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LonelyGirl15 Mystery Solved! (NYT)
The woman who plays Lonelygirl15 on YouTube.com has been identified as Jessica Rose, a 20-ish resident of New Zealand and Los Angeles and a graduate of the New York Film Academy. And the whole project appears to be the early serialized version of what eventually will become a movie. LAT: "We did this with zero resources. Anybody could do what we did," one of the filmmakers said. The sum total of the equipment they used to create a sensation on the Internet, as well as perhaps the web's biggest homegrown mystery: "Two desk lamps (one broken), an open window and a $130 camera."

Time Inc. to Sell 18 Magazine Titles (WSJ)
Time is seeking to sell most of its Time4Media and Parenting titles. The magazines are expected to fetch in the neighborhood of $300 million, according to people familiar with the sale. Potential buyers include private-equity players such as Wind Point Partners, which owns Active Interest Media. NYP: Potential lookers are expected to include strategic buyers such as Condé Nast, Hearst, Rodale, Hachette Filipacchi and a slew of financial players.

Apple Unveils Online Movie Store (AP)
Apple has launched its long-awaited online movie service and showed off a device that will make it easier for consumers to watch the videos on television. The iTunes Music Store will initially carry movies only from the studios of The Walt Disney Co., where Apple CEO Steve Jobs is a board member. NYT: The iTV device places Apple squarely in the consumer electronics market and gives it a way to compete directly with Microsoft and PC industry giants like Dell and Hewlett-Packard.

Times Co. to Sell Broadcast Media Group, Shutter Real Estate Blog (FBNY)
The New York Times Co. is getting out of the TV business, putting its broadcast group — which includes nine network-affiliated television stations — up for sale. Editors at NYTimes.com also decided to finally pull the plug on its real estate blog The Walk-Through, which had not seen a post for over a month. NYT: Last year, the stations accounted for about 4 percent of the company's total revenue. The company said it expected the stations would have revenues this year of approximately $150 million and operating profit of about $33 million.

Times Studies How to Shake Feds: 'Act Like a Drug Dealer' (NYO)
A round of legal seminars on 43rd St. aims to help NYT staffers protect sources by using subterfuge like disposable phones and erasable notes. "The main worry these days is not libel, or proving that you actually quoted something accurately," said Craig Whitney, the paper's standards editor. "It is being subpoenaed."

Greenstone Launches All-Women Radio Talk Network (Reuters)
The radio company whose founders include social activist Gloria Steinem and actress Jane Fonda, has launched an all-women, all-talk network. Steinem said the network aims to provide an alternative to current radio talk, which she describes as "very argumentative, quite hostile, and very much male-dominated." FBNY: Steinem drew cheers from an appreciative audience that included the network's stars when she noted that radio had become "hostile, argumentative and humiliating. That's why women are fleeing radio."

They Came, They Saw, They Left: Couric Drops to 3rd in Ratings (AP via WaPo)
Katie Couric led the CBS Evening News to its first weekly ratings win in more than five years, but her honeymoon may be short — she slipped to third place on Monday. Couric's first evening-news broadcast, on Sept. 5, brought in nearly 13.6 million curious viewers. On Monday, Sept. 11, Couric's broadcast had 7.5 million.

Another Longtime NYDN Exec Gets the Ax as Staff Turnover Continues (NYP)
Owner Mort Zuckerman has fired Andrea Dove, the vice president of classified ads, who served the paper a lot longer than he has. Sources say she is contemplating an age-discrimination suit against the paper. The move is only the latest in a summer that has seen plenty of staff upheaval at the NYC daily.

Katie's Colonoscopist Hired as CBS On-Air MD (NYO)
Upper West Side gastroenterologist Jonathan LaPook officially joined the CBS payroll in August. Still a practicing physician and a member of the faculty at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, he is now also the medical correspondent for Katie Couric's CBS Evening News.

Girls Gone Wild Founder Pleads Guilty in Sex Exploitation Case (AP via USAT)
Joe Francis' Mantra Films Inc. made the plea in U.S. District Court in Florida on charges of failing to maintain proof of age and indentification for its young performers in sexually explicit films. It also failed to label its DVDs and videotapes properly as required by federal law.

Beijing's Crackdown Aims to Benefit Xinhua (WSJ)
Chinese news agency "Xinhua feels like it's losing its grip and its privileged revenue streams," says David Wolf, president of Wolf Group Asia Ltd., a Beijing-based consultancy. "In an ideal world, they'd love for Reuters and Bloomberg to go away. In the near-term, they'll be satisfied with control."

American Airlines Prepares to Pull Ads From ABC Over Path to 9/11 (AdWeek via Mediaweek)
American Airlines is prepared to pull its advertising from ABC in order to protest its portrayal in the network's recently aired movie The Path to 9/11, according to a source. The carrier also said it is considering legal action against the network.

The Challenge for Journalists to Understand Iran (CJR)
Bill Berkley: A proliferation of new books suggest that we don't know [Iran] as well as we ought to. At a time when Iran is routinely conflated in our public discourse with al Qaeda and even Nazism bent on genocide, a deeper and more nuanced impression of this seemingly intractable foe is long overdue.

Media Met the Challenge on 9/11 (Marketwatch)
Jon Friedman: On the much-discussed fifth anniversary of 9/11, the journalists' challenge was delicate and daunting: report the anniversary of the moving event without tugging too tightly on the nation's heartstrings and exploiting the audience's collective grief. I'm happy to say that the media rose to the occasion.

5 Years of Country Living's 'Come Home to Comfort' (MIN)
The magazine's "Come Home to Comfort" trade campaign was devised pre-9/11, but since September 11 comfort has been central to what CL VP/Publisher Steve Grune calls "the reprioritization of home, family, and community that none of us would have imagined. Our positioning was met with circumstance."