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Rupe Shells Out for Intermix (NYT)
Asked if spending $580 million for a web company whose chief asset, MySpace.com, was created only two years ago gave him pause, News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch said: "You bet." BusinessWeek: By buying Intermix and its runaway hit social-networking site, the media conglomerate gains on the Internet giants.

Fast Company Byrned (Folio:)
Calling it the "one job I couldn't pass up," Fast Company editor-in-chief John Byrne announced he is leaving the magazine to take the executive editor post at BusinessWeek. NYT: The move is part of a broader reorganization that BusinessWeek made public yesterday. NYP: Move means that Byrne will be the main day-to-day guy at BW. Gawker: Byrne exit due to FC softball shellacking?

Howard's End (LAT via Newsday)
Howard Stern, who is leaving terrestrial radio for satellite, revealed that comedian Adam Carolla and ex-rocker David Lee Roth will take over his popular morning time slot.

Bush: I'd Fire Any Staffer 'Who Committed a Crime' (NYT)
Until the president spoke Monday, it was unclear whether he would wait for final legal judgments to take action against any member of his administration involved in the leak. WSJ: A classified State Department memo made clear that information identifying Valerie Plame and her role in her husband's intelligence-gathering mission was sensitive and shouldn't be shared. ABC News: Only 25 percent think the White House is "cooperating fully" with leak probe. AdAge: Simon Dumenco on the unraveling of a White House press secretary. E&P: Judith Miller is enduring stomach problems from jail food. WaPo: Rove leak is "trickle-down journalism," writes Art Buchwald. VV: If anything mitigates the severity of Norman Pearlstine's blunder, it's the fact that he's not the first corporate news director to have crumbled in the face of financial pressure, writes John Giuffo. Marketwatch: Kelly tries to boost spirits at Time. AP viaSFC: Media shield bill would exempt security issues.

TiVo: Watch Ads (AP via AOL)
Digital video-recording company TiVo Inc., famous for helping customers skip commercials, has announced plans to insert symbols that identify advertisers during commercial breaks. Reuters via NYT: TiVo will now give advertisers direct access to viewers who are interested in their products.

CNN Scrapping Two Weekend Biz Shows (NYDN)
Dolans Unscripted and The Turnaround, both of which air on Saturday mornings, will reportedly be history in a matter of weeks—and won't be replaced with business programs.

Essence Hires Burt-Murray as Ed (Mediaweek)
Angela Burt-Murray, most recently executive editor of Time Inc.'s Teen People, has been named editor in chief of sister publication Essence, a lifestyle monthly for African-American women.

CBS Renews Grammys Deal (Reuters)
The network has signed an extension of its contract to broadcast the Grammy Awards, in a deal that keeps the annual show at CBS through 2011. No financial terms of the renewal were disclosed.

Fair America (LAT)
Former Vice President Al Gore, co-founder of a new television channel launching next month, said he's shunning politics—and so is his media venture.

TV News Outlets Revamp Web Presence (WSJ)
News outlets are offering plentiful free video news stories on demand to surfers as part of an effort to cash in on booming Web use.

The Decline and Fall of Journalists on Film (NYT)
With tabloid journalism and reality television bleeding into each other, and with magazine programs indistinguishable from entertainment, films simply assume that slime is a reporter's middle name.

Hollywood Shuffle (WSJ)
Yahoo! Inc.'s media group's decision to move to Los Angeles has caused several division heads to either to leave the company or opt against relocating to the West Coast.

Craig's List Market Share Way Up (Red Herring)
The locally focused clearinghouse for online listings has long been touted as a replacement for one of newspapers' main revenue sources: classified ads.

Bloggers Ready to Take Aim at Supreme Court Nominee (USAT)
Peter Johnson: No matter whom President Bush nominates to replace Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and William Rehnquist on the Supreme Court, nominees are going to be fair game for bloggers.

Aching Time Warner Looks to Revamped AOL (Reuters via CNN)
Time Warner Inc.'s stock performance rests heavily on the prospects of America Online, the web unit that was once the scourge of the world's largest media company and is now seen as its saving grace. FT: Time Inc. close to Mexican acquisition.

Guardian Stands By Journo Linked to Extremist Group (Brand Republic)
Writer Dilpazier Aslam has been linked to a radical Islamic organization, which is known to promote anti-Semitic hatred and praises suicide bombers as martyrs, and the paper is refusing to fire him.

Hackneyed Punditry (Reason)
Matt Welch: Thomas Friedman has fashioned a career out of locating or inventing a crude symbolic shorthand and cliches to explain and even popularize complex international phenomena.

Scientists Develop 'Newspaper of the Future' (Scotsman)
Just like millions of consumers who currently download music, many more could end up downloading newspapers and books to a screen small enough to fit in a pocket or handbag.

—David S. Hirschman

IN YESTERDAY'S MB BLOGS:

CNN Stands by Robert Novak [TVNewser]
The first question for Jon Klein and Jim Walton at the TCA press tour yesterday was simple: "Why does Robert Novak continue to be employed by CNN?"

McClellan's Credibility Problem [FishbowlDC]
Writing in the Washington City Paper, Eric Wemple fills in some more details on a story that we first reported two weeks ago: Mainly that Bob Woodward's allegiance to the Washington Post is grating on some of the ink-stained wretches he shares office space with.

WSJ: "Some People are Just Into Lavish Dwarf Entertainment" [FishbowlNY]
Some people ARE just into lavish dwarf entertainment—and the Wall Street Journal is there for them. Today, smack dab on the front page, is a story about a Fidelty trader's rollicking bachelor party, complete with hookers and dwarves—and today, smack dab on the front page, the WSJ helpfully provides the URL where you, too, can rent dwarves for your very own party! (www.shortdwarf.com, Wolcott). Now that's service journalism!

Paparazzi vs. Paparazzi [FishbowlLA]
Turns out that the Lohans, Clooneys et. al. who have lately been complaining about being stalked by paparazzi are but victims of collateral damage in the intensifying internecine struggle within the celebrity photography industry. So says the NYT.

The DC Logo Really Sucks [UnBeige]
We're no Cayce Pollard, but the kids at apocalyptek seem to be riding the logo aversion train just fine on their own. They've got a short history of the DC Comics logo, which started out as DC in a circle in 1941 and ended up DC in an oval in 2005. Ah, progress.

Potter Numbers, a Retrospective [GalleyCat]
* The new Harry Potter's print run is "10m in the United States," "the biggest first printing of any book, ever."
* "The previous volume, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, was the fastest-selling book in history, shifting more than 5m copies in a single day."
* "Rowling already earns more than any other woman in Britain, bringing in something close to 100m [pounds] a year."

Don't Get Copied [MBToolBox]
A topic I see come up on freelance discussion boards is whether editors steal ideas from freelancers, or if freelancers are mostly just paranoid and that their ideas aren't as unique as they think they are. I can't say, but plagiarism does exist. Michael Southon explores the definition of plagiarism in this article and what exactly you can do if you think you've been plagiarized. As for tips on how to plagiarize without getting caught, well, check with your local sneaky high school student.