• Desperate times, desperate measures: The New York Times is thinking about charging a $5 monthly fee for access to its Web site. [BN, NYP]
• Jay-Z is close to signing a book deal with the Spiegel & Grau imprint of Random House; the book will include "the stories behind his lyrics." [NYO]
• Moneyball lives: Sony Pictures is attempting to salvage the movie by hiring Aaron Sorkin to polish the script and adding Scott Rudin as a producer. [NYT]
• A list of prominent media/web people and their public speaking fees. [PC]
• The media moguls in Sun Valley may not be interested in buying Twitter, but there is some good news: The British royal family has signed up! [AP]
• Discovery Channel has been promoting "Shark Week" by sending out bloody swim trunks and personalized obituaries to reporters. Charming. [Movieline]
• Depressing news: Ryan Seacrest makes a lot more money than you do. [THR]
• Great news: NBC's Jeff Zucker says we may have reached bottom. [B&C]

In your famous Friday media column: exclusive thoughts from Steven Brill on the future of paid online newspapers, Rebecca Dana gets a new job, newspapers die and thrive, and Bill Keller will never be on the Daily Show again.

In 2008 the New York Times shut down its printing facility in Edison, New Jersey, laying off hundreds in the process. A reader wrote in tonight saying that the building is right now in the process of being demolished.

At long last, the New York Times may have figured out how to make money off its website: by charging for it.

In your commendable Thursday media column: Nick Kristof is the perfect columnist except for his writing, the NYT acknowledges its photo scandal, USA Today teaches us how to write a story that adds up to zero, and Lenny Dykstra's bankrupt.

Back in March, the New York Times Co. put its 1997 Dassault Falcon jet up for sale for $9.5 million. Several months passed without a buyer stepping forward, and now we hear the plane has been pulled off the market entirely. Did the company finally find someone to take it off its hands? Did Arthur Sulzberger Jr. decide to hang on to it? (Probably not.) Maybe the paper is planning to give it a good scrub-down before putting it up for sale again in the fall? We have no clue. But if you do, let us know! [Previously]

British authorities are launching an investigation into allegations that Rupert Murdoch's UK newspapers paid more than $1.5 million in hush money to try to cover up the fact that they were illegally hacking into cell phones in pursuit of stories.

Agyness Deyn is, like, such a rebel. She's a model who is so unmodel-y. She, like, hates fashion! And she, like, lives in East Village and wears Converse sneakers and quirky hats and smoke Parliaments. She's, like, so unique!

• Aquavit's owner says the rumor the eatery is closing is pure nonsense. [GS]
• More good news: Although it appeared as if Ama has gone bust a couple of weeks ago, the closure was temporary and it's now back in business. [Eater]
• The critics: Frank Bruni of the Times gives Aldea a very solid two-star review today; Bloomberg's Ryan Sutton is pretty pleased with Locanda Verde; and the Post's Steve Cuzzo is happy to report Benoit is "a lot better." [NYT, BN, NYP]
• Rumor has it William Grimes may step in as the New York Times' temporary restaurant critic when Frank Bruni takes his leave next month. [TFB]
• A roundup of restaurants that have opened recently. [NYT]
• Joey Chestnut's record-setting 68 hot dogs at the Nathan's eating competition translates into 20,200 calories, in case you were wondering. [TFB]

Photo District News has found evidence of digital manipulation in three more of the 'Ruins of the Second Gilded Age' photos published by the New York Times Magazine last weekend. It's starting to look like a *real* scandal.

Hipster farmers are pussies. Yuppie foodies are embarrassing half-men. But butchers—so fucking hot, OMG. All the blood. All the meat. All the editing in the world can't conceal NYT reporter Kim Severson's butcher lust:

Hobo broadsheet the New York Times, last seen telling its reporters that text messages are too expensive, has found another way to save precious nickels: getting freelancers to pay their own reporting expenses. With virtual panhandling!

• How many networks covered the Jackson memorial? Count 'em yourself: ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, HLN, MTV, VH1, VH1 Classic, VH1Soul, BET, E!, TV Guide, TV One, Univision and Telemundo. [AdWeek]
• The WSJ is planning a weekly New York-only arts-and-culture section. [NYO]
• Condé Nast will launch a version of GQ in China in October. At last! [NYT]
• The view from Sun Valley: Barry Diller doesn't think Twitter is ever going to make any money. But Disney chief Bob Iger says we're all going to be paying for online content in the near future. So everyone is in agreement. [WSJ, WSJ]
• OK!'s $500K cover of a dying Michael Jackson wasn't a big hit. [DF]
• The New York Times has pulled down a gallery of photos that had been digitally manipulated, presumably without its knowledge. [E&P]
• Coming in 2010: An entire cable channel devoted to Olympic sports. [THR]
• The adult entertainment industry is phasing out "narrative arcs" and dialogue, and it's supposedly because the Internet has shortened attention spans. [NYT]

Last weekend the New York Times Magazine published a beautiful set of photos of abandoned buildings and such, as a chronicle of the end of the gilded age. Now they've pulled them for probably being Photoshopped. Fakery!

We don't know about you, but we're pretty fed up with porn that insults our freaking intelligence! You just can't get epic storylines in jerk-films anymore. Where are the three-dimensional characters? The witty zingers? The New York Times investigates!

An intern at the Colorado Springs Gazette has been fired for lifting passages from the New York Times and placing them in stories she wrote for the newspaper.

• The Sci Fi Channel is now called Syfy. It's pronounced the same way, except it's less science fiction-y, which is why it was changed to begin with. [THR]
• Justin Timberlake has tapped lit agent David Vigliano to sell publishers on the notion that Timberlake is just the person to write a book about golf. [NYO]
• After a heated, two-year battle, big record labels and online radio stations have finally agreed on new royalty rates for streaming music online. [NYT]
• Who says embattled media companies are doing their best to spend money more wisely? The soundstage for Jay Leno's new primetime show will be "specially fitted to accommodate his passion: expensive cars." [THR]
• "Online predators" have hit Twitter. Paging Dateline's Chris Hansen! [LAT]
• A new study finds that kids are spending more time online. Surprise! [AP]
• Equally shocking: Breaking the Jackson story has boosted TMZ's traffic. [AP]

America's Paper of Record cannot afford to have its reporters sending text messages or calling 411 on their company phones. What a pitiful state of affairs.

Ross Douthat, the New York Times op-ed conservative who does a better job of pretending to be reasonable than Bill Kristol did, is kind of sad about this Palin thing. Because it means the death of the American Dream.

The Washington Post did a terrible thing, the New York Times reports. "Why is the WP so morally bankrupt?" the NYT wonders. The Post has issued a laughably weak apology for being a cheater loser paper, reports the NYT!