Afternoon Briefing:
Wolf rules: NBC and Universal announced their new merger yesterday in New York and the man everyone wanted to celebrate was "Law and Order" producer Dick Wolf, who walked out of the meeting with an extension on his production deal with the company through 2008. Said Jeff Zucker, president of NBC Universal Television Group, "There's no one more important to the success of our primetimes schedule." (Hollywood Reporter)
Brokaw hangs in: Speaking of NBC, they've got their eyes on keeping talent from straying. Anchor Tom Brokaw, who's passing his baton to Brian Williams in December, just signed a 10-year contract with the peacock to work on documentaries and as a news analyst. (Reuters)
Blast from the past: Lionel Richie and Gloria Gaynor will headline a Vietnam peace concert in June in honor of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Country Joe McDonald. Proceeds will go to victims of the Vietman war. (BBC)
Breslin beat: Veteran columnist Jimmy Breslin was speaking to a Columbia Graduate School of Journalism class about the choices editors have to make when a student with a laptop showed him an online video of the Nick Berg execution. It led Breslin to write in today's column, "Here is the new news reporting. If something is too gruesome, too ominous for the newspaper editor's taste, it matters not. The Internet will decide what you print, and if you don't care, if you want to stay in the past, then stay there with your dead newspaper. (N.Y. Newsday)
-- Karen Croft
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Turn On:
Season finale showdown: First, it's the live, post-season finale for "Survior All-Stars" (8 p.m. ET; CBS), in which we learn who will be voted, "American Idol"-style, winner of that extra million; then comes the season- and series-ending farewell episode of "Frasier" (9 p.m. ET; NBC), with guest stars Laura Linney, Jennifer Beals and Jason Biggs.
-- Scott Lamb
Morning Briefing:
Done deal or work in progress? Depending on who you listen to, Disney and Harvey and Bob Weinstein are either near or have reached a deal for the Weinsteins to buy the rights to distribute Michael Moore's anti-Bush documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11." Though a Disney spokeswoman says the company will sell the rights "to either a third party or Harvey and Bob," a Miramax spokesman says that "Disney has agreed to sell 'Fahrenheit 9/11'" to the brothers. (Reuters)
Bad day for the New York Times company: The president of the company is said to be "furious" that the Boston Globe, which it owns, published photos yesterday said to depict U.S. troops gang-raping Iraqi women, but which were in fact fake photos, taken from a porn Web site and "disseminated by anti-America propagandists." The faux-ness of the photos had already been detected and reported on by World Net Daily. (World Net Daily) Plus: "Top brass" at the paper were reportedly also so unhappy with the way culture editor Steven Erlanger handled the messy departure of movie critic Elvis Mitchell that Erlanger has been "reassigned" ... to Jerusalem, where he will be bureau chief. Jonathan Landman will move into the cultural news editor spot. (N.Y. Post)
Not a great day at WSJ either: Wall Street Journal writer Dorothy Rabinowitz apparently hit the wrong key and mistakenly sent a memo ripping into four outspoken 9/11 widows to ... one of the widows, who promptly shared it with the world. Weighing in on an Op-Ed piece submitted to the paper by widow Kristin Breitweiser, Rabinowitz wrote, "This is just an opportunity for these absurd products of the zeitgeist -- women clearly in the grip of the delusion that they know something, have some policy, and wisdom not given to the rest of us to know -- to grab the spotlight. again. and repeat, again, the same tripe before a national audience." Rabinowitz tried to recall the e-mail, but it was too late. (Lloyd Grove's Lowdown)
Book by Bond? Sean Connery is fishing around to see if there's interest from publishers in his memoirs. (Lloyd Grove's Lowdown)
Image report: Among the photos that members of Congress were shown yesterday were, reportedly, Pfc. Lynndie England -- she of the leashed prisoner -- having sex with multiple partners. "It appeared to be consensual," noted one lawmaker. (N.Y. Post)
Citizen Pam: Pamela Anderson, who was born in British Columbia, Canada, passed her U.S. citizen test yesterday and was sworn in during a private ceremony in L.A. "She'd like to vote, and be a citizen for the various reasons other people want to be citizens," her immigration lawyer explained. (N.Y. Post)
Russell-mania: Russell Crowe is in another tussle. This time it's a war of words -- with former heavyweight boxer Joe Bugner. Bugner says Crowe asked him to help him train for his role as a pugilist in "Cinderella Man," but that Crowe backed out at the last minute. Then, when Bugner criticized Angelo Dundee, who did get the Crowe-training job, Bugner says he got a call from the actor in which he "insulted me in such a manner that I will never, ever forgive him." Bugner also calls Crowe a "gutless worm" and says if he ever sees him, he "would have to resort to my old career." (Page Six)
Surviving Martha? Martha Stewart was spotted this week taking a meeting with "Survivor" executive producer and reality-TV mastermind Mark Burnett. (Gawker.com)
Money Quote:
Bill Clinton at a benefit the night he turned in his 900-page memoir manuscript: "Finishing the book was like a long prison sentence, and I feel like I just got out tonight. I had to finish my book -- I need my life back!" (Page Six)
-- Amy Reiter
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