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Stone Phillips Out at NBC News (B&C)
The Dateline co-anchor will leave the network in June at the conclusion of his contract. Phillips broke the news to the Dateline staff Tuesday morning, but the NBC veteran is said to have been informed several weeks ago that the network would not renew his contract. Phillips has co-anchored Dateline since the newsmagazine's inception in 1992 when Jane Pauley was in the chair next to him. NYT: Dateline, which once was a strong ratings performer for the network, has experienced sharp ratings declines in recent years. USAT: NBC is focusing on keeping anchors who wear several hats. Weekend Nightly News anchor John Siegenthaler recently was dropped in favor of Lester Holt, who also co-anchors Weekend Today. Similarly, Phillips' co-anchor, Ann Curry, will stay at Dateline while reporting for NBC and reading the news on Today.

Dow Jones' Bancrofts Set Private Meeting Today Over Offer (WSJ)
Family members who control Dow Jones & Co. are planning to hold a private meeting Wednesday to discuss their options in the wake of News Corp.'s $5 billion offer for the publisher. The Bancroft family, which controls 64% of the voting power of Dow Jones through a special class of stock, hasn't taken any action so far on the $60-a-share bid from News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch. Guardian: If the Bancrofts were to open talks with Murdoch, it could lead to him sweetening his offer or the emergence of other bidders. VIDEO: BusinessWeek's Jon Fine and Vanity Fair's Michael Wolff discuss Rupe's bid.

CBS Says It Led Television Ratings for Fifth Year (Bloomberg)
CBS said it will finish the current prime-time television season as the most-watched network for the fifth straight year, citing data from Nielsen Media Research. With the season ending tomorrow, the network also will improve to second place among viewers aged 18 to 49, the group most sought by advertisers, New York-based CBS Corp. said in a statement.

Did Page Six Kill 'Numerous' Items on the Clintons? (NYO)
Liberal journalist Michael Tomasky had, during Mrs. Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign, tallied 212 "negative" stories about her in the Post, against seven "positive" stories and 17 "neutral." But during the first few years of Clinton's Senate career, that seemed to change. "I don't exactly know what happened with the Clintons," said ex-Page Sixer Ian Spiegelman. "One day, the Clintons are our friends now."

Will Brownridge/Quadrangle Have Winning Bid for Dennis Titles? (WWD)
Final bids are due today for Maxim, Stuff, and Blender — owner Felix Dennis is holding on to The Week — and speculation has swirled for weeks that ex-Wenner executive Kent Brownridge and The Quadrangle Group will be the party most likely to go the distance.

Fortune Tunes Up: Hires Two, Plans Redesign (NYP)
Fortune, like other titles in the business magazine category, is reeling on the advertising front, but that's not preventing it from making changes on the editorial side. Managing editor Andy Serwer, who took over in April, has lured not only the respected Allan Sloan from Newsweek but also Dan Gross from Slate.com.

Can Greg Gutfield Make Fox News Safe for New York's Media Elite? (NYO)
"I feel like I'm a lion tamer holding chainsaws," Gutfeld says of his Fox News show Red Eye. "Because I want to say something funny, but I'm too busy going, 'O.K., what do I do next?' ... It's somewhat similar to somebody who's lost his mind. ... Because I'm a complete maniac. You may disagree with me, but you can't stop watching. ... I don't even think you have to like the show to get sucked in."

Joost in Deal With Talent Firm CAA (Reuters via LAT)
The Internet television service backed by global media players said that talent firm Creative Artists Agency would help it lure big-name Hollywood programming. Joost, which was founded by Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, who also started Web telephone company Skype Technologies, has signed up name-brand programming and top advertisers for its service, although it remains in test mode.

New Features for Facebook as Visitors Soar (FT via MSNBC)
Visits to Facebook have surged since the social networking site opened its doors to the general public last September, although its market share continues to lag behind that of MySpace, according to new data. The surge in traffic at Facebook comes amid continued interest in the site from numerous media companies.

McClatchy's D.C. Bureau Claims It's Barred From Defense Secretary Plane (E&P)
Bureau chief John Walcott says his reporters haven't been allowed on board for three years: "I think the idea of public officials barring coverage by people they've decided they don't like is at best unprofessional, at worst undemocratic and petty." A Pentagon spokesman calls the claim "absurd."

What the Mainstream Media Can Learn from Jon Stewart (AJR)
Rachel Smolkin: Stewart and his team often seem to steer closer to the truth than traditional journalists. The Daily Show satirizes spin, punctures pretense and belittles bombast. When a video clip reveals a politician's backpedaling, verbal contortions or mindless prattle, Stewart can state the obvious — ridiculing such blather as it deserves to be ridiculed — or remain silent but speak volumes merely by arching an eyebrow.

60 Minutes Creator Hewitt Takes on the Rockettes (NYT)
The "Radio City Christmas Spectacular" will be shown almost in its entirety in a prime-time special on NBC in early December. The executive producer of the show is Don Hewitt, who grudgingly retired in 2004 as the executive producer of 60 Minutes. Hewitt said this week that he had been searching ever since for "an icon" of similar stature that might return him to prime-time television, if only for an hour.

Times' Morgue Packs Up and Ships Out (NYO)
The paper's morgue, which holds files of millions of clippings that served as the institutional memory for a century, currently takes up a labyrinthine space: an intricate system of dusty file cabinets and stacked cardboard boxes. It was once the pressroom, but the presses were packed up and shipped to the Philippines in 1997. Next month, the morgue is due to move out, too.

Carter's Publisher May Be Accused of Damaging CBS' Reputation (NY Sun)
President Carter has recently been a hot topic at the White House, but today his name is expected to be mentioned before news executives and owners at the CBS stockholders annual meeting. A CBS subsidiary, Simon & Schuster, will be accused of damaging the reputation of its parent company by publishing Carter's book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Marketwatch: Judging by the coverage of the vicious name-calling between Jimmy Carter and the Bush White House, you'd have almost thought that Britney Spears and Paris Hilton were feuding again, writes Jon Friedman.

Google to Help Fight Student Plagiarism (Guardian)
The world's largest search engine will ban ads from companies that offer essay-writing services. Google has written to companies that sell essays and dissertations online informing them of the ban, which is due to come into force next month.