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Fox Fires Sportscaster for Racially Insensitive Comment (AP)
Fox baseball broadcaster Steve Lyons has been fired for making a racially insensitive comment directed at colleague Lou Piniella's Hispanic heritage on the air during Game 3 of the American League championship series. He has been replaced for the remainder of the series by Los Angeles Angels announcer Jose Mota. Deadspin: Given his track record, I don't blame Fox for pulling the plug. B&C: Fox Sports announcer Joe Buck keeps several balls in the air.

A Bitter Pill for Murdoch? (WSJ)
News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch next week faces an unprecedented referendum on his leadership — and his family's long-term control of the media conglomerate. While there is little doubt investors would prefer Murdoch as chairman, he is 75, and the question of his succession is an issue for some investors. New York Mag: Righties worry Rupe's gone soft.

Yahoo to Offer Local CBS News Clips (AP)
Yahoo Inc. this week will begin showing news clips supplied by 16 CBS Corp. television stations, providing the Internet's most trafficked website with another online video magnet. Yahoo already shows national and international news from CBS' 60 Minutes as well as Walt Disney Co.'s ABC and Time Warner Inc.'s CNN.

PR Firm Sponsoring Development of Technorati in Other Languages (NYT)
The Edelman PR firm is sponsoring development of new Technorati sites in French, German, Italian, Korean and Chinese, involving an investment of "several hundred thousand dollars." Several of those services began operating in beta this month. Until February, they will be available exclusively to Edelman and its clients.

Politicians Experimenting With MySpace (WSJ)
Politicians across the country are discovering that a presence on social-networking sites such as MySpace isn't just a way of communicating with voters under 30, it is also a means of attracting volunteers and their donations.

My Life as a Gossip Columnist (LAT)
Lloyd Grove: I have learned, after nearly eight years of writing a daily column in both D.C. and N.Y.C., that gossip can be good for society — don't laugh — and can even, perish the thought, be legitimate journalism. All it takes, beyond being insanely competitive, is an honest heart, a keen eye, a strong stomach and a thick skin. Gawker: Grove will answer questions on Gawker today.

Howard Stern Reaches Out Over the Internet (Reuters via LAT)
Shock jock Howard Stern is out to attract a broad new online audience with his first-ever free Internet broadcast. Stern's four-hour-plus program will be made available live online at no charge for two days, October 25 and 26, to promote an Internet radio service Sirius Satellite Radio is launching this week.

As U.S. Is Reviled Abroad, American TV Charms (NYT)
In the parliaments and pubs of Europe, the United States may wallow in least-favored-nation status. But on European television, American shows have been enjoying a popularity not seen since the 1980's heyday of Dallas, Dynasty and The Dukes of Hazzard.

Old Media Comeback: The Book (WaPo)
Howard Kurtz: In an age of blogging, podcasting, BlackBerrying and instant messaging, an old-fashioned form of technology is making a comeback. It's called the book, a collection of pages, bound between hard covers, that generally takes at least two years to report, write, edit and publish, using the kind of presses that date to the 15th century.

Big Changes Ahead After GoogTube Deal (B&C)
Google's $1.6 billion deal last week for control of YouTube triggers an avalanche of questions, but one fact is indisputable: There's a new elephant in the control room. Given the ever increasing appeal of online video, and the need to translate this content into sales, Google-YouTube will impact every element of the industry. Mediaweek: Buyers closely eye Google's YouTube strategy. WSJ: Media titans pressure YouTube on copyrights. FishbowlNY: Google's Marissa Mayer: "I would watch any OKGO video uploaded on YouTube, ever."

Idiosyncratic and Personal, PC Edges TV (NYT)
David Carr: The threat isn't new media displacing old media as much as personalization. Media has become something people make, forward, link and program. The question remaining is how these old media industries will choose to react.

How Should a Newspaper Crawl Back After Going Out on a Limb? (Slate)
When a newspaper is instrumental in shaping the press coverage of a news topic, and it turns out to have botched the story on several levels, an explicit course correction would benefit everybody. So, why are newspapers so hesitant to acknowledge their flawed work? Among other things, no journalist ever got a raise for saying, "I got it wrong."

Times Style Critic Unfashionably Wrong (WWD)
New York Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn wrote of the Nicole Miller show that she "was sure [she] had witnessed the absolute rock bottom of American fashion." But an unusual correction in Friday's paper, a month after the article ran, raised serious questions about what exactly it was Horyn had seen.

The Secret of Project Runway (New York Mag)
Adam Sternbergh: I think the reason New Yorkers like Runway is because, unlike The Apprentice, with its play-school business challenges, Runway is all about work. Hard work, and the people who are willing to do it, in exchange for a faint promise of rewards but a weekly guarantee of weariness. At its core, Runway fetishizes drudgery.

Time Ushers in the Stengel Era (Marketwatch)
Jon Friedman: Cynics question whether a weekly news magazine is still necessary. Internet news sites and blogs can supply immediacy and context. And crucially, 24-hour cable news channels provide vivid pictures. But the magazine's new editor Richard Stengel begged to differ with the gloom-and-doom scenario.