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Famous Last Words From Zucker?: Couric Poses No Threat (USAT)
Just two weeks after CBS Evening News-bound Katie Couric said a tearful goodbye to NBC's Today, her old boss, Jeff Zucker now sings the praises of her successor, Meredith Vieira, and predicts that Brian Williams, anchor of top-rated NBC Nightly News, has no worries going toe-to-toe with Couric at night.

DeNiro and Co. Close in on New York Observer (NY Mag)
Kurt Andersen: If the deal doesn't happen, there's apparently at least one fallback buyer, a well-known local billionaire ready to write a big check. But mightn't the Observer also go the way of other much-loved, undercapitalized New York weeklies, such as the Soho Weekly News and 7 Days?

Reporter Evictions Raise Tension Level at Gitmo (NYT)
Journalists have complained that they are banned from interviewing detainees, that their movements around the base are tightly controlled and that they receive little information from public affairs personnel.

Former NBC Producer Defects to CBS (Hollywood Reporter via Reuters)
CBS News has hired away from rival NBC a producer who has worked closely with Katie Couric to redesign the look for the CBS Evening News when Couric starts on the air in September. Bob Peterson joins CBS News as creative director, effective immediately.

Time Inc. CFO Was High-End Hooker's 'Sugar Daddy' (NYP)
An alleged high-end madam claims that Time Warner's top financial officer was her "sugar daddy" — showering her with gifts, clothes, cash and even helping her buy an apartment. "I liked him very much," Brazilian babe Andrea Schwartz said of Wayne Pace, who made $3.7 million last year.

Dan Rather's Sad Look Back (NYT)
Rather, who will soon leave CBS, is seriously mulling a new venture that, at least initially, relatively few viewers would be able to see: he would develop and be the host of a weekly interview program on a high-definition television channel known as HDNet. The offer came directly from Mark Cuban.

Okrent Memoir 'Represents a Force for Better Journalism' (NYT)
Sir Harold Evans: Reporters, columnists and editors who suffered the lash from Daniel Okrent, the first public editor at the New York Times, must have felt, in Lenin's phrase, that he supported the newspaper as a rope supports a hanging man.

Newspaper Clients, and Syndicate, Stick With Coulter (E&P)
Ann Coulter hasn't lost any of her 100-plus newspaper clients, or the support of her syndicate despite her nasty remarks in her new book about 9/11 widows and her comment in an online interview implying that, perhaps, U.S. Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) should be "fragged."

Local CBS News Streamed on Cell Phones (Mediaweek)
A group of 25 TV stations, and WRAL, Capitol Broadcasting Corp.'s CBS affiliate in Raleigh, N.C., have begun to offer video newscasts on phones through a new service called "My Local TV," available to Sprint Power Vision subscribers at $4.95 a month.

Matt Lauer's Sensitive Touch (LAT)
Elena Howe: It became apparent watching him gently quiz Britney Spears on Dateline Thursday night that he might just have a soft spot for the pop princess. Lauer has certainly taken on his share of outspoken guests without flinching. But with Britney, he was all charm.

Shock Fights for Shelf Life (NYP)
The magazine, which is being pulled by Borders and Rite Aid, is taking the unusual step of writing to its major retail and distribution partners, urging them not to buckle to what it sees as censorship campaign by a blogging photographer.

Slate Turns 10 (Slate)
Jacob Weisberg: In the last decade, Slate has gone from fairly well-kept secret to near-household name, with a monthly audience that has risen from the thousands to the millions. Yet our readers persist in regarding us as that great little restaurant that hasn't been discovered yet. That's fine by us.

Radio Stations, Arbitron Clash Over How to Tally Listeners (WSJ)
Arbitron says the People Meter is ready to go, but clients have concerns about the devices and radio companies have gotten the audience measuring company to hold off on a launch until the devices are accredited by an industry association, which will not likely come before next fall. WSJ: The rise of satellite radio could mean your baseball team is harder to find on the airwaves. Just ask fans of the St. Louis Cardinals. NYP: Sirius may see profits sooner than expected.

Taking the Wiki Out of Wikipedia (NYT)
Wikipedia's come-one, come-all invitation to write and edit articles, and the surprisingly successful results, have captured the public imagination. But it is not the experiment in freewheeling collective creativity it might seem to be. Maintaining so much openness inevitably involves some tradeoffs.

Zen and the Art of Classified Advertising (WSJ)
One industry analyst estimates that Craigslist could generate 20 times its $25 million annual revenue just by posting a couple of ads on each of its pages. If the estimate is to be believed, that's half a billion dollars a year being left on the table. What kind of company turns up its nose at $500 million?

Critics' Pans Less Important (WSJ)
The early success of John Updike's Terrorist reinforces a growing sense among publishing houses — and movie studios — that critical acclaim, or derision, seems to matter less and less these days.

Reporter: My Unwitting Role in the Rove 'Scoop' (WaPo)
Joe Lauria: These days it is about the reporter, not the story; the actor, not the play; the athlete, not the game. John Leopold is a product of a narcissistic culture that has not stopped at journalism's door, a culture facilitated and expanded by the Internet.

Tribune 'Fitfully Blending Papers and TV' (NYT)
While the entire media landscape is in turmoil, the Tribune properties in Los Angeles and New York have fared particularly poorly. Circulation is down, below the industry standards at both the Los Angeles Times and Newsday; at KTLA and WPIX, viewers have declined and audience share is down.

Some Sites Off Limits, Even in a Newsroom (NYT)
"It just seemed odd that the class of people that we rely on for our information have less Internet freedom than a citizen in China," said Bennett Haselton, the founder of Peacefire.org. "They can't necessarily do their job if a third party is deciding what they can see."

Documentaries Feeding Appetites for Undercovered News (NYT)
David Carr: The current surge in politically inflected documentaries seems like a mashed-up, digital version of the 1960's, when books like Silent Spring, Unsafe at Any Speed and The Other America came out of nowhere to define public debate.

A Push Toward Private Control of Newspapers (WaPo)
After two decades of circulation decline that have led to strife in boardrooms, some of the very precepts that stabilized the business — newspapers should be owned by publicly held companies, local ownership is limiting, and bigger is better — are being repudiated.

Laurel Touby 'Kills Them With Kindness' (NY Sun)
"My parties are not about me — they are about my guests," the founder and chief executive officer of mediabistro.com said, adding that the business is "definitely not" about networking. "I give parties so that like-minded people can meet one another, exchange views and news, and take things from there."