Mediagazer: Layoffs and cutbacks lead to a new world of news deserts (Tom Stites/Nieman Journalism Lab)

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

‘Face the Nation’ Plans Shift to Hourlong Format — The half-hour Sunday public affairs program on CBS, “Face the Nation,” will become an hourlong program next spring, matching its rivals on other television networks. — “I cannot remember when I've been happier to break a story than I am to tell you this …

Discussion: TVNewser

Pamela Paul / New York Times:

For Anchorwomen, Family Is Part of the Job — WHEN Megyn Kelly was starting out in television, a prominent TV newswoman told her, “You're going to need to choose: you can either have a family or you can be a major anchor.” — Ms. Kelly — now a Fox News anchor, ex-Jones Day lawyer …

Discussion: The Jane Dough, Mediaite, The Huffington Post, TVNewser, The Corsair and Inside Cable News

Ryan Chittum / CJR:

A Big Corporate Welfare Story Gets Short Shrift — Reuters's Johnston and Times Union spotlight news almost everyone else ignores — Here's a story that's calling out for more attention and isn't getting it. — Reuters's David Cay Johnston wrote last week about a ruling in the New York Court …

Tom Stites / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Layoffs and cutbacks lead to a new world of news deserts — Editor's note: Tom Stites had a long career in newspapers, editing Pulitzer-winning projects and working at top newspapers like The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Discussion: Future of Journalism, Headlines and Deadlines and Sarah Hartley

Jennifer Armstrong / New York Magazine:

Onion News Network's Suzanne Sena on Going From Fox Anchor to Fake Anchor — We knew from the start of IFC's Onion News Network that we were going to love to love its ruthless takedown of cable anchors, thanks solely to the spot-on performance of Suzanne Sena as icy newswoman Brooke Alvarez.

Discussion: TVNewser

Jeremy W. Peters / The Caucus:

Next Stop for Cain? Fox's Door Is Open — Fox News is publicly signaling an interest in hiring Herman Cain, the former Republican presidential candidate whose loose-lipped conservative talk always seemed perfectly suited for a cable television round table.

Discussion: PolitickerNY and Business Insider

Steve Myers / Poynter:

Columbus Dispatch editorial cartoonist resigns after plagiarism accusations — Jeff Stahler resigned from the Columbus Dispatch Friday, Editor Ben Marrison tells me via email. “That is all we will have to say on this unfortunate matter,” he wrote. — The Dispatch suspended Jeff Stahler …

Discussion: Washington Post and The Daily Cartoonist

Randall Stross / New York Times:

Consumer Reports, Going Strong at 75 — BORN in 1936, Consumer Reports had a very happy 75th birthday this year. Its business has never been better. — Well, “business” is not the right word, as there are no profits or losses to track: it's a nonprofit.

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Weeks after New York police first came under fire for alleged “abuses” of First Amendment freedoms during the apex of the Occupy Wall Street protests here in mid-November, the NYPD's handling of the press remains a topic of scrutinty. — On Tuesday, congressman Jerrold Nadler called …

Discussion: Future of Journalism

Discussion: Runnin' Scared, City Room, The Huffington Post, Capital New York and New York Magazine

Alessandra Stanley / New York Times:

The Republican Primary Campaign in Iowa Is Right at Home on Fox News — There's a reason Fox News is beginning to look like a meet-the-candidate pancake breakfast in Council Bluffs, Iowa. — “You don't win Iowa in Iowa, you win it on this couch,” is how the Republican commentator Dick Morris put it on “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday.

Discussion: The Caucus and Chickaboomer

Jack Shafer / Thomson Reuters News & Insight:

The trial of Stephen Glass — Is serial fabulist Stephen Glass fit to practice law? — That question—first posed in 2002 when Glass applied for admittance to the New York State Bar Association—moved to California in 2007, when Glass applied to join its bar.

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Google doesn't seem to get how media works now — Google launched a news-reading app called Currents on Thursday, something it has been working on for some time — ever since it was a much-rumored skunkworks project called Propeller — and much of the coverage of the new app has called …

Discussion: Digital Spy, Sunlight Foundation Blog, Future of Journalism, Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check, Lifehacker, Gadget Lab, Folio and NetNewsCheck Latest