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Dean Baquet Eying a Spot at NY Times? (LAT)
The ousted Los Angeles Times editor is considering taking a top management position at the New York Times as prospects fade for his return to the Los Angeles paper, according to several of Baquet's confidantes. The editor has not accepted a position and has been telling associates for weeks that his preference would be for a new owner of the Los Angeles Times to restore him to his old post. E&P: How Dean and Terry Baquet survived setbacks in L.A. and NOLA.

FHM To Close in U.S. (NYT)
FHM, a men's magazine that began publishing in the United States in 1999, had been guaranteeing advertisers an average monthly circulation of about 1.25 million, but it lost money in the first half of the year after revenue fell 20 percent. FishbowlNY: FHM joins ElleGirl and Teen People on the 2006 chopping block.

Chandlers Strive to Protect Value of Tribune (WSJ)
By quietly signaling their willingness to purchase some of the company, the family could be trying to provide another option for Tribune, which has struggled to find a buyer for itself amid a difficult market for newspaper publishers. But the structure being contemplated by the Chandlers' advisers might be unappealing to possible partners. WaPo: A lack of broad interest in acquiring Tribune as a whole combined with underwhelming offers from private-equity bidders — and the potential tax penalties of selling individual properties — has led some to begin calling the attempted sale a "busted auction."

NBC Says FCC Is Violating Its Own Indecency Standard (B&C)
NBC says that the FCC's profanity findings against phrases like Cher's "F*ck 'em" on Fox's Billboard Awards or Bono's "F*cking brilliant" on NBC's Golden Globes, both cited by the FCC, are misapplied and contrary to "its own standard, common sense, conventional wisdom and ordinary usage." B&C: Fox says the FCC's indecency policy goes too far.

Former CNN Chief Eason Jordan Creates a Site Focused on Iraq (E&P)
For the past four years there has been no shortage of news and views on Iraq. What's been missing: a clearinghouse for nonpartisan information, including material coming out of Iraq itself from natives of that country, not from foreign correspondents. Now that need is finally being addressed in the form of IraqSlogger, in Beta at www.iraqslogger.com, but due to be officially launched next week.

Article in LAT Recycled Scorsese Quotes (Page Six)
If yesterday's "interview" with Martin Scorsese in the paper seemed familiar, it's because the quotes were nearly two years old. Reporter Paul Lieberman couldn't get the Departed director to talk to him, so, for yesterday's piece in "The Envelope" section of the paper, Lieberman recycled quotes from a Feb. 27, 2005 interview with Scorsese.

New Kitty Kelley Oprah Tell-All in the Works (AP via USAT)
Oprah has been selected by the author as the subject of her next tell-all, unauthorized biography. "Oprah Winfrey has fascinated me for many years — as a woman, she has wielded an unprecedented amount of influence over the American culture and psyche," Kelley said in a statement from Crown Publishing. The book does not yet have a title and a publication date has not been set. NYDN: New book from Judith Regan's imprint to smear the legacy of ex-New York Yankee Mickey Mantle.

Google Tests New Ads (WSJ)
Google has dramatically increased the places it distributes ads online as part of an effort to persuade advertisers to shift more of their spending to the company. Some question how effective the company's automated online systems will be, but the same time, some on Madison Avenue fear that Google's ultimate goal is to get large advertisers to bypass them.

Simpsons, Office Lead Writers' Guild TV Awards Nominations (Variety)
Fox's The Simpsons took four nominations while NBC's The Office received three for TV awards from the Writers Guild of America. Two new NBC shows — Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and 30 Rock — took a pair of noms each, as did ABC's Lost. 30 Rock was the only new series to be recognized among the 10 nominees in the drama and series categories.

AOL Lays Off 450 (WaPo)
AOL laid off more than 450 employees at its corporate headquarters in Dulles, Va., yesterday as part of plans announced earlier this year to cut costs and change the company's business strategy. The company said it was not cutting as many jobs in Dulles as originally anticipated.

Blogging 'Set to Peak Next Year' (BBC)
The blogging phenomenon is set to peak in 2007, according to technology predictions by analysts Gartner. During the middle of next year the number of blogs will level out at about 100 million. The firm has said that 200 million people have already stopped writing their blogs.

Girls Gone Wild Founder Gets Community Service in Underage Video Case (AP via USAT)
Joe Francis, the founder of the Girls Gone Wild video empire was sentenced to community service for his company's guilty plea to federal charges of failing to monitor the ages of drunken 17-year-old women that appeared in its videos. Francis' company, Mantra Films Inc., also agreed to pay $1.6 million in fines.

Will Jann Inspire Wenner Mania? (WWD)
On Miss Seventeen, the MTV show in which contestants vied for the approval of then-editor Atoosa Rubenstein in hopes of scoring an internship, one contestant said of another that for her, "meeting Atoosa was like meeting Jesus." Well, when MTV's similarly conceived "I'm With Rolling Stone" premieres on Jan. 7, viewers will have a chance to see if Jann Wenner garners the same kind of adulation.

New Project From Wikipedia Founder to Put Another Nail in Old Media's Coffin (NY Press)
Adario Strange: Jimmy Wales has unveiled a new, free-hosting service called OpenServing, which will offer free hosting and use of the powerful Wikia software to anyone interested in creating a community site. Wales intends to make this available while permitting users to keep any ad revenue they earn from ad networks. To say that this is a disruptive occurrence would be an understatement.

NYC Comptroller Targets Google, Yahoo Over China Policy (NY Sun)
The city's comptroller, William Thompson Jr., is using the muscle of the city's pension fund to take on the Internet powerhouses Google and Yahoo. Thompson, a likely 2009 mayoral candidate, has filed shareholder resolutions calling on the two search engines to create practices for dealing with censorship issues in communist countries as well as other "authoritarian" regimes.