Just a heads up, I haven't fallen off the planet or anything - am on vacation for the week, and had planned on having WiFi the whole time - turns out it's a little bit on the sketch side, but it's free, so I really can't complain. Hope to be back up and running a bit more later on in the week.

As for the comment/trackback spammers, you aren't doing any good - so get better jobs.

Lifting has stung yet another member of the media, this time in the radio world. The San Diego Union-Tribune's Gregory Alan Gross and Karen Kucher have the details on the firing of Gabriel Wisdom from KPBS, where he was responsible for giving commentaries on financial topics. This comes shortly after Wisdom's departure from NPR's "Marketplace" because of plagiarism.

On June 30, the Desert-Mountain Times, a newspaper published in West Texas, will close down, writes editor Roy Hamric. In that story, Hamric writes that publisher Kay Taylor-Burnett has not sold the newspaper to any other entity, and wanted to go "all or nothing" with the publication, choosing to close down the paper rather than provide a poorly constructed one.

Kentucky's WKYT is reporting that Paul Hayes, editor of the Adair Progress and Columbia News, has been arrested on drug charges.

The Associated Press is reporting that Lexington, Kentucky-based WLTO-FM 102.5 is in a bit of trouble after a lawsuit was filed by a listener against station owner Cumulus Media this week. The plaintiff, Norreasha Gill, says she won a contest for "a hundred grand" and was told she had actually become the new owner of, you guessed it, a "100 Grand" candy bar. That article notes that the DJ involved, "DJ Slick," stated that he had left the station on his own volition on his website
- but not without "walking out the door and slamming it behind [him]."

It's pretty rare that a new site can show up on the scene and have the National Review's Corner blog link to them twice in just a matter of minutes. But that's what happened with The F-Word Zine, a feminist magazine that is the brainchild of Melody Berger, a senior at Temple University.

That's what's good about this Web thing, ya know? Berger has her say, and The Corner has theirs - who's right, and who's wrong isn't what's there to judge, it's that people have a voice. Although in this case, I sense the fact that The Corner would prefer that The F-Word didn't have quite the opportunity for exposure that it does.

Last month, news came out that Niche Media was having a bit of difficulty with another publisher whose staffers had moved over to that company, bringing their mailing list along with them. Wednesday's Boston Herald reports that Niche publisher Jason Binn has owned up to using the list, and the lawsuit filed against his company by Boston magazine has been settled.

The Seattle Times' Seung Hwa Hong writes about the retirement of Oren Campbell, the longtime adviser and publisher of the University of Washington's student newspaper, The Daily.

Mediaweek's Katy Bachman suggests that last week's news that Clear Channel Radio was looking for an Arbitron replacement - or at least the way the company currently measures listenership - might be just what the industry really needs to get towards the "portable people meters" that have been much ballyhooed recently.

On Monday afternoon, E&P's Jennifer Saba reported that former WaPo correspondent and Court TV founder Merrill Brown was announced as the national director of Carnegie-Knight's "News 21" program. This is a significant effort that brings together students from multiple schools to "work" for various media outlets during the summer.

Indianapolis Star editor Dennis Ryerson writes about how journalists can exist as people as a member of society while still making sure to stay on the ethical side of doing their jobs.

E&P points out that the editor of the Tribune-owned free daily amNewYork, Alex Storozynski, had resigned. While Tribune is sticking to the idea that Storozynski left due to an article being "improperly sourced," the outgoing staffer isn't in agreement.

In Sunday's Portland Press Herald, editor Jeannine Guttman describes how the newspaper has formalized training to ensure their entire staff has all the journalism skills needed to be successful at what they do. The Poynter Institute has been brought in to work on a three day program this fall, which will cover everything from ethical behavior to design.

A couple of weeks ago, word got out that Infinity was ditching the oldies format at 101.1 WCBS-FM for the "Jack" format they've been rolling out elsewhere, due to the demographics for that type of sound providing easier advertising sales. Yesterday, the David Hinckley offered details in the New York Daily News about a planned protest for next Tuesday outside of the station's offices as well as a pointer to finding an all-oldies, all the time feed online at wcbsfm.com.

The Chicago Tribune's Mary Ann Fergus reports on the documentary created by 7th grade student Marissa Suchyta about one of the well known media blunders of our time, the "Dewey Defeats Truman" hed that ran in the Chicago Daily Tribune in 1948. Suchyta won a $500 prize in a national contest for her efforts.

On Thursday, Knight Ridder published a report out of Russia stating that authorities in that country believe that Chechen rebel leader Khozh-Akhmed Nukhayev is responsible for the murder of Forbes' Russian-language editor, Paul Klebnikov, last July.

Just a heads up, I'm at the Assocation of National Advertisers' Print Forum in NYC today - blogging will probably be light. I'll have some good coverage a little later on over at AdJab and hope to get some good things for TMD as well, as there are quite a few publications here at the event.

Additionally, I'll be at a blogger meetup at Two Boots Pizza in Grand Central this evening at about 6 p.m. - maybe I'll see you there.

For some delusional reason, I've started another blog. You can find it at tombiro.info. It'll be full of really random links and commentary and such. Enjoy!

Over at Barista of Bloomfield Avenue, they've got an "exclusive" commentary by NPR correspondent Luke Burbank, who provides the lowdown on how the caste system "pecking order" of media types went down at the Michael Jackson trial in Santa Maria.

Gee, and you thought the fun and excitement ended after high school - you thought wrong!

On Tuesday afternoon, word was trickling out that Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC's "Countdown" program would be returning to ESPN, though not to his famed "SportsCenter" chair that he anchored next to Dan Patrick - though he would be working alongside Patrick again, we think. As of August 5, he'll be on the air during "The Dan Patrick Show," which runs from 1-4 p.m. Eastern. Reports seem to indicate that Olbermann will participate on Fridays for an hour.

Surely, OlbermannWatch will have something to say about this?

Over at Corante, Dominic Basulto leads us to an item by Kurt Andersen from New York magazine about how news and information gets put together for the rest of us to read.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's M.L. Lyke writes about J.D. Alexander, former publisher of that newspaper who passed away on Tuesday of pulmonary hypertension at age 66.

It's official - Viacom will bust up into two separate companies, one that will handle over-the-air television, and the other to work the cable angle. One company will keep the Viacom name - the cable one - and the other will keep the CBS branding.

This should attract the favor of anti-media consolidation proponents, but will most likely receive no applause because it doesn't help the continued cause of those organizations. It'll be interesting to see any continued linkages between the groups, as the world of MTV could rely on the CBS businesses, opening up over-the-air production opportunities to what MTV had to offer. Will this continue to occur going forward, or will a church and state effect sweep over the two companies? Only Sumner Redstone probably has the answer.

The Kansas City Star's David Hayes noted Tuesday that Sprint mobile phones will carry some radio shows from the SIRIUS Satellite Radio service.

Radar sez that former New York magazine EIC Kurt Andersen took a bit of a bitter pill a few years ago after bankrolling the high life of socialite Inna De Silva while attempting to get a story for the pub. As it turns out, the story wasn't there, but the expenses the mag's staffer incurred were - or so Radar says.

Gawker follows up by publishing the response of Phoebe Eaton, the New York reporter involved in the above story - Eaton calls Radar's report a "venge-item," and declines that any of the spending happened in the first place.

So what's up with that? That's some pretty black-and-white kind of stuff here.

TVGuide.com said this week that it would be releasing a regular 'podcast,' available on their website. Each download will contain "Entertainment News," "Watercooler," "Ask Ausiello" - an audio version of Michael Ausiello's column, "FlickChick" by Maitland McDonagh, and "The Week Ahead." Also expected are interviews, voicemail from listeners, and more. The feed is available here. (BW)

On Monday, the Associated Press reported that Jesus Blancornela, the founder of a Tijuana, Mexico-based Zeta newspaper, was given the Daniel Pearl Award for Courage and Integrity by the Los Angeles Press Club.

I've been watching MSNBC all afternoon, and the moment when the news came down that the verdict in the Michael Jackson trial would be coming down shortly, the people running around the background and the confusion going on was almost hilarious. Then, just moments later, the report comes in to Lisa Daniels that "we're not sure that the verdict is coming in in 60 minutes now." That quickly reversed, and the verdict was ultimately confirmed to be coming in by 4:30 Eastern time.

[4:12] Michael Jackson's caravan is apparently running late, and one of the people on the air with MSNBC's Dan Abrams points out that "the highway patrol won't let the caravan get there by 4:30, because they'd have to go about 100 miles per hour to do so." So 4:30 might be a little bit of a early time for this to be live.

[4:13] More liveblogging going on over at TVSquad - go check out what's going on there.

[4:21] Dan Abrams says that in many cases, he has a very good idea of what is going to happen, but that isn't the case here.

[4:23] These people on the highway alongside the Jackson caravan are hopefully not having white Bronco feelings.

[4:36] Jackson's attorney walking out of the courthouse, apparently waiting for his client.

[4:39] Crappy video on the helicopter coverage of the caravan. Abrams makes a funny - "almost looks like a slow speed chase."

[4:45] I'll be posting here and in the comments at TVSquad, as the interaction over there should be ramping up now.

[4:46] Lisa Daniels had to be pissed to take the handoff from Abrams and then get pre-empted by NBC's Brian Williams.

[4:51] When the court officer wanded Janet Jackson's chest, I couldn't help but giggle.

[4:57] Williams informs that the courtroom doors have closed, and now Abrams is giving insight on what is happening inside the courtroom.

[5:01] When the OJ trial came down, I was working in a pretty large law firm in central New Jersey. Everyone was huddled around the various televisions we had in the office, as Internet wasn't exactly everywhere for companies at that time - that was pretty intense, and this seems like it's easily double that - and I'm sitting in the living room by myself.

[5:05] Williams reports that the jury has been seated. Is someone Blackberrying info out?

[5:07] Williams discussing the security situation about what would happen after the verdict is read, but ends up talking about what would happen to Jackson himself. Now he brings up the crowd issue - "are they concerned about this?" Gee, you think? It's going to be a calamity.

[5:10] I love how on-air talent sound freaked out when producers are heard on-air.

[5:11] Debbie Galant at Barista of Bloomfield Ave. tells her kids to look for their daddy, who's covering the event live. Hey Deb - get me some exclusive coverage, will ya?!

[5:13] Oooh, the BBC is covering the situation as well.

[5:14] Holy crap. Not guilty on conspiracy, lewd act, not guilty lewd act. I could go on, but it's pretty clear, right? Scot free it is!

On Monday, Clear Channel Radio expressed its displeasure with the state of radio measurement and ratings by putting out a request for proposals for a new system to do a better job. The company cites a recent study by Millward Brown that showed a 49% besting of television ad by radio spots for getting consumers to make a purchase. But it's not just TV that Clear Channel thinks radio needs to go up against - print is included too - as they refer back to a survey from 2004 that showed radio ads that replaced print ads grew brand recall by more than 1/3. Additionally, Clear Channel was kind to the radio measurement industry by saying that the methods used - namely, personal diaries - are not so effective after been seen "under increasing skepticism" recently.

And you know what, they're right. It's kind of crazy that there hasn't been a newish method of measuring listenership, although one would presume that services like XM and SIRIUS would have the ability to keep an eye out for what their listeners had on for what amounts of time - but they "own" the right to transmit to those devices. It's not so easy to do so with the regular terrestrial radios. So what's the solution, folks? It's obviously not an easy one, becuase there's no reason that we'd all be sitting here without one for years and years unless it would be a pain to fix it.

Is it just me or is MSNBC's "The Situation," with Tucker Carlson going to be just like ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption" with Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser? Carlson (who will keep his bow tie, btw) was just introduced on MSNBC News Live, where Randy Meier stated that he would be doing his news show "in a unique way." Umm, yeah - if you never turned off news shows before.

The gist, if you're not familiar, is a quick run through of various topics, which MSNBC did a dry run of during the interview Meier did with Carlson - topics are kept on-screen so you can see what's to come and what is currently being discussed, and you can watch them progress as the show goes on. That's all well and good, as people like to know what they're going to hear about, but is it really that original of an idea?

Earlier this year, we learned of some difficulties at Ithaca (NY) High School's Tattler student newspaper, where the school's administration made editorial changes to at least one item they didn't agree with. This weekend, the Associated Press (via WSTM-TV) is reporting that the newspaper has filed suit against the school district to fight against the editorial guidelines placed on it.

The Juneau Empire announced Sunday that it had named Lisa Maas the newspaper's circulation manager.

Florida's Bradenton Herald has brought on Sarasota Herald-Tribune circulation staffer Jon Wiley as the new VP of circulation.

Back on June 3, Rachel Kramer Bussel wrote a piece in the Village Voice about the Washingtonienne, Jessica Cutler - remember her? She was the Capitol Hill staffer who wrote about her sexual exploits with other staffers, mostly her senior, on a blog archived here. Well, as it turns out that she's back in the news nowadays just as her book, The Washingtonienne, is hitting the streets - but it's not really about the book that she's being talked about, it's her old blog.

Cutler is being sued for revealing certain sexual habits of one of her partners, who were generally referred to by initials only - but suspicions of which initials represented which real live people have culminated in at least one successful guess, which is where the lawsuit comes in. Bussel's point is about how Robert Steinbuch, the plaintiff, is upset that people now know that he's into spanking - which really isn't that big of a deal, is it? Bussel goes on to point out how certain sexual habits are "bad" in the eyes of the public, or at least the media, while others would make the rest of us say "whatevs," when hearing about them. What's with that?

It's been a while, but it's a good time to get back into the swing of things with the Friday Random Ten. After you check out this one, head on over to Rox's place and then post your own!

1. "Better" - Helmet
2. "Pimp On" - Twista featuring 8 Ball & Too Short
3. "Obsession" - Kylie Minogue
4. "Sunshine (Take U There)" - Kay Cee
5. "All Night" - Pearl Jam
6. "Bad Boy Boogie" - AC/DC
7. "Crescendolls" - Daft Punk
8. "New Skin" - Methods of Mayhem featuring Kid Rock
9. "Dissolved Girl" - Massive Attack
10. "Let Me Know" - Cam'ron

According to a story in the San Antonio Business Journal on Thursday, Clear Channel Television has bumped the GM of San Antonio's WOAI-TV to EVP and COO of that part of the company. Don Perry, who is in his tenth year working for WOAI, will report in to President & CEO William Moll.

KSL-TV out of Salt Lake City, Utah reports that the company that runs the Deseret News has named a new chairman of the board, Ellis Ivory, to replace L. Glenn Snarr, who chose to leave that role.

On Thursday, news came out that Topix.net would carry headlines from Forbes.com within its Business section - a feature that went live on Wednesday, actually. There will now be a "News from Forbes.com" box present at the top of that page, allowing for "top of mind," or at least top of page, presence for Forbes content.

On Thursday, the Gallup Organization made public its RSS feeds, which will encompass both free and premium content on their website. The feeds include: Government and Politics; Business and Economy; Health and Healthcare; Religion and Social Trends; Education and Youth; The Nation's Pulse; PollTalk; and Gallup Poll Daily Briefing video segments - which will feature Gallup EIC Dr. Frank Newport.

It's clear that RSS is the method of distribution of choice for just about everything, and it's great to see Gallup join the club.

In the 2005 edition of the all important Media Fishing Challenge, the Springfield News-Leader's Steve Brigman is proud to report that his paper was the lucky winner. We're not sure who else participated, but it was apparently other media types who like bass, catfish, and other fish.

Jeff Jarvis comments on plans to potentially add similiar censorship rules to cable/satellite channels that exist on over-the-air broadcast networks, and how it's not a good thing. I couldn't agree more. Are we really reaching a point where either parents can't keep any tabs at all on what their kids are watching/doing so that we need the government to step in and shift/hide/push content that people want to see/hear/read to the netherregions of television or other distribution methods - or - are television producers completely off base with what "the people" want to see? Obviously the masses are divided on this issue, and both sides have to respect the others' thoughts on the subject - but since when is more censorship a good thing? I don't think that we need another handholding seminar, this time for television stations that we choose to get, even with things like the V-chip out there as a solution for these things. Oh, that's right, people aren't using the V-chip on the whole because it's a pain to do. My bad.

It's like anything else - technology always wins - and not necessarily the technology that the powers that be, or those who think they are in control, have. People can/will distribute and see/hear/read anything and everything that they want to. This isn't about being prudish or not, it's about reasonable man standard. If we're at a point where the reasonable person or household can't be left to its own to handle whatever television programming is coming into it, then we're going down a road that I want no part of, so hopefully there's a fork somewhere.

Now here's a story I completely forgot to post an update to. Back in April, we learned that Dan Kennedy would be leaving the Boston Phoenix, where he has served as media critic, at the end of June - but we didn't know who would ultimately take his place. A few weeks ago, Kennedy posted the details on his replacement, Mark Jurkowitz. Jurkowitz, currently working as media writer for the Boston Globe, will join the Phoenix on July 5. Interestingly, he'll be re-joining the publication, where he worked as media critic until 1994, when he left to take on the executive editor duties at Boston magazine. Word is that Kennedy's blog, Media Log, will continue under Jurkowitz.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer carries an article Thursday about the Urban Journalism Workshop, a program run by the National Association of Black Journalists' chapter. The piece, written by a local high school student, Alison Toney, detailed what local students got to experience by participating in seven sessions that took place on Saturdays.

Radar Online wants to know how Reader's Digest managed to get its hands on Tom Cruise for an interview in this month's issue. You see, the pocket-sized magazine had a bit of a scuffle a few years back with the Church of Scientology, which Cruise is a member. Radar states that Reader's Digest got in hot water after republishing excerpts from a TIME article that was critical of the Church in 1991 - but it actually goes further back than that. They ran their own piece back in 1980, which the Church attempted to have quashed from international publication of the magazine, with a follow-up in 1981. Though the same thing happened in 1991, when Digest was hit with an injunction to halt magazine distribution in Switzerland - and was soon overturned.

So it's an even longer grudge than just 14 years - we're talking two and a half decades since Reader's Digest was on the you-know-what list of the Church of Scientology. Have they lightened up or were the qualifications that the magazine or writer Meg Grant went through part of the rules to get Cruise on the cover?

According to Joe Strupp at E&P, the San Francisco Chronicle might be hit with a 10% decrease in jobs for Newspaper Guild members in the near future, based on the current financial situation of the paper.

The Dallas Morning News has a story today about a television producer, KTVT's Frank Librio, taking on the role of chief of staff for Dallas Mayor Laura Miller.

Itar-Tass reports Tuesday that Russia Today, a new English-language television station, will hit the airwaves later on in 2005. At the network's start, it will have funding from the Russian government, although those dollars "will be gradually reduced," a spokesperson for RTTV stated.

Editor & Publisher's Mark Fitzgerald writes about the efforts of the Chicago city government to get owners of individual newspaper racks to pull those machines from the streets, as the city has been under contract with one company to offer multiple-paper racks for the last few years. But the newspaper publishers aren't so happy about this situation.

The Leavenworth Times has the story about the acquisition of its parent, Liberty Group Publishing, by Fortress Investment Group.

The Lexington Herald-Leader's Rich Copley reports that Kentucky's governor, Ernie Fletcher, has added a radio show host, Dave Baker, to the state's new sex offender task force. Baker discusses general Kentucky issues on his WLAP-AM radio show