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Newspapers Thinning, Rethinking (NYT)
Newspapers are in an identity crisis as they try to come to grips with fundamental changes in the industry and society that are significantly curbing their growth. LAT: Newspaper people across the country have descended into a collective funk over a run of bad news in recent weeks.

All the News That's Fit to Dis (BusinessWeek)
Jon Fine: New York Times editor Bill Keller has been taking shots at rival news organizations. One topic he wouldn't explore: Reporter Judith Miller and her role in the ongoing Plamegate probe. E&P: The case of Miller's missing notebook. AP via Yahoo!: Miller discovered the notes—about a June 2003 conversation she had with Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby—after her testimony before the grand jury.

Seventeen, MTV Join for Reality Show (NYT)
Atoosa Rubenstein, the editor in chief of Seventeen, will be the host of the show, Miss Seventeen. She created it based on the magazine's longstanding annual model search contest.

Al-Jaz Welcomes Frost (WaPo)
Al-Jazeera, which is launching an English-language network with Washington as a major hub, has landed its first big-name Western journalist: David Frost. And the veteran BBC interviewer says he's perfectly comfortable with the unlikely marriage.

ABC Scandals Prompt Mag Office Politics (WWD)
After 14 years on the Audit Bureau of Circulations' board, Peter Armour, senior vice president of consumer marketing for Condé Nast Publications, faces a challenge for his seat at next month's annual meeting.

Fox, MLB Discuss New Cable Sports Net (Mediaweek)
The new network would not only air a package of MLB games, the partnership also would be contingent on Fox getting the TV rights to air the National Football League's new Thursday-Saturday night prime-time package.

Reality Bubble Bursting? (NYT)
As a new television season begins, some industry executives are whispering a question: Is the reality boom over, or at least in decline?

Man Arrested for Allowing Soldiers to Post War Pics on Web (Orlando Sentinel via Freep)
Authorities have arrested a Lakeland, Fla., man on obscenity charges after investigating his adult website, which has gained international attention for allegedly allowing U.S. soldiers to post pictures of war dead on the Internet.

Newsroom Samizdat (The Atlantic)
Alex Beam: There is a lot of unpublished underground material (samizdat) circulating around newsrooms. You just have to know where to look.

ABC Replaces Commander in Chief Chief
(Hollywood Reporter)
Veteran producer Steven Bochco has been recruited to take the reins of ABC's promising freshman drama, which stars Geena Davis as the first female president of the United States.

Spinning Small Ratings (Variety)
Brian Lowry: The major networks increasingly wake up to numbers that aren't far removed from cable, which has already muddied the discourse surrounding ratings.

Time to End the Martha-thon? (NYP)
Christopher Byron: Since mid-September investors in Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia have lost close to $600 million, and more such losses are on the way, as air once again begins seeping from the domestic diva's balloon.

What Capote Got Right (Slate)
Daphne Merkin: Capote has been justly praised on many fronts. But perhaps the most striking aspect of the movie is how assured it is for a novice effort.

A Smirk in Progress (WaPo)
Howard Kurtz: With his promotion to anchor, Stephen Colbert says he will draw from the "dazzling hubris" of Bill O'Reilly, along with Sean Hannity and Joe Scarborough, plus "the folksiness of Aaron Brown, the way he mulls the news and loves to chew the words."

Inside Rathergate (New York Mag)
Dan Rather's future on CBS News certainly looks less than assured, just as the updated paperback edition of David Blum's 60 Minutes tell-all, Tick...Tick...Tick..., hits stores this week.

Finally, a Mag for Lady Winos (Slate)
July saw the debut of Wine Adventure, a magazine hoping to attract women wine buffs supposedly alienated by the testosterone-driven coverage in other wine journals.

Big Media Quick to Stake a Claim in Podcasting
(WSJ)
Bruised by earlier failures to embrace new technologies, big media companies are rushing into the two-year-old field of podcasting—audio programs for downloading onto computers or portable music players.

USN&WR Bets Big on Internet as Savior
(Washingtonian)
The perennial third among the newsmagazines is trying to become the first to exploit the Internet. It's also trying to be among the first of the mainstream media outlets to hitch its fortunes to the shaky engine of web economics.

French Fur Foes Pie Wintour (Reuters via Yahoo!)
French anti-fur activists said they struck Anna Wintour, editor of the U.S. edition of Vogue, in the face with a cream pie on Saturday to protest against her support for the use of animal fur by the fashion industry.

David Lee Roth Steps in For Stern (FoxNews)
David Lee Roth, former singer for Van Halen, will take Howard Stern's slot in several east cost markets, including New York.

—David S. Hirschman

IN FRIDAY'S MB BLOGS:

Terror Threats: MSNBC's Countdown Counts Thirteen Coincidences [TVNewser]
As noted below, the mainstream media as a whole has not acted sufficiently skeptical about the timing of the latest terror alert. But on last night's Countdown, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann did his part to question the NYC subway threat. "Keith said that his staff found 13 circumstances when a brand new terror alert "just happened" to come at a time when there was trouble in the administration," an emailer says.

Where's Judy? [FishbowlDC]
October 2: Howard Kurtz on Reliable Sources. KURTZ: I was hoping I would wake up this morning and see in my New York Times and read a 5,000-word piece by Judith Miller telling us everything that was involved. She has no more legal liability here. Matt Cooper did it. No piece in the paper today. One week later, still no piece

A bold story on CNN, whisked quickly off the homepage [FishbowlNY]
Today CNN is was running a story by Anderson Cooper front and center on the website. I started this last night and made that change right now after checking back to be sure. The story is a reprint of Anderson's very personal September 2003 article in Details about the suicide of his brother, Carter, and his own painful personal flashbacks set against scenes of grief and devastation from his travels.

LAT [hearts] Weinsteins, Weinsteins [heart] LAT [FishbowlLA]
Variety's Jonathan Bing looks at the free full-page ad the LAT gave The Weinstein Company last week as a house-warming gift-- the kind of ad space that usually costs around $50,000.

No Dark Sarcasm in the Classroom! [GalleyCat]
The more I heard about G.P. Taylor's cheeky language, the more I wondered what Barry Yourgrau, whose NASTYbook succeeds by giving kids just that kind of irreverent grossness, would make of the situation. So I shot him an email and asked him, and he was kind enough to tear himself away from a deadline to answer.

Chuck Close Also Likes Two Columbus Circle [UnBeige]
The staunchest famous supporter of the fight for continued lollipops at Two Columbus Circle has up until now been Tom "I am Interested in Architecture" Wolfe. But today we were given a letter by the founder of Landmark West! (the exclamation mark was still not thoroughly explained, but Milton Glaser had something to do with designing the brand identity) written by Chuck Close and undersigned by people from Vincent "Don't Call Me Dana" Scully...to Alan "We're Over This Trope" Wanzenberg.

NearNaNoWriMo [mbToolbox]
Gear up: National Novel Writing Month is not far away. Can you generate a novel in a month? Why not?