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Sam Champion To Good Morning America (TVNewser)
It's official: Sam Champion is the new weather anchor for Good Morning America. In addition to sharing the forecast, Champion will "contribute feature reports on the environment and weather-related issues" to GMA. He starts on Sept. 5, the same day as Chris Cuomo.

Still No News on Fox News Crew Kidnapping (Guardian)
The fate of Fox News' Steve Centanni and cameraman Olaf Wiig is still unknown, nine days after they were abducted. Steve Centanni and his cameraman, Olaf Wiig, were kidnapped by gunmen from their TV van on Monday August 14 near the Palestinian security services' headquarters in Gaza. UPDATE: Group releases video.

Jane to Aid in Deflowering of 29-Year-Old Virgin (Jane)
"Sarah believes that finding a nice, good-smelling tall guy she has chemistry with is just a numbers game. And that's something even non-virgins can relate to, right? If it's true, then we should be able to help. We all know cool guys. Lots of them. We want to hook her up with as many guys as possible." Lowdown: As for a medical exam to verify her claim, "I would be totally willing, I would be thrilled, actually — well, don't say 'thrilled.' Say I would be comfortable with that kind of evidence."

Al-Jazeera's Tricky Balancing Act (WaPo)
David Ignatius: Al-Jazeera has been attacked by American officials as a propaganda tool for Osama bin Laden and other Muslim radicals. As a journalist, I have often found its coverage unbalanced. That said, I was struck by how complicated it has become for the network to cover the Arab world. CJR Daily: Policy changes against polarizing language in news coverage at Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya represent a new chapter in the evolution of Arab journalism.

Hallmark Magazine Hits the Stands (WWD)
Hallmark hopes it can lure its audience out of the greeting-card aisle and into a new women's magazine, which launched on newsstands Tuesday with a cover price of $3.95. The bimonthly magazine is aimed at women in their late 30s or early 40s, and has an initial rate base of 400,000.

Sony to Purchase User-Contributed Online Video Site (NYT)
The deal marries one of the biggest and most powerful movie studios, which regularly spends more than $100 million on a film, with a Web site that provides free access to short and often inexpensively made videos on topics like pets, sports and music.

Reuters Fields 'Non-Specific Threat,' Gives Employees Option To Work From Home (FishbowlNY)
Reuters staffers were given the option to work from home yesterday after being told a "non-specific threat" was received. Sources say the threat was not directed at Reuters specifically, but that given the significance of the date — said to be a possible date of the London terror plot to blow up passenger planes headed towards the United States — the company felt it was appropriate to give employees the option to work remotely.

'Dean' Steve Shepard Welcomes First CUNY J-School Class (MIN)
The first 60 enrollees in the city's new journalism grad school begin the three-semester master's program Monday in the building that once housed the New York Herald-Tribune.

Brian Williams Prepares for Hurricane Katie (NYO)
Rebecca Dana: Williams is perhaps the last of the old-fashioned news anchors: the raffish cousin to Tom Brokaw's all-knowing father to Dan Rather's batty uncle to Walter Cronkite's saintly Pops. While Katie Couric is reinventing Cronkite's broadcast, Williams will be taking no risks this fall.

Coles Puts Her Stamp on Revamped Marie Claire (NY Sun)
Myrna Blyth: New editor Joanna Coles says one of her goals is to have "better writers for the features, and more seasoned, more sophisticated coverage of both foreign and domestic affairs." But do women want to read that type of reporting in a glossy magazine primarily about beauty and fashion?

Now Less Than Ever: Trend Pieces on the Way Out (NYO)
Michael Calderone: This summer, the Times ran 2,625 words on affairs between women and their contractors, 1,426 words on the spread of skull insignias in fashion, and 1,170 on the newfound hipness of drinking rosé.

Jill Carroll's Story: Part 8 (CSM)
"At least one of my guards — Abu Hassan, a serious man — wore a suicide vest. One night, he was leaning over a little gas-powered stove, cooking eggs and potatoes in oil, and then he sat back and pushed the open flame away, saying something like, 'Oh, have to be careful!'"

Did New Observer Owner Get Kush-y Ride Into Harvard, Grad School? (Gatecrasher)
"Jared [Kushner] was certainly not anywhere near the top of his class," said his own high-school college counselor. "It was an unusual choice for Harvard to make." But Jared Kushner's admission came on the heels of a $2.5 million pledge to the school from his father, reports a new book.

Anderson Cooper Defined Less by Experience Than by Marketing (Salon)
Neal Gabler: It is easy to make fun of CNN's sleek, prematurely gray-haired poster boy. The main knock against him is that he seems created out of whole cloth by a P.R. machine the way the old Hollywood studios once created stars through media campaigns.

Friedman: JonBenet Coverage Shames Journalism (Marketwatch)
Jon Friedman: No wonder people hate the media. We drop the ball again and again and yet we act baffled and indignant when polls come out saying that in the public's view, journalists are one cut above, say, sanitation workers. Then we blow it all over again with a story like JonBenet.

A Rough Guide To New York Times Endorsements (NYO)
Jerry Skurnick: The reason getting a Times endorsement matters to local politicians is that it is an "independent verifier." It's one of those trusted and politically independent institutions or persons that can ratify both a candidate's self-promotion and the denigration of his or her opponent.