• Despite Pentagon plea, newspapers realize that 2,000th Iraq death really is new. [NYT]
• Sean McManus, president of CBS Sports, is still the new president of CBS News. He's Jim McKay's son, and one day last week he thought that Harriet Miers was a bigger news story than the White Sox. [NYT]
• Meanwhile, in a CBS men's room, Mike Wallace and Dan Rather engage in a pissing match. [Radar]
• Tim Russert is a pivotal witness in Libby case while also being, well, Tim Russert. [NYT]
• New Teen People is already Majewski-fied, although the former Us Weekly resdesign doesn't technically hit till February.
• Biz magazines are in trou-ble. [Mediabweek]
• Martha Stewart wants a job at Martha Stewart. [NYP]
• Newsweek's Tom Masland obituary: "Then Tom stepped off that curb, and was hit by the offside mirror on a passing SUV; a freak collision on a rainy night that propelled him to the ground and caused massive brain damage. ... Thomas Wootton Masland died in intensive care at St. Luke's Hospital three days later, on Oct. 27, with his sons, Richard, Robert and James, his mother, brother and two sisters by his side, as Gina [his wife, a jazz singer] sang 'When the Saints Go Marching In.'" [Newsweek]

Newsweek editor Tom Masland died today, after he was hit by a car earlier in the week. He started work at the magazine's New York headquarters last month, the magazine reported, "after a long career reporting for Newsweek in some of the world s most dangerous places."

See, they tried to warn her.

• Former Voicers react to New Times deal; one actually likes it. [Boston Phoenix]
• Barely competent magazine publisher Primedia sacks CEO, explores plan to further break itself up. [NYP]
• Some bloggers would be protected under proposed federal shield law. And thank God for that. [E&P]
• Um, yeah. So it turns out actually Diane Sawyer isn't gunning for the World News Tonight job. [AP via USAT]
• Tom Masland, Newsweeker who reported from Mideast, Africa, war zones, and elsewere, is hit by SUV on West End Avenue. He's at St. Luke's in critical condition. [NYDN]
• Bob Wallace, erstwhile Wenner Books chief, takes a walk. [Media Mob/NYO]
• In fact, so few people want to work for Wenner that no one wanted to run Men's Journal. "It's like going to work for George Steinbrenner," said one uninterested candidate. [WWD, second item]
• Apparently, Andrew Krucoff lost a job yesterday. [NYT]

• Judy Miller is a real piece of work, says Wash Postis Gene Robinson. Not that there's anything wrong with that. [WP]
• Jim Cramer TV is a "surreal nightly call-in show on CNBC that is perhaps best described as Louis Rukeyser meets televangelism meets Pee-wee's Playhouse." [BizWeek]
• At D.C. awards dinner, Roger Ailes picks up Freedom of Speech award — and proceeds to exercise that right with wild abandon. [B&C]
• At Puerto Rico confab, magworld learns, among other things, that Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker does laps in a Speedo. Oddly enough, we knew that already, and we have no idea of how or why. [WWD]

• Michael Isikoff finds "the Times' conduct at this point inexplicable." He also reveals in Newsweek that Judy's super-secret magically discovered June notes were "discovered in the [Times'] Washington bureau," rendering a little suspect the paper's former claims that it didn't have any of Ms. Miller's notes.
• Syd Schanberg points out a brilliant exchange from Judy's Barbara Walters interview:

We imagine things there are tough for the gays, too.

• The HuffPost is like a town car, says Simon Dumenco. And he likes Town Cars. [Ad Age]
• Who'd have thunk it: Al Gore TV ain't so bad. [NYT]
• The newsweeklies are dying, apparently. Of course, the newsweeklies are always dying. [USAT]
• Lizzie Grubman, muse. [NY Mag]
• One vote for Charlie Gibson as the new Peter Jennings. [B&C]
• TK soon in Septmeber GQ: "Supreme Court Justices: They're Just Like Us!" [WWD, third item]
• Remember how the Post said the Bancrofts want to sell Dow Jones? Well, the Post also said Dick Gephardt would be running for vice president. [NYT]

• Philadelphians don't believe the Times's sixth-borough crap any more than we do. [Inquirer]
• Because no else seems to have any idea, CBS asks its interns how to save the Evening News. [NYO]
• Officialy, all Timesmen love Judy Miller. Confidentially, not so much. Something for OTR sources to consider: The way you talk about Judy, how far do you think moonlighting E&P newshound Joe Strupp will go to protect your identities? [Salon]
• The Voice calls Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria the pundit world's Backstreet Boy, whatever that means. , egregiously ignoring George Stephanopoulos. [VV]
• A j-school prof wonders, should I tell my students the truth, that the business kind of sucks? Nah, of course not. Where would we be without irrationally earnest j-students? [E&P]

Bear with us for a moment: A quick search on LexisNexis reveals that in the past month, there have been no less than 270 articles about crystal meth — and that's excluding the latest issue of Newsweek, which is weighed down with coverage of the drug. So, for the sake of math, let's say there's been 275 media mentions of meth (print only, because factoring in the tv news buzz would probably double the numbers) in the past month. That means that, every day for the past 31 days, there has been 8.87 articles per day about meth.

An excellent essay by Dave Winer on West Coast media. "Some people out here on the west coast (not me!)...