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NYT to Reduce Page Size, Close a Plant, Slash Jobs (NYT)
The New York Times is planning to make the newspaper narrower by one and a half inches, and to close its printing operation in Edison, N.J. The changes, to go into effect in April 2008, will be accompanied by a phased-in redesign of the paper and will mean the loss of 250 production-related jobs. NYO Media Mob: Full memos to staff from Times executive editor Bill Keller and president Scott Heekin-Canedy.

YouTube Hits 100M Videos Per Day (BBC)
The company is the leading net video download site in the U.S., with 29 percent of the country's multimedia market and almost 20 million monthly visitors. Last month 2.5 billion videos were watched on YouTube and its videos account for 60 percent of all videos watched online in the country. LAT: MySpace making room for advertisers. Public Eye: CBS' tumultuous relationship with YouTube has apparently turned a corner.

Bush Taps Ex-NBC Staffer for White House Communications Director Post (B&C)
Having picked Fox News' Tony Snow as spokesman, the White House is calling on another broadcaster to help get its message out. Kevin Sullivan, former senior VP of corporate communications and media relations for NBC Universal, has been named White House communications director.

Ex-Time Inc. EIC Norman Pearlstine to Join Carlyle Group (NYP)
Pearlstine, 63, who stepped down last year from the top editorial post at Time Inc. after 11 years but remained a senior adviser, will work on media deals. A Carlyle spokesman insisted Pearlstine's hiring "does not presage an existing deal. It's just an effort to bolster our media expertise."

Presidential Potty Mouth Has Blogs Atwitter (CJR Daily)
"Would someone please tell me why this is news?" Sly Squirrel is quoted as writing. "Amid all this political and war-torn turmoil, the strongest dirt the press can pull is 'Bush said a dirty word!'? ... I still don't give a shit that the president says shit, just as a majority of Americans are apt to do on occasion." FishbowlNY: Bush 'shit' utterance gives media editors pause, New York Times a potential watershed moment.

Joker Coulter: I Sent White Powder Letter to Times (WWD)
"So glad to hear that The New York Times got my letter and that your friend at the Times thinks I'm funny," Ann Coulter told Jacob Bernstein when asked if she felt responsible for a letter filled with suspicious white powder (that turned out to be corn starch) sent to the paper.

Foreign Editors Shuffle Staff to Deal With Israel-Lebanon Crisis (E&P)
With many newspapers already limited in their foreign coverage by the ongoing Iraq War, and some budget cutbacks, the current Middle East conflict has thrown a new wrench of staffing and news space demands. Public Eye: Mumbai bombings under-covered?

Oprah: I'm Not Gay (AP)
Oprah Winfrey and her friend Gayle King want to be clear: they're not gay. In the August issue of O, the Oprah Magazine, the talk-show host explains that some people misunderstand her close friendship with King.

Hard-Boiled Lit Legend Mickey Spillane Dies (WaPo)
His writing style was characterized by short words, lightning transitions, gruff sex and violent endings. It was once tallied that he offed 58 people in six novels. Spillane sold hundreds of millions of books during his lifetime and garnered consistently scathing reviews. Even his father called them "crud."

Has Novak Exonerated the Bushies? (Slate)
Christopher Hitchens: Robert Novak's column and his appearance on Meet the Press have dissolved any remaining doubt about the theory that the administration "outed" Valerie Plame as revenge for her husband's refusal to confirm the report that Iraqi officials had visited Niger in search of uranium.

Israel Detains Al-Jazeera Journo (AP via Newsday)
Police detained the Jerusalem bureau chief of the Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera for the second time in two days. Walid Al Omari was questioned for several hours about issues related to Israeli military censorship rules, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. He was released without being charged.

Will 2008 Election Spur Media Mergers? (Reuters)
Will the fear of potential change in control of the White House in 2008 spur mergers and acquisitions before then? That's the question some Washington watchers and bankers are considering as they look beyond this fall's congressional elections to the next presidential contest.

Viacom to Buy The Onion? (Eat the Press)
Unconfirmed rumor: the media giant is close to buying the humor newspaper and site. Viacom has also been rumored to have been interested in CollegeHumor.com, which may be the subject of a major investment by Barry Diller's InterActiveCorp.

NYP's Holly Sanders on the Ad Biz Beat (PR Week)
"Whether you love the Post or you hate it, for whatever reason you might have — because you like tabloids, you hate tabloids, maybe you don't like the political perspective in the Op-Ed pages — I do think, that in some ways, it is a really good reporter's paper," says Sanders of her employer.

LAT Cuts Back on Hockey (LA Observed)
L.A. Times beat writers will no longer routinely cover road trips of the Kings and Ducks, sports editor Randy Harvey says. Pucks have always been less popular than balls within the Times staff, but this marks a pretty sharp swerve in the road.