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5 Years of Iraq War Coverage: 3 TV Journos Tell All (TVNewser)
Five years ago today, CNN's Kyra Phillips was on board the USS Abraham Lincoln as the opening salvos in the Iraq War were launched. "As a journalist, I knew I was witnessing history," she tells TVNewser. "Personally, I couldn't stop thinking about all the lives that were at stake, whether it was the Iraqi people, or the U.S. military." Or the journalists. CSM editorial: This fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq offers a chance to look at how the US media has portrayed the war. Mostly they have done well, but they've also played an unwitting role in the subtle battle to influence public opinion. E&P: Greg Mitchell looks at some unsung heroes of the Iraq War's coverage.

Science Fiction Author Arthur C. Clarke Dies (Times of London)
Science fiction writer Sir Arthur C. Clarke has died aged 90 in his adopted home of Sri Lanka. The visionary author of over 100 books, who predicted the existence of satellites, was most famous for his short story The Sentinel, which was expanded into the novel on which Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey was based. Salon: Andrew Leonard's last rendezvous with Arthur C. Clarke.

Vital Idol: Fox Passes CBS as Most Watched Network (LAT)
News Corp.'s Fox passed CBS as the most-watched television network after American Idol topped ratings and the Hollywood writers strike limited competition from scripted shows. Fox's 6.8 rating among U.S. households in primetime for the season through March 16 snatched the lead from CBS Corp., according to Nielsen Media Research. CBS has been first for five consecutive seasons.

Ex-Condé Exec Fox Ditches Circus, Heads West (NYP)
Mitchell Fox, a former group president of Condé Nast, had been linked with former editorial director James Truman in a new venture that was to be part acrobatic circus acts and part blue-sky think tank. Now Fox has exited the nascent venture and is heading West to be president and chief executive officer of 8020 Publishing, which produces Web sites and magazines about travel, photography, and design. AdAge: Because 8020's "participant publications" are created by crowds, aren't part of the American Society of Magazine Editors, and aren't subject to society rules about maintaining the division between editorial and advertising, they can and do let marketers sponsor editorial sections.

How Sulzberger Beat the Hedge Funds at Their Own Game (Fortune)
The hedge funds have declared victory. But perhaps they are being a little hasty. The truth is, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the New York Times company's chairman, may have been the true winner for avoiding a bitter proxy war that might have raised questions about his leadership and damaged the Times. E&P: NYT Co. ad revenue for February down 6.6 percent on big classified skid.

Facebook to Offer More Privacy Control (LAT)
Facebook Inc. is rolling out tighter privacy controls that allow users to decide which friends can see their profile information and other personal details. Facebook's 67 million users will be able to better distinguish between friends, family, and co-workers and share information accordingly, the company said. The changes will take effect today.

Lynndie England Blames Media for Abu Ghraib Photos (AP)
Lynndie England, the public face of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, told a German news magazine that she was sorry for appearing in photographs of detainees in the notorious Iraqi prison. "I feel sorry and wrong about what I did. But it would not have escalated to what it did all over the world if it wouldn't have been for someone leaking it to the media," she said.

Dan Rather's Lawsuit Moves to Next Phase (HuffPo)
There's been some more movement in the matter of Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS, after yesterday presiding judge Justice Ira Gammerman of the New York Supreme Court in Manhattan re-affirmed January's preliminary ruling against CBS on their motion to dismiss.

CBS Exec Wants Combined TV, Internet Ratings (MediaPost)
Video content producers need to come up with aggregate ratings that combine television viewing with online video consumption, says Patrick Keane, vice president and chief marketing officer for CBS Interactive. The combined rating would provide media buyers with a cross-platform option that's simpler and more detailed in terms of data, because of online metrics.

Is There a 'Long Tail' for Ad Networks? (Folio:)
There's still a lot of Internet out there. And for publishers joining — or cobbling together — mini ad networks, that means revenue. So says a new white paper released late last week by media investment banking firm DeSilva + Phillips. According to the report, the approval of Google's $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick shouldn't spell doom for smaller ad networks.

ABC Overhauls Some Key Rules on Counting Circ (E&P)
The Audit Bureau of Circulations has moved closer to an overhaul of how it counts paid newspaper circulation. During a meeting of its board of directors last week in Kiawah Island, S.C., the bureau approved modifications that will affect how publishers report starting April 1, 2009. Among those changes: Newspapers will be considered "paid" by ABC regardless of the price.

NY Post Gets It Wrong With Tiger Woods Cover (Radar)
It makes for one hell of a page-turner, the New York Post's claim Tuesday that Tiger Woods has purchased a $65 million Gin Lane spread in the hoity toity Hamptons. But it's dead wrong. "It is hilarious ... I don't know where this comes from," Beate Moore of Sotheby's International Realty tells Newsday's Laura Mann.

David Paterson and the Art of the Leak (NYO)
Choire Sicha: Why did the Patersons submit to carefully conducted sit-downs with Juan Gonzalez of the New York Daily News, in which they each broke the news of an affair — when the new governor would then, fourteen and a half hours after that story was published, go on to announce affairs with a whole herd of other women? There's a public-relations strategy gone somehow off the rails there. NYO: Depending on which Albany reporters you talk to, the Paterson affair (affairs?) were axiomatic in Albany journalistic gossip as much as five years ago.

Wire v. The Media on Drugs II: You're Right, David Simon, We Suck (HuffPo)
Maia Szalavitz: Addiction is a massively complex social problem — but the sad thing is that rather than suggest solutions, the press is busy looking for stories to plug into its prize-seeking formula. And this kind of series, misguided as it is, often does win prizes. You're right, David Simon, we're pathetic!

How Local TV Embraced Fake News (Salon/Machinist)
Farhad Manjoo: A VNR is a short clip of marketing propaganda produced in the language and style of real news. P.R. firms send news stations thousands of such videos every year, the most sophisticated of which are virtually indistinguishable from honest news. More than 90 percent of news directors have admitted using VNRs — or parts of VNRs — in their broadcasts.