Mediagazer: Faced with falling circ, publishers retool rules (Newsosaur/Reflections of a Newsosaur)

Chasing Fox — The loud, cartoonish blood sport that's engorged MSNBC, exhausted CNN—and is making our body politic delirious. — In the spring of 2006, a year and a half after he was hired to run CNN/U.S., Jonathan Klein went to his boss Jim Walton with an idea. CNN was in trouble.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Romenesko, Inside Cable News and Washington Post

Tim Arango / Media Decoder:

Michael Wolff to Lead a Stable of Trade Magazines — Michael Wolff, the Vanity Fair columnist and troublemaker who seems to relish public feuds and collecting enemies as much as chronicling the folkways of the Manhattan media world, has agreed to become editorial director of a group …

Discussion: Gawker, The Wrap, New York Observer, Romenesko and The Wire

David Carr / New York Times:

Film Version of Zuckerberg Divides Generations — At what point does ambition, a cornerstone of American commerce, morph into something darker and less celebrated? Over the weekend, people who saw “The Social Network,” the movie about Facebook and its principal creator, Mark Zuckerberg …

Discussion: ArtsBeat, Fast Company, From 416 to 905 and New York Times, more at Techmeme »

Discussion: DailyFinance, AdPulp and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Jim Efstathiou Jr / Bloomberg:

New York Times to Repay Carlos Slim's $250 Million Loan Three Years Early — New York Times Co., publisher of the namesake newspaper, plans to pay back a $250 million loan from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim three years ahead of schedule. — The company intends to repay the loan …

Discussion: Telegraph, New York Times, The Wire, Runnin' Scared, Bloomberg and New York Magazine

Discussion: New York Observer and Romenesko

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter Online:

BGov, New Bloomberg Site, Pairs Analysts & Reporters for Public Policy Coverage — Bloomberg Government, a new subscription-based news site in Washington, D.C., will take a unique approach to covering the federal government when it launches in January. In hiring subject-matter experts along …

Howard Kurtz / Washington Post:

Kathleen Parker and Eliot Spitzer, CNN's duo of civil dispute — They are, somewhat self-consciously, an odd couple, the Northern pol and the Southern belle, the prosecutor and the journalist, the man trying to recover from disgrace and the woman graciously forgiving his sins.

Discussion: NY Daily News, Chickaboomer and Inside Cable News

Tom Lowry / Variety:

Journalist Richard Siklos to Time Warner — He joins as VP of corporate affairs, media adviser — Veteran media scribe Richard Siklos is joining Time Warner as a VP in corporate affairs handling external communications and advising on media strategy. — Siklos will report to Gary Ginsberg …

Discussion: Romenesko

The Independent:

Stephen Glover: The Guardian can't go on like this — Media Studies: The Guardian reportedly fielded 19 journalists at the Labour Party conference in Manchester — This column does not normally take much interest in motoring magazines, which may be a weakness.

Discussion: Press Gazette and Guardian

Jon Friedman / MarketWatch:

Keith Kelly: scourge of media industry — NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Don't mess with New York Post columnist Keith Kelly, the scourge of the magazine industry. — Consider the time that the new public-relations man for a prominent newsweekly magazine called Kelly to introduce himself …

Discussion: Romenesko

James Hibberd / Hollywood Reporter:

Industry backs Robert Greenblatt to run NBC — Strong belief that ‘beloved’ exec can lead turnaround — Robert Greenblatt is not running NBC — yet — but the prospect of the former Showtime entertainment president taking command of the network has the creative community buzzing with anticipation.

Michael Learmonth / AdAge:

As Tech Blogs Grow up, Can They Transcend Their Founders? — It's Possible, but for Many the Results Remain to Be Seen — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — They started out as personal obsessions and evolved into agenda-setting news outlets proffering snap judgments on everything from Yahoo's executive drama to Google's new URL shortener.

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

An Award, Criticism and Perils for Comcast — Criticizing Fox News is a year-round sport for many hosts on MSNBC, the cable news channel, and especially for Keith Olbermann, whose verbal spitballs at the Fox host Bill O'Reilly have occasionally put his parent company, NBC Universal, on edge.

Discussion: Free Press and Media Nation

Newsosaur / Reflections of a Newsosaur:

Faced with falling circ, publishers retool rules — Unable to arrest a decline that has consumed nearly a third of print circulation in the last decade, newspapers are doing the next best thing: Revising the way they count readers to make themselves look better to advertisers.