♦ David Letterman is in talks with John McCain about rescheduling his appearance on the late night show. [NYP]
♦ Sarah Palin will make two appearances on Fox News this week. [Politico]
♦ If your copy of the Times looks a little bit different today, that's because the paper has been busy shuffling around its various sections. [E&P]
♦ The LA Times may lay off as many as 75 staffers this week. [Variety]
♦ How big banks are handing their ad campaigns during this turbulent time. [NYT]
♦ CBS has had a solid start to the fall season. NBC has not. [AdAge, THR]
♦ Anne Hathaway has signed on to appear in Alice in Wonderland, which Tim Burton is directing. [THR]
♦ Why is Jim Cramer employed? That's what we'd like to know. [Romenesko]

As if 60 Minutes correspondent Lara Logan hadn't kicked up enough dirt in Iraq — she supposedly broke up a marriage and caused a lovers' brawl — she's now under investigation by the feds for looting. A reporter for Broadcasting & Cable somehow got into Logan's CBS office with a camera, and lo and behold, found some serious war spoils, including a two portraits of Saddam Hussein that Logan picked up from wrecked buildings. The authorities have already gone after other TV journalists for taking home souvenirs, which is, as ERS News noted, illegal under Iraqi law, so it was a bit dumb of Logan to let anyone into her office with camera. But then nothing screams "I am a hardened war reporter" like an ornament from inside enemy territory. And by Logan's standards this is a fairly low-grade scandal. Heck, by the standards of Iraqi looting it's a low-grade scandal. But it involves a pretty TV lady, so maybe try and get outraged by the clip after the jump.

Dadgummit, porn ruins corporate strategy! CBS is learning the hard way that if you give people a "branded mobile platform" to "upload" their "user-generated content," the "content" they will "generate" is "nekkid womens." The Tiffany Network started a site called CBSeyemobile.com where you, the idiotic consumer, can upload photos. And now they're shocked, shocked to find out that it's full of filth, loose women, and inappropriate public demonstrations of lesbianism! Ad Age broke the story in a Pulitzer-worthy feat of journalism, causing them to (modestly) publish this rather NSFW picture, which we are prepared to say is the most newsworthy photo that has ever graced that august publication's pages:

Sarah Palin spent some more time with Katie Couric, her new undermining roommate, who seems to have accumulated like 20 months worth of interview material, all of it horrifically damaging to the Republican vice presidential nominee. This time around, Palin couldn't name any newspapers or magazines she regularly reads, except for "all of them," which she clarified to mean whatever four-year-old copy of U.S. News she finds in the waiting room at her dentist's office. Then she didn't know what the morning after pill was. Katie was like, "whatever, I'm so out of here." Then Palin said she "loved" her lesbian friend, and Katie got excited again, about seeing Palin naked and "unfiltered" at the big debate. When will Palin finally vote Couric out of her sorority house and end this embarrassment? Cringe for her in the attached clip (click the video icon to watch).

Sarah Palin just keeps going back for more car-wreck interviews with Katie Couric. After forecasting a possible Great Depression and saying something indecipherable about her state's relations with Russia, the Republican vice presidential nominee reportedly went silent when called on to name Supreme Court cases other than Roe V. Wade. Also, in the attached clip, Palin and John McCain both implausibly try to blame "gotcha journalism" for reporting on Palin's support for cross-border raids into Pakistan, a position shared by Barack Obama and attacked by McCain during the presidential debate. (Click the video icon to watch.) Now, Politico reports, the Republican ticket is pulling Palin back to the safer waters of right-wing talk radio. Putting McCain's popular-but-inexperienced running mate in front of more TV cameras was a calculated gamble by the campaign to broaden her appeal. It's now safe to say that it failed.

For seasons, fans of Survivor have been awaiting the day when CBS would finally start broadcasting episodes of the long-running reality competition in HD. With so much beautiful scenery on display in every episode, what better way to notice new, unforeseen details of the show to appreciate? Unfortunately for CBS, their first HD episode of Survivor bore full-frontal fruit, as eagle-eyed watchers of this past Thursday's two-hour premiere noticed that hunky doctor Marcus Lehman showed off a little bit more of his own personal immunity idol than the network had doubtlessly intended. The unblurred wardrobe malfunction (courtesy of Survivor Sucks), after the jump (NSFW):

♦ Will Project Runway move to Lifetime from Bravo? NBC won the first legal battle against PR producer Harvey Weinstein on Friday, which means it's not entirely clear where the show will end up. [NYT]
♦ The Sun may publish an issue tomorrow after all. [Portfolio]
♦ Tina Fey to the rescue: Saturday Night Live has seen a major boost in ratings so far this season. [THR]
♦ Vanity Fair on the face-off between Maria Bartiromo and Erin Burnett. [VF]
♦ An Indian version of GQ debuts this month. [Guardian]
♦ Howard Kurtz says unseen clips of Katie Couric's interview with Sarah Palin are on the way; CBS says it has released everything it's got. [HuffPo]
♦ The Times looks back at the drunken career of the Post's Steve Dunleavy, who's retiring after 41 years in the business. [NYT]
♦ The Wall Street Journal has launched a mail-order wine club. Really. [NYT]

On Katie Couric's website, it's always "Sen. Biden" this and "Sen. Biden" that, but the Democratic VP nominee's Republican counterpart gets the catty treatment. She's just plain "Sarah Palin." Conservative slam book American Spectator even found a CBS News editorial aide saying Couric sought approval to not call her "Governor." Because otherwise, you see, Palin might have looked all executive and so forth in her disastrous interviews. Couric is obviously just scared of a more powerful cougar. When will the jealous media elites stop conspiring to make Sarah Palin look bad? Watch Couric finally give Palin the respect she deserves, after the jump.

Multimillionaire CNET founder Halsey Minor is in the news again, for another spat over his expansive art collection. Portfolio explains that Minor got into an "angry email exchange" with famous artist Damien Hirst. There are now "gaping, fist-size holes in the plaster walls" of Minor's San Francisco offices, where Hirst's work used to hang. This comes as Sotheby's is suing Minor over a disputed art auction. After the article ran online, Minor left a rambling comment quibbling with details. But he never disputed the story's central question: Has Minor spent so impulsively and unwisely on art, real estate, new startups, and a new wife (Shannon, pictured with Minor, above), that he's running short on cash? He doesn't answer that. Instead, he declares himself "the baddest psycho in bass fishing." The comment seems as delusional as this moment he recounts in the story:CBS chairman Sumner Redstone walked past him at the Bel-Air Hotel, shortly after CBS bought CNET for $1.8 billion. Minor hasn't been at CNET since 2000, and wasn't involved in the sale. So why would he expect Redstone to recognize him? Nostalgia? Pity? Portfolio reports on Minor's many difficult relationships; he told the magazine that Gateway founder Ted Waitt, formerly an investor in one of Waitt's startups, is no longer a friend. Add to the list of those difficult relationships: Minor with facts. (Photo by Rob Howard/Portfolio)

♦ John McCain canceled his appearance on CBS's Late Show with David Letterman tonight; Keith Olbermann will fill in instead. [HuffPo]
♦ The best (and worst) fall TV show ads. [THR]
♦ The end of the Sun is drawing near; the last paper may be published on Monday. [Gawker]
♦ NBC's Nightly News gained viewers in 2007-08; ABC and CBS both experienced declines. [TV Decoder]
♦ Did Harper's Bazaar photoshop its October cover featuring Kirsten Dunst? [WWD]
♦ Oprah Winfrey will lend her voice to the upcoming Disney flick The Princess and the Frog. [THR]
♦ Ad spending declined by 1.6% in the first half of 2008. [AdAge]
♦ Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho is coming to Broadway. [Variety]
♦ Meet the oldest working reporter in the country. [E&P]

Click to viewBoomp3.com Outside of Orso, Numb3rs star Judd Hirsch needed a couple of helping hands to get his automobile started. The beloved film and TV star assumed that he could make it over to the posh Italian restaurant and back home to his Brentwood compound with his tank on "E." After a lovely meal, Hirsch tried to get his car to start, but it wouldn’t. Hirsch threw his hands up and knew that he had just ran out of luck. Hirsch asked a couple of near by fellas to help give him a push into the street. Hirsch said, “I think I could coast all the way to a gas station. As a safety precaution, I’ll put on my emergency blinkers. But if you fellas give me a decent push, we could make it easily.” [Photo Credit: Bauer-Griffin] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

CBS CEO Les Moonves pontificated at the Mixx conference in New York today, saying that he loves the Internet, really. Departing from the party line of other networks, Moonves pointed out "The Internet is not cannabalistic; it is only additive," presumably referring to audience attention share between television and the Web. So how's CBS going to capitalize? The plan is go after what's left of the newspaper industries advertising with CNet and local affiliates. [MediaWeek] (Photo from Andrew Mager)

CBS EyeMobile, the new iPhone application that will let you beam horrific images of disasters directly from the scene to the CBS News team. And it lets you upload video as well as photos. But only if you first hack your iPhone with Jailbreak and other software to enable video recording — thereby voiding your warranty. And new subsidiary CNet will be happy to show you how! [NewTeeVee]

Dan Rather filed that big $70 million lawsuit against CBS last year because, he said, they hung him out to dry like a coonskin on a tree branch when it turned out there were problems with his story about George W. Bush's National Guard Service. CBS said Rather was crazier than a coyote with Mexican jumping beans in his anus. (Okay, that's enough). Some of his suit was thrown out in April, and now two more of his remaining four claims have been dismissed. But he's still alive!

You won't find a big grin on Dan Rather's face today. Yesterday a judge threw out two of the four remaining claims that are part of the newsman's $70 million lawsuit against CBS, including the most serious allegation, that the network committed fraud for "falsely promising to help restore his reputation." Rather still plans to press ahead with the his less-serious charges of of breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty. And the disappointing development didn't seem to put off his lawyer. He told reporters that the case is "still alive" and the breach-of-contract claim would be a "slam dunk." [NYP]

Katie Couric's career is certainly on the upswing, isn't it? A day after the Times' David Carr called the CBS anchor a "highly skilled interviewer" and naturally funny" and observed that she's been in "the middle of things for the last few weeks" comes word that she'll be the second person to interview Sarah Palin next week. [P6]

If Page Six is to be believed, Sarah Palin's "second big interview" will come next week, when the Republican vice presidential nominee will travel with CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric. (Ha ha, apparently Sean Hannity's interview doesn't count as "big," even within News Corporation.) It remains to be seen whether Couric will lay Palin embarrassingly bare as ABC's Charlie Gibson did last week. But just scoring the sit-down adds to the evidence Couric is mounting a sort of comeback from the dark days five months ago when she was said to be leaving CBS. A summary of Couric's oh-so-modest recent victories:

Good news for Katie Couric: the ongoing psychodrama at MSNBC has caused people to forget entirely that she was widely considered a unhappy failure as the anchor of the CBS evening news. Remember how she hated the job, and the criticism, and was going to quit after the elections and take over for Larry King or something? That was a long time ago, and the spectacle of Chris Matthews versus Keith Olbermann versus Joe Scarborough versus NBC News brass versus viewers has basically taken all the negative attention off of poor Katie. As a result, now it is time for people to decide they like her again! First up, Times media person David Carr. David Carr got in trouble for being all sexist about Katie last time he wrote about her, and in this piece he once again reminds everyone that she is "perky" (almost!) and "America's Sweetheart" (almost!). But he also says: "Ms. Couric is a highly skilled interviewer, and people tend to tell her stuff." Of course CBS is still in third place and the fact that MSNBC has sucked all the coverage away from Katie is good, sort of, but also means that no one is talking about Katie and CBS. So she can do all the surprisingly good work in the world, but it won't attract the attention of a Chris Matthews meltdown on a third-place cable network. In other words, we figure she's enjoying herself as anchor for the first time since she started, mostly because she's still going to quit soon, so why not have fun. (Of course she still needs to make sure she's getting that payday before she hands the reigns back to Bob Scheiffer.) [Photo: HuffPo]

• Felix Gillette surveys the recent drama at MSNBC and chats with network president Phil Griffin about the decision to drop Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews from anchoring the presidential campaign. [NYO]

The NFL players' union wants to charge CBS Interactive a licensing fee for its use of NFL player stats, going so far as to threaten to "put CBSSports.com out of the fantasy football business" if it didn't comply, according to a suit CBS Interactive filed in Minneapolis as a response. Major League Baseball went through a similar suit, in which a judge ruled that players cannot charge for publicly available numbers. [PaidContent]