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The Summer of Lost Network TV Viewers (LAT)
The losses were good news for basic cable, which increased its share of the prime-time audience to a record high of 61 percent, up four percentage points from last year. USAT: Too many networks gave us too much of the same thing, as everyone from ABC to VH1 clogged the airwaves with variations on The Apprentice and The Osbournes, writes Robert Bianco.

Lost Stolen? (Hollywood Reporter via Reuters)
Los Angeles writer Anthony Spinner has sued ABC and producer Touchstone Television for allegedly appropriating his 1977 television concept Lost for the network's current hit.

D.C. Radio Station Cans Host Over Anti-Muslim Remarks (WaPo)
WMAL-AM fired talk-show host Michael Graham yesterday after he refused to soften his description of Islam as "a terrorist organization" on the air last month.

Punchin' Judy (LAT)
Robert Scheer: Rather than a story about a martyr to the cause of journalistic ethics, reporter Judith Miller's saga is a depressing example of how far Big Media has moved away from its journalistic ideals. Huffington Post: Times returns to Chalabi "addiction," writes Arianna Huffington.

Comcast/OLN Eying ESPN's MLB Rights (Mediaweek)
Like a hungry shark circling its prey, Comcast and its Outdoor Life Network, now referred to as OLN, is continuing its low-key but determined move to take a bite out of cable sports kingpin ESPN.

Reality Fair? (WWD)
The president of Conde Nast's media group is interested in a TV series built around one of the company's brands. "I think it could be interesting, given what goes on in this building," he said.

Dispute Over Money for Sex (Radar)
Candace Bushnell and her ex-manager Clifford Streit are suddenly at each other's throats. Streit is seeking 10 percent of Bushnell's take from the syndication of Sex in the City.

Time for Press to Call for Iraq Withdrawal? (E&P)
Greg Mitchell: It's time for newspapers—many of which helped get us into the war—to use their editorial pages to help get us out of it. So far, few have done much more than wring their hands.

Money Men Face Off Over Euro TV Deal (NYP)
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and another private equity firm have acquired SBS Broadcasting, the second-largest broadcaster in Europe, to challenge Ronald Lauder's Central European Media Enterprises.

Fans Rally for Doomed Alias Star (Page Six)
Devotees of the handsome Michael Vartan believe his character, Vaughn, is doomed now that his former girlfriend Jennifer Garner, the show's leading star, is married to Ben Affleck and pregnant.

Emmis Sells 9 TV Stations (Indianapolis Star)
Emmis Communications Corp. has agreed to sell nine of its 16 television stations for $681 million—a big step in a larger strategy to eliminate debt and fine-tune its business for radio.

No Warmth From the Sun (WaPo)
The Baltimore Sun dismissed columnist Jules Witcover, a Washington fixture who wrote for the paper for 24 years, after cutting his salary and publishing him less often.

Report More, Take Credit Less (CJR Daily)
Gal Beckerman: Journalists love thinking that they can save lives, as in the recent crisis in Niger. But if the press arrived only after children began dying en masse, doesn't that mean that it failed?

Everyone's a Critic Reporter (B&C)
Allison Romano: A growing number of citizen journalists are exploiting the efficiency of cheap, portable gadgets and the instant speed and spread of publishing on the Internet.

Beeb Defends Controversial Muslim Film (Guardian)
The BBC has received 250 complaints about a documentary on the challenges faced by Muslims after the July 7 bombings. The film has been labeled "a complete travesty" by the Muslim Council of Britain.

Academic Libraries Go Digital (CSM)
A growing number of colleges and universities are rethinking and retooling their libraries to better serve students reared in a digital age. In some cases, this means emptying the stacks.

In Praise of Bret Easton Ellis (Slate)
Meghan O'Rourke: In the scolding Ellis has received for writing a "narcissistic" and childish novel, you can detect the curious fact that American critics still don't regard horror stories as serious.

Paparazzi Force Scarlett Johansson Into Collision (AP via Newsday)
Scarlett Johansson was involved in an accident trying to duck photographers who had tracked her to a Disneyland parking lot, clipping the right side of car carrying a woman and her two daughters.

Palestinians Release Abducted French Journo (Jerusalem Post)
Palestinian Authority security officials said that Mohammad Ouathi, a soundman for France 3 television, had been kidnapped by an alliance of various armed militias.

—David S. Hirschman

IN YESTERDAY'S MB BLOGS:

Bad Nielsen Numbers For NewsNight [TVNewser]
What happened to NewsNight on Friday? Aaron Brown was off, so Heidi Collins filled in. The show averaged some of its lowest ratings ever, with only 348,000 total viewers.

Inside Judy [FishbowlDC]
"Retired" CNN anchor Judy Woodruff comes under the microscope in Washingtonian's "Favorites" column this month: In it, we learn that she's a chocoholic, and a devotee of Vogue, W, and More magazines.

One Hundred Huffy Days [FishbowlNY]
Over at AdAge, Simon Dumenco notices that HuffPo has slid past its hundredth day into permanence, legitimacy, and - dare we say - agenda-setting. We noticed this as well, as we noted recently in our post about Arianna's full-fledged embrace of Cindy Sheehan and her mission.

Brad and Jen do end-run around the media [FishbowlLA]
I wonder why more celebrities don't do this. Justice reports that Brad and Jen are taking advantage of a California law which allows a mutually-consenting couple to hire a private judge to adjudicate their divorce agreement in a private meeting, thus keeping the press out of the hearing, and their personal and financial information out of the public court records. Pretty sneaky.

Marcel Wanders Likes Bunnies [UnBeige]
After just generally rocking and making his name one of the most weirdly ubiquitous designers although for some reason we can't ever quite peg him down in our rattled minds, Marcel Wanders has decided to team up with Holland Electro and design a line of quasi-reptilian- inspired home electronics.

Insert "Sideways" Reference Here [mbToolbox]
It's taken me months to work on this post. Why? Because there are exactly one gazillion places for you to publish wine writing, and I also know nothing about wine writing. So instead of me trying to come up with a halfhearted list of oenophile-related publications, I spoke to an expert, writer and Freelance Marketplace member Jim Clarke, about what he knows about writing about wine.