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Clear Channel Up for Sale? (NYT)
Clear Channel Communications Inc., the largest U.S. radio broadcaster, is considering a possible sale of the company and hired Goldman, Sachs & Co. as an adviser. The board is evaluating alternatives to increase the share price and can't assure that a transaction will occur. The company could be sold to a consortium of investors for more than $18.5 billion. LAT: Clear Channel has a market value of $16.1 billion, with $6.8 billion of long-term debt at the end of the second quarter.

AP's Curley: U.S. Government's 'Overt Effort To Stifle a Free Press' (FishbowlNY)
In an email to mediabistro.com yesterday, Associated Press president and CEO Tom Curley used some of the strongest possible language to condemn the U.S. government's holding of an AP photographer in Iraq without charges. "We are left to conclude that this is not an issue of a threat to American security," Curley wrote of the detention of Bilal Hussein. "It is an overt effort to stifle a free press."

Jane Pauley Sues NYT for 'Duping' Her Into Advertorials (The Smoking Gun)
Veteran newscaster Jane Pauley is suing the New York Times for fraud after the paper allegedly "duped" her into giving an interview for an advertising insert when she thought she was participating in a news story about mental health issues. Pauley has accused the paper of using "deceit and duplicity" in obtaining an interview about her personal battle with bipolar disorder.

Free Newspapers Blamed for NYC Subway Flooding (NY Sun)
Free newspapers distributed to subway commuters are a major cause of subway track flooding, a Metropolitan Transportation Authority investigative task force has found. Leftover stacks of papers such as AM New York and Metro that blew onto the tracks and clogged drains were partially responsible for the crippling subway flood of September 8, 2004, which affected 15 subway lines. NYT: "We have complained bitterly for a long time about what we call the free newspapers," said Barry L. Feinstein, the board member who spearheaded the investigation.

Rather Talks HDNet (NYDN)
Rather said Dan Rather Reports, his new weekly series on Mark Cuban's HDNet, will have three hallmarks. One will be to report on the people fighting wars — soldiers — and not just show politicians talking about them. Another will be to look at the struggles of middle-income people today. The third will be politics — "with the bark off," as Rather put it. FBNY: Cuban says Rather has "carte blanche."

News Corp. Ends Dispute With Nielsen (NYP)
Rupert Murdoch's company ended a dispute with Nielsen, the dominant provider of TV ratings, over the accuracy of its audience measurement under a new eight-year pact. The two battled after Nielsen decided a couple of years ago to install electronic meters in sample households to measure viewing instead of having people keep handwritten records.

Merrill Lynch: Could Be Decades Before Online Sustains Newspapers (E&P)
"Even if rapid [online] growth continues for the next few years, we don't see online representing over 50 percent of newspaper ad revenues for at least a couple of decades, suggesting that industry profit could stay flat for the foreseeable future," wrote Merrill Lynch analyst Lauren Rich Fine in a report released yesterday.

Has Success Spoiled MySpace and Facebook? (WSJ)
A major dilemma facing News Corp.'s MySpace and Facebook Inc. is that while it takes a critical mass of users to make these sites work, having too many users alienates some, especially when they attract an ever-growing cacophony of advertising and in some cases, spam. Both MySpace and Facebook lost visitors in September.

In Iraq, Journalist Richard Engel Sticks to the Story (WaPo)
Howard Kurtz: At 33, the baby-faced Engel has logged more time in Iraq than any other television correspondent, chronicling 3 1/2 years of carnage for NBC and shrugging off several close calls. As nearly all television correspondents rotate in and out of Iraq, Engel has stayed.

Seattle Times Edit Board Bows to Publisher's 'Greed'? (The Stranger)
Josh Feit: Given the Seattle Times' record of coming out against virtually all of Senatorial candidate Mike McGavick's signature issues, it's hard to escape the conclusion that the edit board abandoned its convictions for the financial self-interest of its publisher's family.

Steve Irwin's 8-Year-Old Daughter Is Australia's Newest TV Star (Guardian)
Thrust centre-stage at her father's memorial service, where she read a tribute to her dad that moved millions to tears, Bindi Irwin's face now peers from dozens of magazines. Implored by 93% of readers of the leading women's weekly New Idea to follow in her father's footsteps, Bindi dutifully got to work, making a commercial to raise money for her father's Wildlife Warriors charity.

Axed Viacom Exec Freston Roasted by Friends (Rush and Molloy)
It wasn't enough of an indignity that his boss, Sumner Redstone, drop-kicked him out of his CEO's office at Viacom last summer. Yesterday at the Pierre, Tom Freston had to relive the whole ordeal when "friends" honored the unemployed exec.

Robert Kennedy Jr.: 'We Have A Negligent Press In This Country' (FishbowlNY)
Robert Kennedy Jr. blasted everyone from polluters to politicians to the press during a speech at the American Magazine Conference in Phoenix that was, by his own admission, a long, rambling, passionate digression. "We have a negligent press in this country," Kennedy Jr. said, one that has "let the American people down" by not covering what he called the "worst environmental White House we've ever had in history, bar none." FBNY: Ken Sunshine blasts bloggers: "Some of them are just horrific."

Madonna Blasts Media Over Adoption Flap (WaPo)
Oprah called Madonna's adoption of a Malawian baby boy "a media story like we've never seen," in an interview with the pop star — it having momentarily slipped her mind that just five months ago the media had declared Tom Cruise to be completely insane after he came on her very show, stomped all over her couch and tried to arm-wrestle both her arms simultaneously.

Quiz: The Death Knell for YouTube? (SF Weekly)
As YouTube becomes more respectable and gains more attention, its lawyers will undoubtedly face increased pressure to reign in or remove offending material, but Google is promising to retain the integrity that's made YouTube such a phenomenon. Are you an apologist for the YouTube-Google merger? Take the quiz and find out!

Norman Mailer's New Hitler-Themed Tome (Forbes)
James Brady: The last (with Vonnegut) of our great World War II novelists is about to deliver a large new novel, which Random House will publish in January under the title The Castle in the Forest.