All good things must come to an end. The Chief Executive Officer of Rupert Murdoch’s Dow Jones, Lex Fenwick, is leaving the News Corp subsidiary, according to an announcement posted on the company’s website. Fenwick joined Dow Jones in 2010 after 25 years at Bloomberg LP, and oversaw the development of DJX, a product designed to compete with Bloomberg LP’s wire service. Fenwick was also the subject of an ex-Bloomberg employee’s unhinged resignation letter. The pertinent bit:

This photo was posted yesterday to Rupert Murdoch's excellent new Tumblr, Murdoch Here. It's captioned, "Hanging with the Dow Jones team today." Cool hang. I think I might be able to see a couple people who aren't white?

Last July, Les Hinton resigned as CEO of Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones, as part of the far-flung fallout from the News Corp phone hacking scandal. At long last, his replacement has been named: a "purple-suited arsse."

Now that the debt ceiling's been raised and all uncertainty removed from the markets, the Dow Jones will respond by... dropping 265 points on the day. The reason is that the economy is terrible.

Dow Jones CEO Les Hinton—whose previous job was running the division of Rupert Murdoch's empire that is presently engulfed in an out-of-control conflagration of criminality, almost all of which stems back to Hinton's tenure there—has stepped down. We totally called this two years ago.

In your crystalline Thursday media column: Regent Media has even bigger money troubles than usual, News Corp is doing well, the new Newsweek is floating around, another Egypt journo-terror roundup, and rumored layoffs at Forbes.

We hear Steve Jobs has tentatively agreed to appear on stage at the Wall Street Journal's high-profile D Conference for the first time in three years. The June event could be a major landmark in the Apple CEO's public recuperation.

In your value-added Tuesday media column: The Onion shuts down a section, SmartMoney may be taken over by Dow Jones, an n+1 guy gets a book deal, and Magic Johnson's still not a media mogul.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is back below 10,000 for the first time since November. Remember that recovery that was supposed to be on? Well, forget it. The dollar may be getting stronger, but we're all still totally screwed.

• Oprah's interview with Sarah Palin aired today, as you know by now. [AP]
• The deal between GE and Comcast to give the cable giant control of NBC Universal could be finalized in the next few days/weeks, although approval from Washington could take some time. [DF, THR, WSJ]
• Lou Dobbs didn't walk away from $9 million when he departed CNN. He reportedly got paid $8 million in severance to walk out the door. [NYP]
• The largest gay newspaper publisher in the U.S. has shuttered. [NYT]
• Budget Travel may be the magazine to die. [Daily Intel]
• The cost-cutting McKinsey consultants have landed at Dow Jones. [Forbes]
• 2012 destroyed the box office this weekend, reeling in $65 million. [THR]

The Wall Street Journal uses an astounding 30 to 60 staffers to produce an underwhelming webcast knockoff of CNBC, says Business Insider. (Update: WSJ says closer to 10.) That would help explain the rumors that the newspaper is hemorrhaging money.

• Barack Obama's appearance on David Letterman's show last night helped the Late Night host score his second-highest ratings ever. [NYT, WP]
• Dan Rather scored a couple of victories in his suit against CBS: A motion by the network to dismiss the case was denied by a judge; and Rather's lawyers will be permitted to question Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone. [Reuters]
• Yesterday, activists handing out fake copies of the Post outside its offices were detained by cops. Today, the paper says it was "flattered" by it. [NYP]
• Book deals: Jenny Sanford, the estranged wife of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, is writing "inspirational memoir" for Random House. And Andrew Young, an aide to former Senator John Edwards, has landed a deal with St. Martin's Press' Thomas Dunne Books to publish his tell-all memoir.
• In an effort to keep more viewers tuned in, ABC plans to reduce—yes, reduce—the number of commercials in the premieres of its new shows. [LAT]
• Fox won the opening night of the fall season, a first for the network. [THR]

Goldman Sachs is in the process of selling the Dow Jones Industrial Average on behalf of News Corporation, John Carney at Business Insider reports. But is it really worth much?

• Last night's long-delayed premiere of the sixth season of Project Runway—on Lifetime, not Bravo—earned the show its highest ratings ever. [NYT, THR]
• Breathe easy: Anna Wintour's travel itinerary for the fall fashion shows in London, Paris and Milan will not be affected by the recent round of budget cuts at Condé Nast. She'll be staying at the Ritz in Paris, as usual. [NYP]
• The cuts have claimed Condé's supply of coffee stirrers, however. [P6]
• Another member of the Sulzberger clan is joining the New York Times. [NYO]
• News Corp. has been meeting with newspaper publishers to discuss forming some sort of "consortium" to charge people for access to news online. [LAT]
• News Corp. is also in talks to sell its Dow Jones stock market index. [NYT]
• Harvey and Bob Weinstein have a lot riding on the success of Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. How is the movie expected to perform at the box office this weekend? Not too bad, per early estimates. [THR]

• The Harry Potter frenzy kicked off last night when the latest installment debuted at midnight last night and raked in $22.2 million in the process. [THR]
• Jared Kushner's struggling Observer is still hunting for a new editor. [DF]
• Time Inc. has "assembled a high-level SWAT team" to revamp Fortune. [NYP]
• The most successful magazine at the moment? Fitness. Obviously! [Folio]
• Ukraine's Culture Ministry has banned Brüno because "it's immoral." [THR]
• A hacker accessed the computers of several Twitter employees, made off with a big bunch of documents, and is now leaking the info online. Technology! [TC]
• Is NBC's wacky, new terrorist-hunting reality show going to put war correspondents in danger's way? Guess we'll find out shortly, right? [NYO]

Dow Jones CEO Les Hinton was asked last week by England's House of Commons to testify about the rampant wiretapping that he allegedly oversaw when running Rupert Murdoch's British newspapers. He's not going to show.

Gone are the days when the Wall Street Journal newsroom left brutal attacks on other media outlets to the Journal's rabid editorial page. Rupert Murdoch bought the paper to wage war, and it's happening.

• The markets were down big yesterday—the Dow shed 254 points—but stocks should do better today as the first quarter of '09 comes to a close. [CNN, WSJ]
• ABC News reports that the FBI and federal prosecutors are "closing in" on AIG's most notorious exec, Joseph Cassano, who made as much as $300 million running the company's disastrous Financial Products Division. [ABC]
• Wondering what Andrew Cuomo has been up to? Here's your answer: He just forced JPMorgan to refund a group of customers $4.4 million. [DJ]
• Morgan Stanley is set to raise $6 billion for a new global property fund. [BN]
• France is now looking to limit executive compensation, too. [WSJ]
• The 15 largest global banks are expected to shrink their balance sheets by about $2 trillion in 2009. [Reuters]
• Google plans to commit $100 million to a new venture capital fund. [WSJ]
• One more victim of the recession: the sanctity of contracts. [NYT]
• Carl Icahn is taking a gamble: He's bidding on Atlantic City's Tropicana. [DB]

• News Corp. posted a $6.4 billion loss for the quarter after writing down half the value of Dow Jones, which it purchased in 2007. [Reuters, BN]
• The Wall Street Journal is laying off 14 people and will also be closing the newspaper's fashion bureau. [E&P, FWD]
• Rupert Murdoch says he has no plans to buy the Times. [E&P]
• The Grammys are on Sunday; here's what you can expect to see. [CNN]
• Chesley Sullenberger will be on 60 Minutes this weekend. [NYP]
• Congrats, ESPN! Sarah Palin says she named her baby in honor of the cable network's hometown of Bristol, Connecticut. [HuffPo]

Robert Thomson, the wily Aussie installed by Rupert Murdoch as editor of the Wall Street Journal, wants his newspaper to be big in Japan. And Europe. And Chicago. And Los Angeles.