• NYT Boldface Names scribe Campbell Robertson takes a holiday from social hob nobbing to – gasp! – do some actual reporting. Please, don't expect any of that coming from this space anytime soon.

• With Hurricane Katrina's exposure of government misconduct, Brian Williams promises the media is going to get back to actually reporting hard news, though they'll have to look back a few decades to remember how to do that.

• From CNN to Details, to Esquire and to Maxim, Anderson Cooper now lands in the New York Times, but only because he cries on camera.

• Miami Herald columnist Jim DeFede, who illegally recorded politico Arthur Teele just before he killed himself in the newspaper's lobby, will not be charged with any crime.

• Yahoo is adopting its role of media company (Wall Street must be cheering) with the hiring of Kevin Sites to report on three dozen war zones over the next year.

• We hear mildly disgraced former amNew York editor Alex Storozynski has found new work as the city editor of the New York Sun.

• Penthouse raised $48 million in stocks in bonds with hopes of launching a pay TV network to compete with Playboy's. Whatever, more porn is always good news.

• New Disney chief Bob Iger is quietly lobbying Comcast to help close the gap on "windowing," or the interval between a film's theatrical release and its DVD and small screen appearances.