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Fed Probe of Page Six Scandal Moves to Final Review (NYDN)
Results of a federal probe into a New York Post Page Six staffer's alleged shakedown of billionaire investor Ron Burkle have been forwarded to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for final review. Gonzales will decide whether Page Six writer Jared Paul Stern will be prosecuted on extortion, wire fraud and other charges for soliciting $220,000 from investor Ron Burkle. FBNY: JPS' memo to the Daily News.

Mike Wallace: I Tried To Kill Myself (NYDN)
In an upcoming 60 Minutes special, Mike Wallace acknowledges that he tried to commit suicide two decades ago. The 88-year-old Wallace, who is retiring from full-time correspondent duties, is the subject of a retrospective that airs Sunday on CBS.

Phone Co. Calls For Retraction of USA Today Report (USAT)
BellSouth has asked USA Today to "retract the false and unsubstantiated statements" about the company that it contends were in a May 11 story about a database of domestic calling records maintained by the National Security Agency.

Justice Disserved in Forbes Editor's Death? (Forbes)
In July 2004, on a dark Moscow street, Paul Klebnikov — the American editor of Forbes Russia and one of the leading investigative reporters in business journalism — was shot nine times from a semi-automatic Russian Makarov pistol. He held on as long as he could, only to die in a stuck elevator, lodged between two floors of a hospital. Last week, in a darkened Moscow courtroom, hopes for justice were quashed in similar mystery with the acquittal of the two suspected Chechen hit men. The verdict hasn't exactly created shockwaves because few people know the details.

Networks Fight Rising Number of FCC Fines (WSJ)
The FCC's effort to get tough on indecency may be backfiring as broadcasters get more brazen in their efforts to fight back. The networks have retained some big legal guns, including Seth P. Waxman, a former solicitor general, and Carter G. Phillips, who has argued more than 50 cases before the Supreme Court.

'Reality' Magazines Gaining Traction in U.K. (WWD)
With their graphic — and sometimes grisly — first-person tales of crime, illness and partner swapping, spliced together with beauty advice and budget recipes, British real-life titles have tapped seemingly insatiable consumer demand for gory gossip. Louise Matthews, managing director of Emap Entertainment: "[Reality TV] has driven the interest for real-life stories."

Lipman Eyes Stewart For Condé Biz Mag (NYP)
Joanne Lipman, the editor-in-chief of the new Condé Nast business magazine, is trying to convince her old friend from the Wall Street Journal, James Stewart, to leave his present outlets and write for the new magazine. Stewart is currently a contributor to David Remnick's New Yorker and pens a monthly column for Smart Money.

AOL Buys Company That Inserts Video Ads (AP)
Signaling the importance online video will play in drawing visitors to its ad-supported Web sites, AOL has purchased a small company that specializes in inserting advertising into video clips. With Lightningcast Inc., AOL would be able to run targeted ads within video. FBNY: Will there be a consumer backlash against companies that muddy clips with ads, or if and when You Tube does it?

2005 Was Bigger Than 2004 For Books (NYT)
Publishers generated net revenues of $34.6 billion in 2005, up 5.9 percent from the previous year, according to the report to be released today by the Book Industry Study Group. The industry sold about 3.1 billion books last year, up 3.8 percent from a year earlier. Keith Kelly: Mood of gloom hits Book Expo America.

Is Upfront Glitz Enough to Sell Network Ads in the Internet Age? (Fortune)
Jeff Zucker used to be one of the most confident emcees at the annual broadcast television Upfronts. The CEO of the NBC Universal Television Group would strut around the stage of Radio City Music Hall, trade quips with The Apprentice's Donald Trump and make sweeping pronouncements to media buyers and marketing executives. Now that NBC has crashed from first place to fourth in primetime, Zucker is no longer quite so brash.

Truman Takes New York (NYP)
James Truman, the man who left as editorial director of Condé Nast about 18 months ago, is finally hitting the streets with a prototype for his new magazine, Culture & Travel.

Is 'Convergence' the Next Media Disaster? (Miami Herald)
Edward Wasserman: It would be too bad if the elders of the news business decided that the way to apply the Internet to their operations was by a bold new push for reporting that's hasty, fragmented and half-baked. It would be even worse if redirecting newsrooms to online news ended up by degrading the working conditions of journalists and diverting energies away from detailed, thoughtful reporting. The news person who is expected to update a breaking story throughout the day is doing so at the expense of "deep" reporting. Paul Conley: That's simply absurd.

The Media, the Market & McClatchy (Sacramento News & Review)
McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt, one of the newspaper industry's most admired chief executives, has risked both his professional reputation and his company's fortunes on the $6.5 billion deal. If Pruitt succeeds, his status as industry golden boy will be secured, along with the legacy of the McClatchy family, which first published the Sacramento Bee in 1857. However, success is by no means guaranteed.

The U.S. Press Becomes Less Free — No One Told You? (L.A. Alternative)
Recently The Wall Street Journal's editorialists called three of this year's Pulitzer winners traitors. The treacherous three were the Washington Post's Dana Priest, who uncovered the CIA's secret torture prisons, and The New York Times' James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, who ratted out the policy whereby the NSA gets to listen to your phone calls without warrants. It's not all that surprising that a Journal editorial went bonkers over such courageous investigation. After all, their editorial page still has a hard time accepting 100-year-old progressive notions like the Federal Reserve Bank.