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Ellie Winners Announced (NYT)
National Geographic won three National Magazine Awards on Thursday night, more than it had ever captured in a single year, including a prestigious award for general excellence the second year in a row. Vanity Fair was this year's only other multiple winner, with two awards, a shift from the pattern in recent years of two or three magazines dominating the prizes. FishbowlNY: Ellies 2008 live blog. HuffPo: Playboy managing editor Jamie Malinowski proposes that magazines should submit word documents of their entries in categories for reporting, feature writing, fiction, profiles, and essays, with the idea that this will perhaps put smaller magazines on more equal footing with the giants. NYP: New Yorker editor David Remnick managed a single victory this year in the General Excellence category in the 1 million to 2 million circulation category. "If you had The New Yorker's limitless reserve of intelligence, humor, passion, and tradition, you'd make it look easy, too," the judges wrote. "But the weekly stalwart never rests on its considerable laurels." WWD: A significant number of small or single-title companies, such as The Nation (for Public Interest), Harper's (for Fiction), The Atlantic (for Reviews and Criticism), New Letters (for Essays) and Backpacker and Mother Jones (both for General Excellence) also were recognized. Mediaweek: "I'm stunned, but pleasantly stunned," said Chris Johns, editor of National Geographic, as he accepted the General Excellence Ellie. Folio:: Liveblogging the Ellies. WaPo: The profile-writing award went to Evan Wright for his piece on Hollywood agent Pat Dollard, which was, the judges noted, "a 23,000-word monster of an article chronicling his subject's harrowing but frequently amusing descent into drugs, madness, violence, and, improbably, his resurrection as a hero of the pro-war right."

Microsoft Appears to Lean Toward Hostile Yahoo Bid (WSJ)
Microsoft Corp. late Thursday was leaning toward going hostile in its pursuit of Yahoo Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, with an announcement likely Friday. But the people cautioned that the situation was fluid as discussions continued and said the software company could change tack before announcing its decision. Microsoft declined to comment on its plans.

Democrats and Fox News Make Friends (NYT)
All of a sudden, the once-frosty relationship between Fox News and the Democratic candidates seems to have grown warmer. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who steadfastly refused to attend Fox-sponsored debates last year, are now giving plenty of interviews as they court Fox's viewers, who are largely white, conservative and undecided. Politico: The detente with Fox has provoked a backlash from progressive bloggers, who contend the party's leaders are turning their backs on the base — and lending credibility and legitimacy to the network liberals love to hate — in a quest for a few swing votes. LAT: "Fox has given Hillary Clinton better coverage than all the other cables," Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe said during a radio interview last week with Fox News' John Gibson.

Al Jazeera Cameraman Released From Gitmo After 6 Years (AP)
An Al-Jazeera cameraman was released from U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay and returned home to Sudan early Friday after six years of imprisonment that drew worldwide protests. Sami al-Haj, who had been on a hunger strike for 16 months, grimaced as he was carried off a U.S. military plane by American personnel in Sudan's capital, Khartoum. He was put on a stretcher and taken straight to a hospital. Al Jazeera: Saying that "rats are treated with more humanity," al-Hajj said inmates' "human dignity was violated." (YouTube video)

Ex-Met Dykstra Digs in for Fight With Doubledown (NYP)
Former Mets outfielder-turned-magazine entrepreneur Lenny Dykstra is embroiled in a bitter legal brawl with Doubledown Media, the publisher of The Players Club, a financial advice and lifestyle magazine aimed at affluent pro athletes that he founded. The finger-pointing centers on cost overruns at the magazine, as well as charges by Dykstra that Doubledown used his name without permission. Portfolio: According to Doubledown's complaint, the relationship between the two parties started off "with much optimism" but "rapidly soured" once The Players Club launched.

Barbara Walters Reveals Past Affair With U.S. Senator (AP)
After three decades of keeping mum, Barbara Walters is disclosing a past affair with married U.S. Senator Edward Brooke, whom she remembers as "exciting" and "brilliant." Appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show scheduled to air Tuesday, Walters shares details of her relationship with Brooke that lasted several years in the 1970s, according to a transcript of the show. WaPo: "I was excited, fascinated, intrigued, and infatuated," Walters writes. She badly wanted to marry him, and her ultimatum prodded him to seek a divorce, she says. But friends warned the ethical and racial issues could ruin both their careers; they broke up before he lost his 1978 reelection bid.

Ziff Davis Hires a President (Portfolio)
Earlier this week Ziff Davis reached a deal to get out of bankruptcy, and now it has named tech industry vet Peter Weedfald president. "Peter's arrival to Ziff Davis demonstrates the strength of our brands and teams and the incredible opportunity that we have ahead to leverage the powerful audience of 26 million technology and gaming buyers we reach each month," said CEO Jason Young in a release.

Surprise FAS-FAX Finding: Smaller Papers Declined More Than Big Ones (E&P)
A new analysis from ABC shows that the circulation of smaller papers declined more than that of their big city peers. For papers with a circ of 200,000 or more, daily fell 3.43 percent. Papers with circ between 75,000 and 199,000 were down 3.59 percent. Papers with less than 75,000 in circ declined 3.42 percent. Papers with less than 50,000 in circ decreased 3.27 percent. Papers with 25,000 or less declined 3.86 percent.

Is Obama Dragging Oprah Down With Him? (The Root)
Few black Americans have occupied the rarified status of Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama, two "racially transcendent" blacks whom white admirers find appealing and admirable. But it seems the pedestals on which the "Double-O's" have been perched are very wobbly these days.

Disney Shows Double Standard in Miley Pic, Racy Chinese Billboard (NYDN)
Oops, they did it again. After the Mickey Mouse company squeaked with outrage over Vanity Fair's controversial Miley Cyrus shoot, now photos of Disney underwear ads in China have popped up on the web showing even more skin on tween models. A Beijing billboard shows a little Lolita in pigtails lounging in merely a matching white bra and panties set patterned with Disney's signature Mickey Mouse logo.

ABC, NBC Balk at Network-Integration-Fee Task Force (B&C)
Two out of three networks, ABC and NBC, declined the invitation of advertisers and agencies to talk collectively about network-integration fees. ABC, CBS, and NBC collect the fees to the tune of about $125 million annually, said the Association of National Advertisers and American Association of Advertising Agencies, which want to find out why.

MTV Rocks Beijing Olympic Village (Variety)
Beijing's Olympic organizers have given MTV Networks China landing rights into the Beijing Olympic Village at August's Games in the Chinese capital. MTV China's 24-hour channel will go on air on June 24, broadcasting over the private Olympics CATV network to all of the Olympics-related competition venues and hotels, as well as the press center and media village.

Bloomberg Not the Ideal Times White Knight (BusinessWeek)
Jon Fine: Forget that New York mayor Michael Bloomberg is not a newspaper guy. The more relevant point is that he's not a media guy. Bloomberg's company made gazillions selling financial data to corporations and financial houses. Also, assuming that the mayor would not buy the Times strictly for the public good, a fly in the ointment is that Bloomberg is attracted to success, not distress.

Bancroft on News Corp.'s Board 'Unavailable for Comment' (CJR)
Dean Starkman: And what of the opera singer? You remember: Natalie Bancroft, the twenty-something aspiring diva who wound up on News Corp.'s board to represent the Bancrofts? In the midst of major tensions at The Wall Street Journal, a News Corp. spokesman said she was traveling for work and couldn't be reached for comment.

Our Lapdog Media (The Nation)
Editorial: There are always honorable exceptions, but the tendency of the corporate press is to serve as stenographer for the powerful rather than the muscular check and balance intended by the country's founders. Rapid consolidation has brought us dumbed-down media, with broadcast and cable networks that rarely challenge the status quo, even as they maintain their stranglehold on the airwaves.