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Amid Dow Bid, Murdoch Family Comes Together (NYT)
It may take more of Rupert Murdoch's considerable powers of persuasion to convince the Bancroft family that one of the most important institutions in journalism will be in the good hands of another media family for years to come. His hope is that the Bancrofts will at least agree to hear him out, and possibly meet him and his grown children. CJR Daily: A devoted son of Dow Jones drags down the company, writes Dean Starkman. Guardian: Insiders say that if the Dow Jones deal goes through, Murdoch would move Times of London editor to WSJ. VIDEO: BusinessWeek's Jon Fine and Vanity Fair's Michael Wolff discuss Rupe's bid.

Online Ad Wars: Madison Avenue Shaken Up By $10B Buying Frenzy (NYP)
Now that Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and WPP have devoured the larger players in the Web ad world, the industry is bracing for a new wave of smaller deals — ranging from $100 million to $200 million — to come quickly down the line. The net result for 'Net-based ad companies: a world dominated by a handful of huge players as smaller companies either get sold or are squeezed out of the market. NYT: "We've reached a tipping point," said Bryan Wiener, chief executive of 360i, a search marketing company based in New York. "It's not just talk anymore. The flood of dollars online is starting to accelerate to match the amount of time we spend online." San Jose Mercury News: The deals may signal a fundamental shift in the advertising industry, as the Internet becomes a major market for ad sales.

Page Six Reports on Its Own Tale (NYT)
Public relations strategists said that by publishing the item, the paper was trying to get ahead of the story. "The Post is operating under the Henry Kissinger principle of, 'What will come out eventually must come out immediately,'" said Eric Dezenhall, a public relations consultant and author of Damage Control: Why Everything You Know About Crisis Management Is Wrong. NYT: Nobody likes waking up and seeing their name plastered all over Page Six, but for Murdoch, the much chattered-about Page Six item is remarkably ill-timed, writes David Carr. FishbowlNY: Jared Paul Stern wants Post job back.

Film and TV Writers Focus on Web Pay Issues (LAT)
Amid heightened labor tensions in Hollywood, union leaders representing film and TV writers have outlined a series of demands they plan to make in upcoming studio contract talks, with compensation for work appearing on the Internet a top priority. The Writers Guild of America's East and West unions sent their "pattern of demands" Friday to more than 12,000 writers.

Time Warner Chief Takes Heat at Friday Meeting (LAT)
At Time Warner Inc.'s annual shareholder meeting, investors appeared to be more concerned about such issues as the compensation of its top executives and the media giant's stock performance over the last five years than the circumstances surrounding last week's firing of HBO chief Chris Albrecht.

Interviews, Going the Way of the Linotype? (WaPo)
Howard Kurtz: The humble interview, the linchpin of journalism for centuries, is under assault. In the digital age, some executives and commentators are saying they will respond only by e-mail, which allows them to post the entire exchange if they feel they have been misrepresented, truncated or otherwise disrespected. And some go further, saying, "You want to know what I think? Read my blog."

Looking at $1.2B Primedia Deal as a Model for Murdoch/Dow Jones (MIN)
Why pay such a premium for a unit of a company once valued at $35 per share (mid-2000), but presently stuck between $2 and $3? Chairman Michael Duckworth sees content to complement Source Interlink's large distribution/merchandising networks, and there his strategy matches Rupert Murdoch/News Corp. in being willing to pay $60 or more per share for the formerly $36-valued Dow Jones.

YouTube, MySpace Campaign for Political Positions (LAT)
The Internet battle over the presidential campaign is ratcheting up following announcements by social-networking site MySpace and video-sharing hub YouTube that they plan live webcasts of town hall meetings and candidate debates. Both said they seek to draw more voters into the political process, but are also are engaged in an old-style media fight over online information consumers.

Networks Seek Bigger Audiences by Playing to Niche Themes (B&C)
In broadcast TV, a network's collective stable of shows defines its current brand, whereas in the cable world, networks are narrowly defined by their genre or audience profile. But more so this year than ever, the broadcast networks are beginning to take on personalities — fitting nicely into niches. It is the inadvertent result of executives chasing development similar to their current hits.

Category Crowding Could Spell Death for Some Business Mags (AdAge)
Most of the attention to Condé Nast's Portfolio so far has wondered about its effect on the old-guard business magazines: Forbes, Fortune and BusinessWeek. In reality, the market trends we can already observe suggest pressure for a biz-mag shakeout is building — pressure that the scrappier players will feel far more acutely than the old behemoths.

Russian Newspaper Quite a Story Itself (LAT)
When Novaya Gazeta, or "New Newspaper," was launched in 1993, it soon won respect for its coverage of subjects such as corruption and the misdeeds of Russian forces in war-torn Chechnya. It also made powerful enemies. Today, as Russian media increasingly come under the influence of the Kremlin, the thrice-weekly paper stands out ever more as a lonely bastion of independent critical reporting. NYT: An eviction notice is the latest Russian move against journalists.

National Lampoon's Not-So-Animal House Life After Print (MIN)
Steve Smith: With so many print brands lately folding into digital-only models, this seemed like a good time to crack a keg with the National Lampoon wags who nearly 30 years ago gave America Animal House. AH is a reason why even though the print NL ended its nearly 30-year run in 1997, the brand has lived on in films, books, college TV channels and the very successful NationalLampoon.com, a site that now gets 5.2 million monthly unique visitors.

Publisher to Let the Public Have a Vote on Book Projects (NYT)
Can crowds predict whether a book will succeed? That is the hope of the founders of Media Predict, a virtual market beginning today, and Simon & Schuster, a publisher that plans to select a book proposal based on bets placed by traders in the new market.

Gawker Media Launches New Blog Jezebel (WWD)
The company's 14th blog launches today with a focus on women, women's media, and fashion. Anna Holmes, who has worked at Star and In Style, will be managing editor, alongside former Wall Street Journal reporter Moe Tkacik as editor, and Jennifer Gerson, formerly assistant to Elle's editor-in-chief, as associate editor. The site will both aggregate content and generate new stories.

NYC Free Dailies Do Battle in Subways, and Online (NYT)
Metro New York is planning a new Web site that may improve its position against its rival, amNew York, which already has a robust site. Although the giveaway papers are perhaps best known for capturing the fleeting attention of harried commuters with headlines about celebrities, executives at both papers say the Web will be critical to their growth.

Big Print-Media Companies 'Being Killed by Half-Wit Overlords' (AdAge)
Simon Dumenco: The print-media industry is not only filled with f--k-ups, it coddles them. In what other industry would AMI chief David Pecker — who has mocked his bond holders by time and again missing the deadlines for reporting his company's sorry-ass earnings — still have a job? I'm talking industrywide mismanagement. I'm talking Detroit-in-the-'70s, with no Lee Iacocca in sight.

A Life Out of the Newsroom — And Into the News (CSM)
Patti McCracken: On a wickedly cold Chicago day eight years ago, I walked to work, made my way through the newsroom cubicles, entered my editor's office, gave her three weeks' notice, and then sat down at my desk. Less than two years before, I'd moved 1,000 miles to take this job as an assistant editor, and suddenly I was about to move several thousand miles more to get away from it.

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