Know how it used to be a running joke that reality TV shows would, in the credits, scroll the names of the writers, even though a reality TV show is supposed to, you know, be based on reality? And not need writers?

Then here’s a new one for you: Fox News is looking for a “fact writer.”

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While reporting on apartment-jumping Russian model Ruslana Korshunova, who reportedly committed suicide on Sunday after leaping to her death, Fox News broke what most media types would argue is an ethics commandment: Thou shalt not show the dead. This tenet falls somewhere next to “Thou shalt not show sex abuse victims,” though clearly on the other side of “Thou shalt be OK if you show a dead Saddam Hussein hanging from the rafters.” Now, following its various apologies to Obama’s camp, FNC is apologizing for broadcasting Korshunova’s corpse, lying partially covered by a sheet on the street.

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“In the first five-and-a-half months of 2004, the last presidential election year, Fox’s prime-time audience among viewers aged 25 to 54 was more than double that of CNN’s — 530,000 to 248,000, according to estimates from Nielsen Media Research. This year, through mid-June, CNN erased the gap and drew nearly as many viewers in that demographic category as Fox — about 420,000 for CNN to 440,000 for Fox. Meanwhile, CNN has added 170,000 viewers a night, on average, when compared with the last presidential year, while Fox has shed about 90,000, according to Nielsen. (MSNBC, which added 181,000 viewers in that audience, much of it courtesy of gains by “Countdown With Keith Olbermann,” still lagged in third place, with 303,000.)” [NYT]

Rapper Nas, who made headlines last year when he announced he would call his forthcoming album Nigger, and went so far as to walk red carpets wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the title, will finally debut his new record July 15. Nevermind that the his label Def Jam forced him to rename the album (it’ll be in stores as Untitled).

But one of the tracks on there, titled “Sly Fox,” might be of particular interest the readers of this site — because it’s an attack on Fox News, and Rupert Murdoch’s entire News Corp. Some of the lyrics go a little like this:

Propaganda / Visual cancer
The eye in the sky / No. 5 on the dial
Secret agenda / Frequency antenna / Dr. Mindbender
Remote control / Soul control […]

Fox has a bushy tail / And Bush tells lies and foxtrots / So I don’t know what’s real […]

(chorus:)
Watch what you watchin’ / Fox keeps feeding us toxins
Stop sleepin’ / Start thinkin’ outside of the box
And unplug from the matrix doctrine

Though, as is the case in all of these types of battles, this wasn’t the first bullet fired: Fox has attacked Nas before, which he specifically addresses in the song.

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On Wednesday, Fox News popinjay Greta Van Susteren picked a fight with on-air foe Al Sharpton over the reverend’s supposed ditching of her show Tuesday night, less than two hours before he was supposed to appear, to go on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 because Barack Obama’s campaign supposedly asked him to. Now, because we paid attention the first time around, we must also chronicle what happened next. Namely, a round of he-said-she-said.

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Seven hundred sixty-five comments later, it’s still unclear whether, ahem, Barack Obama’s campaign is booking for CNN. That’s what Fox News host Greta Van Susteren was asking on her blog GretaWire yesterday when the Rev. Al Sharpton pulled out of a 10pm appearance on her show less than two hours before he was supposed to go on, so he could instead pop up on Anderson Cooper 360. His excuse? The senator’s campaign asked him to appear on CNN on his behalf.

Nevermind that this is sort of a non-item — guests cancel segments all the time (bookers do too!) for one reason or another, and a phone call from Obama’s camp, which Sharpton vehemently supports, isn’t a light request. But our favorite part of Greta’s complaint is the set up, where she gets away with planting an item out of her duty to viewers: “I debated whether to tell you this or not…but I did promise behind the scenes information here on GretaWire….so here it is.” (Not that we’re complaining about any addition to a gossip war.)

Let’s not forget, however, than Ms. Susteren and Mr. Sharpton haven’t always seen eye-to-eye.

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This new ad from Fox News promoting Bill O’Reilly is either an accurate forecast of The Factor’s eventual burying of Keith Olbermann’s show, or a very embarrassing artifact for the future. [TVN]

Tennessee Democratic Party Executive Committee member Fred Hobbs thought Barack Obama might have terrorist ties because he heard it on Fox News. [Hot Air]

And where would you naturally turn for a sensible discussion on the phenomenon of “angry black women”? Fox News and its talking heads, of course! Here’s Dan Abrams calling out the network’s resident media critic Cal Thomas who lays out how the images of black women that America sees on television are just a bunch of ladies always angry about something. Even Mrs. Huxtable was always chewing someone out!

Fans of Laura Ingraham, the conservative radio host, have been able to deal with his disappearance from radio airwaves by tuning into her 5pm guest spot on Fox News. That hasn’t settled fears, however, that she’ll be back on the dial anytime soon, thanks to a contract dispute with Talk Radio Network, which locked her out of her Washington studio as the two parties wrap up a nasty contract negotiation. Though “negotiation” might be too strong a word — there doesn’t seem to be much talking going on about her deal, which expires in September and, until that date, prevents Ingraham from talking to other potential radio employers. Many fans worried that his absence from her regular radio slot was health-related; fears resurfaced that she was once again dealing with a her bout of breast cancer. But she wants to assure fans that her health has nothing to do with the matter: Her cold, dead heart is doing just fine.