Media News

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Did Rove and Novak Conspire to Dupe Plame Investigators? (National Journal)
Mark Feldstein, director of journalism programs at George Washington University, said that journalist Robert Novak apparently acted outside traditional journalistic standards by reaching out to Karl Rove after he believed that a criminal investigation had commenced.

Yahoo! and EBay Join Forces to Battle Google, Microsoft (SF Chron)
The multi-year deal allies two of the Internet's biggest companies as they face mounting competition and try to reverse lagging stock prices over the past year. It also promises to reshuffle the online industry's landscape, potentially prompting other major Web sites to join forces to reach more users. LAT: Shifting alliances on the Web.

Bertelsmann to Buy Back 25% Stake (NYT)
Moving swiftly to fend off a public stock offering, the founding family of Germany's leading media conglomerate, Bertelsmann, announced that it had agreed to buy out its only outside shareholder for 4.5 billion euros, or $5.8 billion.

FCC Probe TV Stations Over Use of Video News Releases (Reuters)
The move by the Federal Communications Commission follows a complaint filed last month by two consumer advocacy groups that found 77 television stations over a 10-month period ending in March failed to clearly tell viewers when they were using corporate video news releases.

House Call for Ellis (WWD)
Good Housekeeping editor-in-chief Ellen Levine, who helped launch O: The Oprah Magazine and is still listed as an editorial consultant on the O masthead, is ascending to the role of editorial director at Hearst Magazines, with Rosemary Ellis, the editorial director of Prevention magazine, being named as her replacement.

Shock Is Here! Shock Is Here! (FishbowlNY)
Hachette's Shock magazine may not be making its stateside debut until May 30, but we got our hands on a copy late last night. Notable in its $1.99 cover price and lack of ads — a shockingly thin four ad pages — it's pretty much what we expected: 96 pages of blood, rotting corpes, civilians on fire, KKK kids, and Jessica Simpson giving us the finger. They did manage to publish some "shocking" celebrity pics we've never seen before: Val Kilmer licking Paris Hilton; and a 1998 shot of Kate Moss in a Cape Town, South Africa hotel room ... next to four lines of cocaine.

Smithsonian Discloses Details of Showtime TV Contract (WaPo)
The Smithsonian Institution is locked into its semi-exclusive contract with Showtime Networks for 30 years, Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence Small told a House oversight committee. Filmmakers, historians and members of Congress have criticized the contract, which has never been made public.

NYDN Owner Zuckerman Seething Over Ex-Editor's Book (NYP)
Mort Zuckerman is apparently infuriated by his portrayal in a new memoir as a tight-fisted, mercurial, meddling owner with no feel for the New York Daily News and its readers. Sources say a quietly fuming Zuckerman is trying to force pre-publication changes in his former top editor's book.

U.S. Version of OK! on Track (Guardian)
After a shaky start the American version of Richard Desmond's OK! magazine has boosted its circulation to more than 500,000 copies an issue as the magazine gears up to launch in Turkey and Mexico.

BBC's Internet Ambitions Raise Hackles of Rivals (WSJ)
As the world's oldest public-service broadcaster seeks to adapt to the Internet age, its ambitions are raising the ire of newspaper publishers and broadcasting rivals. They say the BBC's deep pockets are giving it an unfair advantage in competing with their own online services.

Gibson Hoping to Steady ABC's Ship (Newsweek)
"I am just one person, but I am more traditional in my approach," said new World News Tonight anchor Charles Gibson. "If I can do anything, it's just to stabilize the broadcast and calm everybody down. Presuming I don't get hit by a truck tomorrow, we're sort of steady-as-she-goes."

WaPo Managing Editor Gets Very Mixed Reviews (Washingtonian)
Harry Jaffe: Support for Phil Bennett in the newsroom is thin at best. He has fans such as Dana Milbank, Anthony Shadid, and Peter Baker, who says, "Phil is very engaged, very involved. He's trying to save the franchise in difficult times." His detractors describe him as "icy," "defensive," and "moody."

Reacting to Other Nets' Moves, NBC Totally Overhauls Fall Sked (Mediaweek)
NBC Entertainment president Kevin Reilly said all strategy used in putting together the NBC primetime schedule has now been replaced by the thinking: "Let's just launch our new shows in the most opportunistic time periods."

Small Newspapers Thinking Big (PR Week)
Hamilton Nolan: As newspaper executives bemoan declining revenues, editors slash reporting staffs and foreign bureaus, and investors flee from the industry, small, local papers may be in a far better position than major metropolitan dailies to ride out the shockwaves of the changing media landscape.

Did Zinsmeister Alter Quotes? (NY Sun)
A magazine editor named to a top White House policy post, Karl Zinsmeister, altered his own quotes and other text in a published newspaper profile of him posted on the Web site of the magazine he has edited for more than a decade, the American Enterprise.

About the Lava and Ash and Pending Disaster ... Just Kidding (AP)
An emergency radio station Wednesday mistakenly warned that a massive, volcano-caused mudflow was headed from the flanks of Mount Rainier and that listeners should rush to higher ground. Authorities had no estimate how many people heard the broadcast, or how many evacuated.