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USAT Reporter Quits Over Lifted Quotes (NYT)
A 16-year veteran of USA Today resigned after his editors said he lifted quotations from other newspapers without attribution. WaPo: Squitieri was an outspoken critic of Jack Kelley, the star correspondent ousted last year and later found to have fabricated parts of at least 20 stories over more than a decade.

Google Seeks Patent for Ranking News by Quality (Reuters via Yahoo!)
Web search leader Google Inc. has applied for U.S. and international patents on technology to rank stories on its news site based on the quality of the news source.

Fox Investigating Idol Charges (USAT)
In the wake of Wednesday's Primetime Live, on which former contestant Corey Clark said he had a secret affair with judge Paula Abdul, American Idol's producers said that they take the accusations "very seriously" and "have already begun looking into them." NYT: Both ABC's sizzling expose of American Idol and Pat O'Brien's confession on CBS on Wednesday carried a broader message: there actually can be too much of a bad thing, writes Alessandra Stanley. Boston Globe: ABC's decision to dig up dirt on a linchpin of another network's entertainment lineup reflects the changing values of television news, according to media analysts.

Reader's Digest Hits 1000 (Folio:)
The mag will roll out the red carpet for its upcoming 1000th issue: a ridealong, dubbed "Future," a digital version of the issue, and a party in lower Manhattan to ring in what publisher Laura McEwen calls a three- to five-year process of "perception blasting."

NYT Tweaking Web Design (E&P)
The New York Times has launched the first step in a two-month-long series of incremental changes to NYTimes.com aimed at improving load times, ad placements, and navigation throughout the site.

BusinessWeek Running Fine (Mediaweek)
In moving to expand its coverage of the media industry, BusinessWeek has hired Jon Fine, previously a media reporter for five years at Crain Communication's Advertising Age and hubby of MB founder Laurel Touby, to write a weekly column for the magazine.

Snarky Like the Wolff (Slate)
Jack Shafer: Gifted with a hyperactive and malicious mind, Michael Wolff's forte is not reporting and analysis. It's the oh-aren't-I-naughty clever slur, a talent worth admiring if not applauding. Marketwatch: Wolff is the scourge of New York, writes Jon Friedman.

Life for Rent (NYP)
The vaunted wall that separates editorial content from the advertisements appears to have been a little porous in the current issue of Life magazine.

Chappelle on High? (NYT)
Representatives of the comedian Dave Chappelle denied rumors that drugs were involved in the suspension of Chappelle's Show production.

Giving Readers the Finger (Grade the News)
John McManus: Why was a 1.5 inch finger tip judged so much more newsworthy than events that are reshaping the nation and the world?

Stuff Names Jellinek New Ed (Mediaweek)
Dennis Publishing has tapped Jimmy Jellinek to become the new editor-in-chief of the laddie magazine.

'Cookie Monster' Denies Shoe Fetish (Chicago Reader)
"The woman's mad," said NYDN editor Michael Cooke of Chicago Sun-Times columnist Jennifer Hunter, who recently identified him in print as a man with a quirk.

Finkel Is No Blair (CJR)
The story of Michael Finkel, a contract writer for The New York Times Magazine who was fired for writing a story about an African boy who didn't exist, was less a cautionary tale than a window into the slippery nature of truth.

Saving PBS From the GOP (LAT)
Jonathan Chait: Republican hacks are slowly strangling National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System. And the liberals who are complaining about it have nobody to blame but themselves.

Kernan a 'Born Storyteller' (WaPo)
Henry Allen: Michael Kernan, who died Wednesday night at 78, wrote [things that haunt] those of us who have survived the industrial processing of modern education and media.

Scarborough Apologizes for Governator Hissyfit (WaPo)
Joe Scarborough, MSNBC's congressman-turned-TV-guy, launched into a stream of invective on his show after getting duped by a Schwarzenegger impersonator on The Howard Stern Show.

Will Novak Brave Altercation With Alterman? (The Nation)
Eric Alterman: The pundit Robert Novak regularly insults his political opponents and questions both their honesty and patriotism, but he has refused to appear with me on a talk show for the past twelve years.

Reporter Soaps Up (AP via Yahoo!)
Derrik Lang: In a well-crafted publicity stunt, ABC offered the chance for this mild-mannered entertainment reporter to take on the role I was born to play: myself.

Mag Inside a Mag (Folio:)
Playbook, an eight-to-12-page editorial insert in Business 2.0, has been dramatically upgraded from a two-page former incarnation called Cheat Sheet.

Hispanic Paper's T&A (Washington City Paper)
Erik Wemple: Whereas other papers are low on sex appeal, El Comercio doesn't shy away from appealing to the male libido. At the top of each weekly edition of the paper, readers are assured of finding an attractive woman alongside a universally understood tag line: "Mamacitas."

—David S. Hirschman