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Braunstein: Guilty (NYP)
Peter Braunstein — the demented, hate-filled fashion writer who costumed himself as a firefighter to kidnap, strip and sexually torture a beautiful ex-Women's Wear Daily colleague — was convicted yesterday of the terrifying Halloween 2005 attack. The lightning-fast verdict — after just under four hours of deliberations — capped a dramatic, four-week Manhattan trial that featured a gossip column's worth of celebrity names from fashion and entertainment, two worlds that fascinated the mad molester.

Waiting List For Zahn Slot (Page Six)
If and when Paula Zahn leaves CNN, the other TV news operations won't be caught by surprise. Attractive anchor-babes are lined up like dominoes to fill the resulting vacancies. The leading candidate to take Zahn's slot is Campbell Brown, the underutilized anchor for the weekend edition of NBC's Today. She's said to be frustrated, but NBC evidently doesn't have any plum job to offer her at the moment.

Madison Avenue Says Hello to 'Hello,' Again (NYT)
It seems as if Madison Avenue is on some kind of a "Hi." At least half a dozen advertising campaigns are using the greeting "Hello" as a way to attract consumer attention, like the "Hello" offered in a commercial for the iPhone from Apple, or the "Hello tomorrow" and "Hello future" in ads for, respectively, Avon Products and the Lincoln Financial Group, or the enticing "Hello delicious" in print ads for Level vodka. The fact that several campaigns for disparate brands are based on the same word reinforces the notion that similarity is often the sincerest form of advertising.

One Bomb, 25 Operations and 363 Days to Return to TV (NYT)
When Kimberly Dozier, a CBS News correspondent, was nearly killed last Memorial Day by a roadside bomb in Baghdad that took the lives of her crew, she became the story instead of reporting it. Now, more than 25 operations later, Dozier is finally telling her own story, which will be a core part of Flashpoint, a CBS special to be broadcast on Tuesday night about the many lives transformed that day.

Microsoft Asks, Why Buy Yahoo? (Reuters)
Microsoft said Wednesday that it did not need to buy Yahoo to gain scale in online advertising, because it had "all the pieces" to build a successful ad business. Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Internet Conference in Las Vegas, Microsoft's chief advertising strategist, Yusuf Mehdi, said that the company was already bigger than Yahoo in terms of users of its Web services like e-mail and instant messaging.

New Publisher at Philly Daily (AP)
The Philadelphia Daily News named Mark Frisby as its publisher on Wednesday. The publisher of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Brian Tierney, is giving up the title of Daily News publisher to Frisby, a former Gannett executive who joined the parent company of the two newspapers last year. Tierney will take on the newly created posts of president and chief executive at the newspaper.

Black Plays Trump Card (NYP)
Worried about a growing shareholder revolt at Hollinger International in 2003, Conrad Black concocted a plan for Donald Trump to stand up at the newspaper company's annual meeting to say some glowing words about management, the jury at Black's fraud trial heard yesterday. "Dear Donald," Black wrote Trump in an e-mail. "Could I ask a rather esoteric favor? ... If you were able to put in a cameo appearance and say a supportive word, I'm sure it would have an impact on the group and be favorably noted in the press."

Murdoch Denies Bowing to Beijing (FT)
Rupert Murdoch, News Corp.'s chief executive, defended himself against accusations that he had allowed political pressure from the Chinese government to influence his business decisions. Murdoch, whose family has a controlling stake in the News Corp. media empire, tackled the issue of his conduct in China as questions about it have become a rallying point for those seeking to derail his $5 billion takeover bid for Dow Jones and its Wall Street Journal newspaper.

Mort Slashes U.S. News Staff (NYP)
Mort Zuckerman is swinging the ax again at the struggling No. 3 newsweekly, U.S. News & World Report. About a half dozen editorial people from the headquarters in Washington D.C. were cut yesterday, sources said. At least one editorial person was axed in the New York office a week earlier. Another reliable industry source said that six other people on the business side were cut earlier in the week. "They are doing it in waves for some reason," said the source.

GOP Candidates Criticize ABC News Report on CIA-Iran Plan (ABC News' Blotter)
Two Republican presidential candidates today criticized the ABC News report about the CIA's covert plan to destabilize the Iranian regime. "I was shocked," Mitt Romney said as he opened a session with reporters in Tulsa, Okla. "The reporting has the potential of jeopardizing our national security. To put it quite plainly, it has the potential of affecting human life, we may never know," Romney said. In a statement ABC News said, "In the six days since we first contacted the CIA and the White House, at no time did they indicate that broadcasting this report would jeopardize lives or operations on the ground."

American Idol Finale Nabs $1.3M for 30-Second Spot (AdAge)
Last night's Jordin Sparks-Blake Lewis finale may not have had the same amount of hype surrounding it as Taylor Hicks-Katherine McPhee did at this time last year (or, heck, even Sanjaya earlier this season), but American Idol will still finish the 2006-07 season as the most-watched show — despite exhibiting some signs of ratings fatigue for the first time in its six-season run.

Nerd Alert: D.I.Y. Star Wars (WSJ)
George Lucas, creator of Star Wars, has never hesitated to protect his intellectual property, which is why some call him "Lucas the Litigator." But this week, his Lucasfilm plans to make clips of "Star Wars" available to fans on the Internet to mash up — meaning to remix however they want — at will. The clips — about 250 of them, from all six Star Wars movies — will land on the Starwars.com Web site tomorrow, part of this week's 30th-anniversary celebrations of the release of his hit movie.

Suitors Circling EMI Music (NYP)
Private equity firm Corvus Capital, run by British financier Andrew Regan, took itself out of the running for music giant EMI Group yesterday — leaving a group of former music executives to resurrect a planned $5 billion bid. Corvus confirmed yesterday that it "actively considered making an offer for EMI" and had access to the necessary funding to make a bid.

Canadian Paper Files Complaint Over Cop Who Posed as Reporter (E&P)
The editor of a Canadian newspaper is filing a complaint with local law enforcement over a police officer who posed as one of his reporters in order to lure a suspect to a meeting where he was arrested. Dean Broughton, editor in chief of 24 Hours, a free daily in Vancouver, B.C., says the action taken last weekend by Vancouver police hurts his paper's reputation.

Ann Moore: 'Everybody Stay Calm' (AdAge)
Ann S. Moore, the top executive at Time Inc., the country's largest magazine publisher, today said that leading her company through its transformation into a multimedia player has been wrenching, both professionally and personally. "Steering an organization through change is hard," she said. "You cannot lead change alone." WWD: Time Inc. "not for sale."