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Literary Legend Norman Mailer Dies (WaPo)
Norman Mailer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author who wrote compellingly about sex and violence, conflict and politics, and love and war as the tempests of his personal life complemented the turbulence of his prose, died Saturday. He was widely known as a drinker and brawler, womanizer, political campaigner, social critic, talk-show guest, self-promoter, and symbol of male chauvinism. NYT: Mailer belonged to the old literary school that regarded novel writing as a heroic enterprise undertaken by heroic characters with egos to match. He was the most transparently ambitious writer of his era, seeing himself in competition not just with his contemporaries but with the likes of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. WaPo: This was a man, as Yale übercritic Harold Bloom once observed, whose life and work couldn't possibly be separated. "Truly he is his own supreme fiction," Bloom wrote. "He is the author of 'Norman Mailer,' a lengthy, discontinuous, and perhaps canonical fiction." USAT: Critic Bob Minzesheimer offers memories of Mailer. NYP: "I have never known a contemporary writer who was more famous and who seemed to be less affected by his fame than Norman Mailer," writes Gay Talese. "He was never an authority on anything but he knew about everything." New Yorker: "He was a slugger," writes Roger Angell. "He swung at everything, and when he missed he missed by a mile and sometimes ended up on his tush, but when he connected he usually knocked it out of the park. He was immodest about his failures and modest about his successes, which is a healthy trait for a writer and probably a healthy trait for life." Guardian: Mailer's talent was never as big as his ego, writes Jay Parini. AP: More than such peers as Gore Vidal, William Styron, or Kurt Vonnegut, Mailer was the writer as Writer, not a career to be printed on a business card, but a calling, an identity, with all the follies and privileges to which a man alert to his own gifts felt entitled. LAT: "Mailer was the sort of author who could both dazzle and infuriate, often within the space of a single paragraph," writes David Ulin. "He was a major talent who could not keep himself from reminding you that he was a major talent, an astute observer of his moment, who tended to operate as if that moment were entirely his." Salon: Remembrances of Norman Mailer by Marlon Brando, Liz Smith, Irving Howe, Diana Trilling, Edward Abbey, Germaine Greer, and other notables. NYT: "In his best work Mr. Mailer made America his subject," writes Michiko Kakutani. "And in tackling everything from politics to boxing to Hollywood, from astronauts to actresses to art, he depicted — or tried to depict — the country's contradictions: its moralistic prudery and grasping fascination with celebrity and sex and power; the outsize, outlaw past of its frontier; and its current descent into 'corporation land,' filled with cheap, consumer blandishments and the siren call of fame."

Screenwriters Seek Bigger Slice of Half-Eaten Pie (NYT)
As Hollywood digs in for a second week of a strike, the screenwriters might want to send a few angry picketers over to Will Smith's place. Or Steven Spielberg's. And maybe the studio executives should think about joining them on the line. As it turns out, the pot of money that the producers and writers are fighting over may have already been pocketed by the entertainment industry's biggest talent. NYT: Living paycheck to paycheck was already a way of life for screenwriters. NYT: Striking writers peddle words for outlets off the picket line. LAT: Negotiator cast as hero — or hindrance. LAT: Teamsters take own paths in writers strike. USAT: Writers strike could hurt everyone down the line. AdAge: Writers strike has buyers reaching for ratings points. B&C: NBC to lay off Leno staff this week. Variety: Strike could affect the Emmys. TV Week: Networks may run out of make-good time.

Intel to Unveil Chips for Improving Video Quality on the Web (NYT)
Intel plans to announce a family of microprocessor chips today that it says will speed the availability of high-definition video via the Internet. Sean Maloney, Intel's chief sales and marketing officer, said the chips' increased computing power would begin the transformation of today's stuttering and blurry videos into high-resolution, full-screen quality that will begin to compete with the living room HDTV.

Google in Talks With American Idol Creator for Push Into TV (Guardian)
Internet giant Google is in secret talks with Simon Fuller, the British entrepreneur behind the Spice Girls, about a joint venture that could change the way TV is watched online. News of the collaboration will prompt speculation that Google's plans for the TV market include generating original content and competing with major broadcasters.

Race and the Times: The Gerald Boyd Story (New York)
It would be hard to overstate Boyd's importance as a role model — dating back to the eighties, when minority journalists would rush to their TV sets to watch him grilling Ronald Reagan. His success at the Times was feted for its own sake, but also for the opening it might augur. Boyd understood his place in the chain.

More Editor Jumps to Reader's Digest (AdAge)
Peggy Northrop is leaving her post as editor-in-chief at More to become editor-in-chief of Reader's Digest, the magazines' publishers said today. Jacqueline Leo, who has been editor-in-chief at Reader's Digest since 2001, is leaving. Northrop, fresh from More's "Reinvention Convention" last month, is joining a magazine that's undergoing some reinvention itself. WWD: According to a source close to the situation, Berner tried to lure Northrop over to RDA for months, but Northrop declined. Finally, Berner offered her what is said to be double her salary at Meredith Corp., and Northrop agreed.

CBS News Writers Mull Strike; ABC Showdown Looms (B&C)
500 employees at CBS News represented by the Writers Guild of America East are preparing to take a strike vote of their own. News writers for CBS News TV and radio operations in New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles have been working without a contract since April 2005. Members overwhelmingly rejected the company's contract proposal in November 2006.

New Way of Counting Radio Listeners May Cut Ad Income (NYT)
The test of a new method for measuring radio audience in New York showed big ratings declines for stations appealing to blacks and Hispanics last week, causing considerable consternation among station owners and programmers. The results of the so-called personal people meter in New York followed the pattern set by two earlier tests in which stations appealing to minorities also fell.

ABC's Martha Raddatz, Putting Herself in the Thick of Things (WaPo)
Howard Kurtz: Raddatz has a knack for showing up at the right moment. Although she is a White House correspondent, she has also made 14 trips to Iraq, the last of which coincided with a secret visit by President Bush. "She's just gritty, without sacrificing any femininity — more comfortable in fatigues than in mufti," says ABC anchor Charlie Gibson. "She really is a wonderful hybrid correspondent."

Court Case Could Affect Media, Freedom of Speech (LAT)
Tim Rutten: All but unnoticed by most of the news media, a criminal case working its way to trial could create perilous new restrictions on both Americans' political speech and the right of their free press to report national security issues. Depending on the case's outcome, virtually every good reporter covering national security issues could be, at some point, a violator of the Espionage Act.

Maxim Unveils a New Look (Mediaweek)
Maxim has deemphasized the bawdy humor and spreads of sexy women that fueled its meteoric rise. The evolution continues under Jim Kaminsky, brought in as editorial director after the magazine's sale to Alpha Media Group last summer. Kaminsky sought to declutter the magazine's look, cultivate service and humor, and fancy up its fashion pages, with a new how-to section.

Son of President Ford in Mag Startup (NYP)
Jack Ford, the son of the late President Gerald Ford, is teaming up with magazine entrepreneur Don Welsh to launch a new publishing company, Mountain Time Publishing. They plan to produce a bi-weekly glossy lifestyle magazine, Mountain Time, that will be inserted into about 20 small daily newspapers in affluent ski resort towns across the West.

Gore Looms as Time's Person of the Year (Marketwatch)
Jon Friedman: Through his respected documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, and his presentations, he has sparked interest in global warming and the environment. He has jump-started America's "green" movement more significantly than any other individual. That alone is noteworthy. But over the past few years, Gore has come a long way. Time: A look at some of the top candidates for Person of the Year.

Murdoch's Bancroft Twist Shows Operatic Talent (Guardian)
Emily Bell: The Murdoch business, like the Bancroft business, is a family one, the difference being that he is rather better at it than they were. But the editorial independence of the Journal will be guaranteed in as much as it sustains a market position. If, like the Asian and European editions of the Journal, it is perceived to be doing rather less well than it might, then it will be more than a tweaking of the tiller.

Will Someone Please Take Away Roger Cohen's TV Column? (Slate)
Jack Shafer: It would seem to be a simple task to buff one's reflections, observations, and opinions to an 800-word sparkle twice a week, yet the job cores the skulls of all but the stoutest, most resourceful writers. The perceptive reporter turns into a bar-emptying bore, the meticulous stylist into a pompous hack, and the shrewd thinker into a merchant of flapdoodle.