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Bush Learned of Haditha Massacre From the Press (AP)
Asked when President Bush was first briefed about the events in Haditha, White House press secretary Tony Snow replied Tuesday: "When a Time reporter first made the call." Time magazine was first to report that the U.S. military was investigating a dozen Marines for possible war crimes.

'Painful Reassessments' for Networks After CBS Crew Deaths (NYT)
The roadside blast in Baghdad on Monday that killed two CBS News crew members has deepened concerns among television network executives about the risks their crews face trying to cover the Iraq war, some arguing that television reporters may be even more exposed than those in print journalism. LAT: Dozier's email before being wounded in blast haunts her co-workers. USAT: Journalists in Iraq forge on after recent attacks. TVNewser: Dozier's pulse stopped in Baghdad. Baltimore Sun: With journalists increasingly among the Iraq war's casualties, media are weighing the risks of reporting. NYT via Peripetia: "Journalists die and we know who they are. We know they liked to cook and play Scrabble. But we don't know who killed them, and their killers will never be brought to justice. The enemy has no face, just a finger on a detonator," writes Maureen Dowd.

New Bush Aide: War Reporters 'Whiny and Appallingly Soft' (E&P)
Karl Zinsmeister, the new chief domestic adviser to President Bush, while embedded as a reporter with the 82nd Airborne in Kuwait in 2003, declared that "many of the journalists observable in this war theater are bursting with knee-jerk suspicions and antagonisms for the warriors all around them." NY Sun: White House defends new hire. Drudge Report: Helen Thomas calls Zinsmeister "contemptible."

Tribune Settles Newsday, Hoy False Circ Charges (Nieman Foundation)
Federal regulators charged big media group Tribune Co. with reporting falsified circulation figures for two of its newspapers in New York as it settled the case without a fine. The settlement comes as nine former employees and contractors of the two papers have now pleaded guilty to criminal charges.

2006-2007 Nieman Fellows Announced (Nieman Foundation)
Established in 1938, the Nieman program is the oldest midcareer fellowship for journalists in the world. The fellowships are awarded to working journalists of accomplishment and promise for an academic year of study at the university.

Couric May Opt for New Look on CBS (NY Sun)
New York stylists surmise that Katie Couric will cultivate a more serious image in line with her new gig as anchor of the CBS Evening News. She may trade her bolder outfits and hairstyles for tailored suits, classic pumps, pearl jewelry, stay-in-place hair, and matte makeup, observers say.

Tribune Co. Plans to Buy Back Shares (WSJ)
"Probably lurking somewhere in the background is that this would help them, should there ever be a tender offer or pressure from institutional investors to put the company up for sale," said John Morton, a newspaper analyst and president of Morton Research Inc. NYT: The company said it would buy back up to 75 million shares of its common stock.

Moonves Seeks to Make Showtime More 'Commercial' (Mediaweek)
CBS Corp. CEO Leslie Moonves said he's going to shake things up at Showtime, because the premium network isn't delivering nearly enough eyeballs. Moonves said the cable net needed to take a page out of HBO's book, programming to large audiences and not television critics.

NYDN Boots Longtime Exec (NYP)
Ira Ellenthal, most recently the executive VP, associate publisher of the Daily News, is out. Earlier, he had been the CEO and group publisher of Mort Zuckerman-owned mags that included U.S. News & World Report, which Zuckerman still owns, and Atlantic Monthly and Fast Company.

TV News Plays Gender Favorites (NYO)
Rebecca Dana: Executives and senior-level producers from all three old-line networks say that the news operations are hungry for stories that play to women — and for the women who can produce them. That's because, paternal anchormen aside, news is women's programming.

PNI's New Owners Deserve Some Scrutiny (Broad Street Review)
Dan Rottenberg: The Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News have been acquired by a syndicate of local business executives and civic boosters. Is this really cause for celebration, as the two newspapers and their new owners would have us believe?

New Lifetime Sitcom All About One Advertiser (NYT)
The cable network has flirted with product integration but has never incorporated it so heavily in a show. Lifetime's deal with Perfectmatch.com extends not just for one episode, which is often the case, but for the entire 13-episode run of Lovespring International.

Former RS Publisher DeLuca Named Associate Publisher At Maxim (FishbowlNY)
Steven DeLuca, you'll recall, allegedly exited Wenner Media after a spat with Jann Wenner over plans for Rolling Stone's 1000th issue party. WWD: DeLuca has climbed back on, albeit at a lower rung than before.

NYT Flips Over Identity Theft (Slate)
Jack Shafer: I don't mean to imply that the Times is fantasizing about tech-savvy meth-heads surfing the Web for financial information. But the paper hypes the prevalence of ID theft completely out of proportion.

Did Madonna Opt for Crucifixion Instead of Reading Shock? (AdAge)
Simon Dumenco: A lot of you balked at the most recent Media Guy Media Studies test, with its in-depth essay questions — and, frankly, I was shocked at how many of you simply copied and pasted answers from Wikipedia. So, screw it. I'm going back to the multiple-choice pop-quiz format.

The Devil Goes Gaga (NYO)
Anna Wintour was not pleased with what she saw on the cover. The Vogue editor is famously choosy about her covers, but this was someone else's: the front page of the May 3 Women's Wear Daily.

Remnick: Reporter on the Side (Metro NY)
"I would never keep writing — to the degree that I do do it, which is not that much — if I thought it would hurt the magazine," New Yorker editor David Remnick tells Amy Benfer. "Some people do this — editing — and play the piano. Or they have a rich social life. Or they study Greek. Reporting is what I do."