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Watching Matt Drudge (New York Mag)
Drudge's notoriety has given way to something else: respect. This respect derives from the fact that so many journalists, political operatives, financiers — just about anyone in public life — consult his Web site several times a day to know what others are talking about. "This is America's bulletin board, and much more than that," NBC's Brian Williams said recently. "Matt Drudge is just about the most powerful journalist in America," said Pat Buchanan. That power is looming as the country readies for 2008.

Citidel Moves to Snag Imus (NYP)
Mel Karmazin taught Farid Suleman well — so well, in fact, that the Citadel Communications CEO's move to bring Don Imus back to the airwaves is torn straight from the teacher's manual. Now that Imus is a free agent after settling his lawsuit with CBS Radio, radio industry insiders and Wall Street analysts have installed Suleman as the front-runner to land the radio raconteur.

Russia to Charge 10 in Murder of Journalist Politkovskaya (Guardian)
Prosecutors have arrested 10 people and will soon charge them in connection with the killing of the Russian investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya, authorities said today. "We have made serious progress in the Politkovskaya murder investigation," the prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika, was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying.

South Park Creators Win Ad Sharing in Deal (NYT)
Matt Stone, Trey Parker and their bosses at Comedy Central are attempting to leapfrog to the vanguard of Hollywood's transition into Web. In a joint venture that involves millions in up-front cash and a 50-50 split of ad revenues, the network and the two creative partners have agreed to create a hub to spread South Park-related material across the Net, mobile platforms and video games.

Disney a Force to Be Reckoned With on Cable (NYP)
Disney is scoring major ratings and redrawing the competitive landscape of teen cable with its one-two punch of High School Musical 2 and Hannah Montana. Last week the tween network placed a whopping nine shows in the top 10 of the most popular programs on basic cable, as tracked by Nielsen. Mediaweek: High School Musical 2's record setting premiere, along with a timely consumer promotional campaign, have combined to propel Disney.com to new heights.

Looking Good at CNBC (Pretty, Too) (WaPo)
Howard Kurtz: NBC executives love the Erin Burnett buzz. "She's smart and driven and really cares, and that comes through in everything she does," says CNBC senior vice president Jonathan Wald. "She's not afraid to bring a strong point of view even if it's on Today or NBC Nightly News, where a strong point of view is not always encouraged."

Latinos No Longer a Niche Market for Nielsen (LAT)
Ratings giant Nielsen Media Research today plans to pull the plug on a separate service that it created 15 years ago to measure the size of Latino TV audiences. Latinos are now so important to the overall TV ratings picture that it would be misleading to relegate them to a separate system. AdAge: Nielsen says the number of TV households is up 1.3 percent.

Wikipedia Unmasked (Slate)
Virgil Griffith, a self-described "disruptive technologist" and future CalTech graduate student, has taken the 34,417,493 anonymous edits added to Wikipedia between February 2004 and August 2007 and correlated them with the IP addresses of hedge funds, law firms, media companies, the CIA and the rest of us. He dubbed the result Wikiscanner, and launched it two weeks ago.

MySpace May Lift Ban on Commerce (LAT)
MySpace bans commerce between its members because it doesn't want to jeopardize the corporate advertising that accounts for the vast majority of its profit. Allowing its members to promote their wares would only clutter up the place. But behind the scenes, the issue is being hotly discussed as top executives grapple with the imperative of squeezing more money out of the site.

Kid Nation Controversy Bringing Buzz (B&C)
Is all the heat generated by CBS' child-centric Kid Nation a case of be careful what you wish for, or exactly what network executives wanted? In recent years CBS brass bemoaned the lack of "buzz" surrounding the network despite drawing the most viewers of the big broadcasters. But this barrage of media attention has turned Kid Nation into the most-talked-about new show of the fall.

To Catch a Predator Is Falling Prey to Advertisers' Sensibilities (NYT)
The show's success underlines a growing problem for television executives looking to push the envelope of good taste in search of hits: how to pursue high ratings without alienating advertisers or provoking negative public opinion. In 2005, similar concerns prompted ABC to cancel a reality show in which conservative couples selected new neighbors from a pool of diverse contestants.

Ebert: No Ban on Thumb Reviews (AP via USAT)
Film critic Roger Ebert said he never gave a "thumbs down" to the use of thumbs in reviews for At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper during contract negotiations. Disney/ABC had said Ebert had "exercised his right to withhold use of the 'thumbs' until a new contract is signed," but the Pulitzer-winning critic responded on his Web site, saying he "had made it clear the 'thumbs' could remain during good-faith negotiations."

Did Zahn Spell Out Her Tryst in a Diary? (NYDN)
Paula Zahn's words of love are coming back to haunt her now that the newswoman's estranged husband has his hands on a diary that lays bare her secret affair with another tycoon. "It's Paula's love book," a source tells us. "It documents her tryst" with married ContiGroup CEO Paul Fribourg. What's in the private journal? "It's quite lurid," says the source. "Let's leave it at that."

A Flood of Emotions in a Katrina Comics Serial (LAT)
On Sunday, New York artist Neufeld posted online the sixth chapter of A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, an illustrated work of nonfiction storytelling that springs from the tradition of comic books but, like so many similar projects these days, is poorly served by the clunky term. Referring to A.D., or one of Joe Sacco's illustrated memoirs as a comic book, is a bit like calling Schindler's List a talkie.

Black and White and All Over? (The Age)
Rachel Buchanan: News is not black and white and "read all over" any more, but I still believe in newspapers and in newspaper journalism. These pages you are holding contain more than news and features. They are an inky artifact, a monument to the efforts of a trade, a profession, a type, whose time, I fear, is passing.