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Amid Flooding, Journos Turn to Web (NYT)
With their offices and presses flooded, news media outlets in New Orleans mostly abandoned newsprint and television and set up shop online. The Nation: Rush Limbaugh calls storm 'Hurricane Katrina vanden Heuvel.' E&P: In the past year, the New Orleans Times-Picayune had repeatedly cited the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane-and-flood-control dollars. USAT: Reporters can't distance themselves from the story with Katrina. Marketwatch: Despite their ample resources, the irony is that the disaster coverage on one network often looked and sounded the same as any other, writes Jon Friedman. WSJ: Times-Picayune is living its own prophecy. AJC: Katrina posed a difficult and sometimes unprecedented challenge for news-gatherers this week. PDN: Katrina is a test of preparedness for photogs.

Cargo Room for Ford (WWD)
The final link in a chain of publisher changes snapped into place when Condé Nast named Lance Ford as the new vice president and publisher of Cargo.

Icahn May Seek to Increase Time Warner Stake (WSJ)
A group led by New York financier Carl Icahn is considering making a tender offer to buy as much as 10 percent of Time Warner Inc., hoping to put more pressure on the media conglomerate.

CBS Launches 'Nonbudsman' Blog (AP via Charlotte Observer)
The network is starting its own blog, Public Eye, that will wade into controversies on how CBS covers the news. Vaughn Ververs has been hired to become the internal watchdog beginning in September.

Technology Review Publisher Stepping Down (AP via BusinessWeek)
The technology magazine affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has named a new publisher and will expand its Internet presence while reducing publication of its print edition.

LAT's Drama-Critic Drama (LA Weekly)
Nikki Finke: After a hiatus that began at the end of 2001, the paper announced the selection of its new point person on the theater beat: Charles McNulty, a senior editor at The Village Voice.

Bob Greene Joining 'Project Klebnikov' (U.S. News)
The Newsday journalist who led the 1970s investigation into the car bombing of an Arizona Republic reporter joins a team of reporters probing the murder of the editor of Russia's Forbes.

Diddy Didn't Do It (B&C)
Nielsen Media reports that the audience for MTV's Video Music Awards—hosted by rapper and producer Diddy—plunged 22 percent from the previous year, averaging 8 million total viewers.

Martha's Corporate Rehab (WaPo)
Martha Stewart's version of The Apprentice is the biggest, and perhaps the riskiest, element in one of the most audacious image-rehabilitation campaigns in recent corporate history.

Job Posting (NYT)
Anonymous Lawyer Jeremy Blachman: Weblogs are worth protecting. It used to be that if you wanted to know what it was like to work for a law firm or a beauty magazine, you had to have a friend on the inside. But now that everyone can publish online, we can get these incredible glimpses into worlds we might otherwise never get to see.

Penthouse Sues Gooch for $4M (Bloomberg via NYP)
Penthouse Media Group Inc. is suing Bob Guccione, the founder of Penthouse magazine, to recover $4 million in cash, artwork and furniture it says he never returned to the company.

Insiders Buzzing About New Gotti Mag (NYP)
The daughter of the late Mafia don John Gotti has been talking up a new magazine, even though there are few concrete details about how she will get the new title together.

Publishers Betting on Poker Books (USAT)
They're doing it in Vegas, in family rooms, dorm rooms and senior centers across the country. And now the odds are growing that bookstores are going to get a bigger piece of the action.

Will Manly Men Read Vogue? (Newsday)
"We wanted to be as careful as we could to signal that this magazine is aimed at a different market," says editor Anna Wintour.

Spinning Tales (VV)
Syd Schanberg: Comparing Peter Galbraith quotes in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and others. Who's doing the distorting?

China Shrouds Jailing of Journalist in Secrecy (NYT)
For more than 11 months, Zhao Yan has been held in one of the darkest corners of China's legal system, accused of leaking state secrets to his employer, The New York Times.

Egyptians Test Press Freedom Ahead of Election (OJR)
The nascent Egyptian blogosphere seizes its freedom of the press opportunity, posting photos of police beating protesters and taking hard stances against Mubarak. But will their freedom last?

Australia Considering Sweeping Rules Change for Media (Sydney Morning Herald)
Telecommunications Minister Helen Coonan is considering a revamp of media ownership laws that would allow a single company to own newspapers, radio and television stations in the same market.

Korea Tightens Controls on Media (Korea Herald)
The government will make officials deny interviews, contributions and advertisements with news outlets which it regards as "repeatedly distorting facts and maliciously slandering policies."

—David S. Hirschman

IN YESTERDAY'S MB BLOGS:

Katrina: Where Are the Broadcast Nets? Part One [TVNewser]
"Where are the broadcast nets on Katrina? This seems much bigger than a 30-minute-a-day story," an e-mailer says.

Village Voice and New Times: Their Love is Real, Dammit [FishBowlNY]
After literally months of rumor and speculation - the kind that top Village Voice brass won't comment on, certainly - it's the kind of lede that must feel pretty good, even if the outcome sucks: "The Nation's two largest alternative newspaper publishers have been in intense negotiations over a merger that would create an 18-paper chain controlled to a significant extent by venture capitalists."

Karl as Mugatu [FishBowlDC]
Apparently Karl Rove is not only the puppeteer of White House policy but now wants to give Robin Givhan a run for her money as Washington's fashion critic.

A FishBowlLA experiment: Will Bert Fields Notice Me? [FishBowlLA]
As discussed yesterday, Defamer has now received two letters from Bert Fields regarding supposedly legally-questionable coverage of his client Tom Cruise. I've heard since then that Fields is, in the words of a well-placed source, 'carpet-bombing' publications, both on- and offline, with similar cease-and-desist missives. And frankly, I don't get much mail.

The Frustrations of Publicity [GalleyCat]
Independent publicist Susan Schwartzman has started blogging - probably the first in her profession to do so, to the best of my knowledge -- and describes some of the pitfalls that can flummox even the best of publicists.

For the Record [MBToolbox]
I've been having a harder time than I thought rounding up some tips on tracking down police/court records for your reporting uses, but that's in large part due to the fact that methods for acquiring these differ state to state. I asked an expert, reporter Tom Zoellner, for his tips on getting your hands on this material.

O.M.G. [Unbeige]
Back in the early days we brought you snippets from a discussion on intelligent design, or--pick your poison--Intelligent Design. Seems we weren't alone in our interest. But this is phenomenal. We have no more words, but trust us. You'll be glad you clicked.