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

Valenti, Hollywood's Lobbyist, Dies at Age 85 (Deadline Hollywood Daily)
Jack Valenti has died after falling into a coma following a series of strokes. The 85-year-old Valenti was the Washington, D.C. lobbyist for Hollywood's movie studios and independent producers from 1966 to 2004 as president of the Motion Picture Association of America — where under his supervision starting in 1968 the movie industry developed the ratings system for films. Bloomberg: Led fight for copyright protection.

Tribune Offers Employee Owners a Big Payday or Mayday (Chicago Tribune)
For employees, who will end up owning 60 percent of the new Tribune, the potential returns could be staggering — but if Tribune falters, as it did in the first quarter, those returns could evaporate quickly. And even if the company does just a little worse over the next five years, it could easily find itself rubbing up against debt covenants that could trigger a default.

The Drama of Daytime: Friendships, Feuds and Fury (NYT)
Alessandra Stanley: The chemistry on shows like The View and Live With Regis and Kelly is layered, a little like the hallucinations in I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. On the surface everything is sunny and serene, but underneath lies a noisy colony roiling with slights, rifts and rivalries that pop out whenever the Thorazine subsides.

Publications Fumble With 'Disgusting' Virginia Tech Photo (PDN Online)
At least two major publications — the New York Post and People — digitally obscured a portion of a photo from the Virginia Tech shootings. In the photo, emergency personnel are seen carrying injured student Kevin Sterne out of the Norris Hall classroom building, his clothes soaked with blood. Standards being what they are, the concern about the photograph was not the shocking amount of blood, but whether the student's penis was visible.

Will Primedia's Enthusiast Mags Sell for More Than $1B? (Folio:)
Primedia may be hitting a bit of a downdraft in the prospective price it may get from buyers for its enthusiast magazines unit — the last and largest of the pieces it is selling as part of its two-year-long divestment process. While the requirement for getting into the second round was a bid of over a billion dollars, prospective offers are now dropping below that mark, according to a source. NYP: Over the next week or so, Henry Kravis, head of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., will finally find out if busting up Primedia was a good idea after all.

Bob Woodruff Heading to Cuba (AP via USAT)
Bob Woodruff of ABC News is headed to Havana this weekend for his first overseas reporting trip since being severely injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq last year. He'll be accompanied by cameraman Doug Vogt and sound technician Magnus Macedo, the team with him on the fateful Iraq trip. Woodruff, 45, suffered traumatic brain injuries in the Jan. 29, 2006, bombing. Vogt was also wounded.

Party's Over for 'Socialite Rank' Site (Page Six)
The controversial SocialiteRank.com Web site — which rated young New York women on the parties they attended, the borrowed dresses they wore, and how many of their photos were published — is shutting itself down under threat of legal action. A posting on the site yesterday said the site's anonymous author planned to write a book about the experience.

Editor at the LAT Kills a Story on Armenian Genocide, Charges of Bias Fly (LA Weekly)
Did the Los Angeles Times kill a front-page article about the fight over the recognition of the Armenian genocide because its writer, Mark Arax, is Armenian? It's a question the paper's managing editor Douglas Frantz would probably prefer not to address.

Broadcasters, Activists Weigh in on FCC Violence Report (B&C)
Reaction continues to pour in in the wake of the FCC's violence report to Congress. The Parents Television Council and Common Sense Media are both applauding, while the Media Coalition gives it a thumbs down. Slate: The FCC wants to kill your TV in the name of saving your children, writes Jack Shafer. DISCUSS THIS STORY: Should TV violence be restricted?

Comcast Joins The Party (BusinessWeek)
Ron Grover: Three years ago it was so hungry to add programming muscle that it was willing to pony up $54 billion to buy Disney. Now it seems desperate to join the Internet party and not be left out of the ad boom surrounding online video. Little wonder: After cable stocks' bullish run last year, investors are more nervous about the industry's prospects these days.

WaPo Uses Old and New Technologies to Beat Competitors to Blacksburg (Washington City Paper)
That eyewitness Trey Perkins was on Facebook after the massacre demonstrates that some sources in today's world are easier to reach with a ping on the computer than a knock on the door. "Now we know that reaching people on the Internet is like knocking on doors," says Leonard Downie Jr., Post executive editor.

Limbaugh Tries to Outdo Imus With 'Barack the Magic Negro' Song (The Nation)
Adam Howard: Rush Limbaugh has obviously learned nothing from the outrage and anger unleashed by Don Imus' unfortunate "nappy headed hos" remark. Never one to shy away from unfunny "humor," Limbaugh recently played a parody in which an Al Sharpton impersonator (played with stereotypical gusto) sings a song filled with idiotic assumptions about black people and dripping with ignorance.

Martha Stewart's Lyne Could Boost Time Inc. (Marketwatch)
Jon Friedman: Since Susan Lyne has already has exhibited a flair for reviving one beleaguered operation, I can think of another proud franchise that sorely needs a boost: Time Warner Inc. When Time Warner, long billed as the world's largest media company, is ready to find a successor for Time Inc. Chairman Ann Moore, I'd nominate Lyne for the job.

Good News for People Who Love Bad News (CJR Daily)
Paul McLeary: Ready or not, the race for the presidency has kicked into high gear, and the campaigns are already working overtime to try and shape the coverage of their candidates — and what better way to do that than use the press itself to bash how the press has covered your candidate?

As Expected, Wong Takes Top Post at Lifetime (NYT)
The Lifetime Channel, which has struggled with its ratings, announced its second new chief executive in two years yesterday with the appointment of a longtime ABC network executive, Andrea Wong. Wong succeeds Betty Cohen, who announced her resignation Tuesday night, just hours after Lifetime had presented a new lineup of programs to advertisers. Variety: There won't be much of a honeymoon for Wong.

Transsexual LAT Sportswriter's Column Strikes a Chord With Readers (LAT)
Mike Penner shocked many readers, fellow journalists and sports fans with a column in Thursday morning's Sports section that told the world of his decision to switch genders. The revelation drew an enormous response — with the highly personal 823-word essay becoming, by mid-evening, one of the most heavily viewed stories on latimes.com in the last year, with about half a million page views.