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Rather May Seek to Depose Bush in CBS Suit (Examiner)
Former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather choked back tears on several occasions yesterday when discussing his decision to file a lawsuit against CBS and he left many audience members with a sense that he may call President George W. Bush as a witness should the lawsuit proceed to trial (and Rather said he hoped it would). Salon: If the court accepts it, Rather's suit will become an extraordinary commission of inquiry into a major news organization's intimidation, complicity, and corruption under the Bush administration, writes Sidney Blumenthal.

Bill O'Reilly Says He's Being Smeared (AP)
Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly said Wednesday his critics took remarks he made about a famed Harlem restaurant out of context and "fabricated a racial controversy where none exists." He criticized the liberal group Media Matters for America as "smear merchants" for publicizing statements he made on his radio show last week. WaPo: "They're making it something that it isn't," he said in an interview by phone from New York. "Anyone who listens to the tape [of the radio show] and is fair-minded will tell you this was an intelligent conversation about race." HuffPo: Imus' "nappy-headed hos" remark was clear-cut, shocking racism with a hefty dash of sexism to chase. O'Reilly's comments were ignorant as hell and betrayed some preconceived notions, that's for sure, but if you read his comments in full, they read like "clueless white guy" rather than "deliberate racist," writes Rachel Sklar.

Nielsen Surprise: Network Ratings May Be Higher Than They Appear (WaPo)
One day into the new television season, all hell broke loose in Hollywood over a change in ratings calculations by Nielsen Media Research. With NBC taking advantage of a "new processing option" from the ratings service, the other networks are protesting. A regularly scheduled conference call between ABC execs and Nielsen suits turned into a shoutfest, while Fox fired off a strongly worded letter to the company. NYP: "I really believe in a few years that we will look at the one-night number as anachronistic," said Alan Wurtzel, NBC's head of research. "To some extent, this is an example of trying to reflect the reality of how people watch TV."

NBC Universal Bans Junk-Food Ads From More Kids Shows (AdAge)
NBC Universal is expanding a ban on ads promoting unhealthy food from its Qubo block of original children's programming to similar shows on the local stations it owns, putting more pressure on other networks to follow. The network announced that 26 owned-and-operated stations of NBC and Telemundo Networks would stop taking the ads effective June 1, 2008.

Nielsen to Triple Size of National People Meter TV Panel (Mediaweek)
Nielsen will triple the size of its national people meter TV ratings panel by 2011. The news comes less than a week after the research giant announced an aggressive roll out of local people meters beyond the top 25 markets to an additional 38 markets by the same date. Currently at 12,000 U.S. households and 35,000 people, the national ratings panel will increase to 37,000 households and 100,000 people.

How Hollywood Portrays Rupert Murdoch (Slate)
Jack Shafer: Liar, warmonger, cancerous tumor. Rupert Murdoch has been called this and worse on the way to building his $62 billion global media empire. Over the past two decades, Murdoch and the Murdoch persona have become cinematic shorthand for filmmakers in a hurry to depict opportunism, greed, vulgarity, and nastiness.

New Study Offers Surprising Numbers on Newspaper/Yahoo Deal (E&P)
Few hard numbers have emerged on the revenue benefits of the big newspaper partnership with Yahoo. But now Deutsche Bank analysts estimate the Yahoo consortium could push newspapers into positive revenue territory a year earlier than originally forecasted, with online gains of 40 percent.

Entertainment Shows Lure Networks (Variety)
NBC and ABC are teaming with Bill Condon and McG, respectively, on separate projects about young people trying to make it in New York's performing arts scene. ABC has given a series commitment to Limelight, an hourlong drama partly inspired by hip-hop producer Pharrell Williams. NBC, meanwhile, has ordered a script for a similar untitled project to be written by Robin Schiff.

Spies Prep Reporters on Protecting Secrets (NY Sun)
Frustrated by press leaks about its most sensitive electronic surveillance work, the secretive National Security Agency convened an unprecedented series of off-the-record "seminars" in recent years to teach reporters about the damage caused by such leaks and to discourage reporting that could interfere with the agency's mission to spy on America's enemies.

FCC to Challenge Profanity Decision in Supreme Court (B&C)
The Justice Department agreed to seek Supreme Court review of the Second Circuit court's smackdown of the Federal Communications Commission's crackdown on fleeting profanities. The FCC had found that so-called fleeting profanities uttered by Nicole Ritchie and Cher in two Fox Billboard Awards broadcasts were indecent. "When the petition is filed, we will respond in due course," said a Fox spokeswoman.

Hollywood PR Guru Passes Torch at Her Firm (LAT)
Pat Kingsley, the grande dame of Hollywood spin, is stepping down as chairwoman and chief executive of the public relations firm she led for nearly three decades. Kingsley's position at PMK/HBH will be assumed by partners Cindi Berger, who began her career as a receptionist in the firm's New York office 24 years ago, and Simon Halls, who was a founding partner of Huvane Baum Halls before it merged with PMK in 2001.

Anticipating Strike, Networks Stockpile Scripted Series (Hollywood Reporter)
The broadcast networks have stepped up the stockpiling of scripted series in face of a potential writers strike. ABC and NBC both handed out series orders Wednesday, three months ahead of the kickoff of the official pilot season in January.

A Reporter Exposes Fishy Stocks. His Boss, Mark Cuban, Trades on the Findings. (Wired)
Sharesleuth, a Web site run by investigative reporter Chris Carey, is funded by Mark Cuban, the infamous Broadcast.com founder and Dallas Mavericks owner. Cuban finances the site by shorting the stocks of the companies Carey investigates in his stories. And Cuban trades before Carey publishes.

Who Speaks for a Web Site? (OJR)
Robert Niles: Attributing a report that appears on a site like DailyKos to the site itself is a bit like attributing a CNN report as "cable television reported today..." Online communities often operate as a news medium, rather than a traditionally staffed news publication. Other news reports about these sites, to be fully accurate, should reflect that fact by citing the individual author of information found on the site.

Wallpaper Adding an Extra Issue (Guardian)
The design magazine will move to 12 issues a year after surfing the crest of a boom that has seen advertising hit record levels. From its launch in 1996 the international design and style journal published 10 issues a year. Earlier this year, it split its December/January issue, meaning it would come out 11 times a year. Now the mag will publish 12 issues a year from 2008 and split its June/July issue.