says that ability pales in comparison to what could be achieved on the "Web of the future," which would allow any piece of information — such as a photo or a bank statement — to be linked to any other.

Video Road Hogs Stir Fear of Internet Traffic Jam (NYT)
For months there has been a rising chorus of alarm about the surging growth in the amount of data flying across the Internet. The threat, according to some industry groups, analysts, and researchers, stems mainly from the increasing visual richness of online communications and entertainment — video clips and movies, social networks, and multiplayer games.

Hulu's Ads Aim to Engage, Not Annoy, Web Viewers (AdAge)
Hulu is designed to function as a portal of sorts for consumers and advertisers interested in high-quality video content. Media buyers believe the ad formats that were tested — which include translucent "overlay" ads and clickable logos that run at the bottom of a screen while a video plays — offer insight into how TV and video commercials will develop in the months to come.

Newsprint Is Dying, So Join the Race to an Online Future (Guardian)
Roy Greenslade: I am often accused of taking too negative a view of the future of newspapers. One commenter this week said I should stick up for our own trade instead of appearing to relish its death. But, as I said in response, I am merely recording what is happening and, based on that reality, predicting what will happen.

Why Is Managing NPR So Damn Difficult? (Now the Details)
Jeffrey Dworkin: NPR's strength is that it has an excellent cadre of journalists, editors, producers, and managers. They are the ones who understand the deepest values of radio journalism and convey the passion and the obligations that great journalism requires. NPR's weakness is that is has too often undervalued the quality of radio-ness in building the organization.