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Google Profit Boggles the Mind (LAT)
With profit up SEVENFOLD, one analyst concluded that Mountain View, Calif.-based Google was growing more than twice as fast and with higher operating margins than rivals EBay Inc. and Yahoo. WaPo: Google's robust results and strong ad growth at its rival Yahoo Inc. illustrated that Internet advertising has come of age. NYT: The results even exceeded the expectations of the company. Bloomberg: Shares rise 12 percent on news.

Blaming Media in CIA Leak Case Isn't Working (AP)
Evidence suggests Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff sought out reporters in the weeks before undercover operative Valerie Plame's identity was compromised in the news media. Huffington Post: Sorry, Judy. Everybody didn't get it wrong on WMD, writes Arianna Huffington. Slate: The Times won't break free of Judy Miller's malevolent spirit until the paper commissions an exorcism in print, akin to the ones it conducted following the Jayson Blair and Wen Ho Lee possessions, writes Jack Shafer. Slate: Another opportunity is coming up for the New York Times to lead the mainstream media off a First Amendment cliff, writes Michael Kinsley. WaPo: Everybody in Washington media circles knows that Judy Miller is a real piece of work, writes Eugene Robinson. The Nation: What is clear from the Times's Sunday exposé is that publisher Sulzberger granted Miller uncritical backing despite the severe reservations felt by some of the paper's top editors, writes Robert Scheer.

Kidnapped Guardian Reporter Freed in Iraq (BBC)
Rory Carroll is "safe and well" and is in the Iraqi capital's Green Zone. Carroll describes his captors as Shia opportunists. He said he had been treated well "apart from a bit of initial roughness."

Bonnie Fuller Finds Shape a New Editor (NYP)
Valerie Latona had been the mag's beauty editor for the past five years. "It looks like they interviewed everybody in the city and nobody wanted it," said one source. [Low in column.]

Hearst Quietly Folding Custom Publishing (Folio:)
The 7-year-old unit and several of its employees are being moved into the Hearst Group, its integrated sales and marketing division, with a shift in focus to "core" clients who advertise in Hearst magazines.

Grill Marks Deep in Moguls Roast (Rush and Molloy)
Time Warner chairman Dick Parsons was supposed to be the one getting roasted yesterday, but the lunch ended up a bit tougher on his rivals Carl Icahn and Rupert Murdoch.

Sirius Sees Big Bounce After Stern Deal (Hollywood Reporter via Reuters)
The whopping $500 million Sirius Satellite Radio is paying Howard Stern to join the No. 2 celestial radio service might be starting to pay off. Sirius has been taking away retail-level market share from XM for three consecutive months.

New Leader for NAB (Mediaweek)
David Rehr, a veteran Washington lobbyist, has been named president and chief executive of the National Association of Broadcasters. He succeeds Eddie Fritts, who has led the NAB since 1982.

Top Ad Exec Resigns Over Comments About Women (AdWeek)
WPP Group cretive consultant Neil French tendered his resignation two weeks after he made remarks about women described as "outrageous" and "derogatory" at an industry event in Toronto. Guardian: French blames "the bloggers" for his downfall.

US Weekly's Puzzling Nick/Jessica Coverage (WWD)
Sara James and Jeff Bercovici: The mag's recent cover stories have been fixated on what it characterizes as the definitive split between Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson. But now the magazine might not be so sure.

Book Publishers Becoming Online Retailers (Reuters)
Major book publishers have quietly begun selling directly to customers over the Internet, in a move that could transform the trade by putting them in competition with online retailers like Amazon.com.

The Mad Man of Wall Street (BusinessWeek)
You might think Jim Cramer would be out bronzing in St. Barts, but instead he rises at 3.45 a.m. weekdays, bangs out six Web columns, does a radio show, and tapes the surreal CNBC show Mad Money.

Flair and Balanced (B&C)
"A freedom of speech award for [Roger] Ailes, this is a dangerous moment," said Ailes. He went on to be a moment to take shots at Judith Miller and CBS before defending speech and America. MediaCitizen: Ailes is now remaking 35 local television stations in Fox News Channel's image, writes Timothy Karr.

NYer's Target Issue Didn't Spur ASME Rules Change (Folio:)
ASME president and Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker says specific recent events did not necessarily precipitate the changes to its editorial guidelines, and that they were in the works for a year.

Secrets of Alt-Weekly Award Winners (AAN)
Ruth Hammond: In the series, How I Got That Story, the winners of the 2005 AltWeekly Awards unveil the process they went through to create their first-place articles, photography, cartoons and design.

Samsung's Media Blitz (BusinessWeek)
Jon Fine: You would like to reach 175 million people in 30 days?" deadpans Peter Weedfald, Samsung's senior vice-president for consumer electronics and North American marketing. "We can do it."

Nepal Journos Rally Against Repressive Press Law (Nepal News)
The new media law has banned criticism of the king and royal family members and raised the fines faced by journalists and media publishers in defamation cases. Kathmandu Post: Nepal's press freedom rated among the lowest in the world in the Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2005.

—David S. Hirschman

In Yesterday's Blogs:

Seacrest In For Larry King [TVNewser]
Who needs Bob Costas? Larry King has Ryan Seacrest.
NYP's Michael Starr reports exclusively that the American Idol star "will host several upcoming editions of Larry King Live -- in what looks to be the first step in an overall deal between Seacrest and CNN."

Washington's Funniest Celebrity Contest [FishbowlDC]
...is that an oxymoron? Perhaps. D.C. is not considered a comedic hot spot. What passes for rib-tingling humor here is, say, when Sen. John McCain rejects calls to be a vice presidential candidate by smirking, "I spent all those years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, kept in the dark, fed scraps ... why the hell would I want to do that all over again?"

The Colbert Report: Dotting our "i"s and crossing our silent "t"s [FishbowlNY]
We've received a number of queries on the Colbert Report: what do we think? Do we like it? Does it have staying power? Are we developing unhealthy feelings towards it like we have for "The Daily Show?" Well, there's some truthiness to that last question, but we'll leave that aside and just feel our answer toward you: yes, we've been watching.

Nigerian Email Scams: Best Column One Ever [FishbowlLA]
Today the LAT visits Festac, a neighborhood in Lagos which apparently is the Medelin of the Nigerian email-financial-scam industry, complete with violent-ish kingpins, ambitious up-and-comers, and a popular song glorifying crime ('I Go Chop Your Dollars').

Frankfurt Bullet Points [Galleycat]
So what's the big news out of Frankfurt this week? According to Reuters, it's more sudoku books and downloadable audiobooks. For the Associated Press, it was a celebration of Korean literature, while Information World Review highlights the launch of Oxford's Digital Reference Shelf.

Maira Kalman Is Totally Absurd. Absurdly Awesome. [UnBeige]
So we went to see Maira Kalman's Elements of Style Illustrated-based opera at the New York Public Library yesterday and boy did we have a good time. First of all there were all these cute little girls wearing EOSI-painted t-shirts and holding up cardboard signs with various phrases from EOS and second of all the show rocked our reality.

The Zoo: Week Sixteen [mbToolbox]
Today is the sixteenth in a series of posts by San-Diego-based writer Thomas Shess who has decided to keep a journal on his journey to find a publisher for his novel.