• Joanna Coles is disappointing her peers at Marie Claire. And while the numbers speak for themselves, we're hearing there's some very hardcore agenda setting going on. [WWD]

• FCC reminds you that "fuck" and "shit" are still naughty words. [B&C]

• R&M goes political. Readers turn the page. [R&M]

• It's the first election night for all our news anchors playing lead. [NYT]

• Dateline's "To Catch A Predator" Series claims its first pedophilia suicide. NBC plays dumb. [NYT]

• Tucker Carlson, back on the tie fix? [TVN]

So, the Los Angeles Times has an article today about the Britney Spears interview with Matt Lauer … which we will keep obsessing over until Wednesday, when we have the Anderson Cooper/Angelina Jolie interview to infatuate us for at least another week.

The piece compares the chat to the one-on-ones he's had with Ann Coulter and Tom Cruise, eventually concluding that Lauer was more sympathetic to the prego former princess turned trailer trash than he was to Cruise or Coulter. We're not going to pull all the quotes (you've seen all these interviews, and if you care you can just read it yourself) but the conclusion is that maybe, possibly, Matt went too easy on Brit. Well, that or it's just too difficult to interview a girl with an IQ of 40.

Lauer has certainly taken on his share of outspoken guests (think Tom Cruise and, more recent, Ann Coulter) without flinching. But with Britney, he was all charm and caring concern. Maybe it was the way she delicately chewed gum during the interview in her short skirt and low-cut blouse. Then again, he did bring up some touchy subjects, or maybe it was just that Britney didn't know when she was being baited.

Maybe Matt was a bit more delicate with Brit — after all, the poor girl kept crying and none of her clothes fit. But, LAT totally left out the part where he told Britney she kept looking up at him like a puppy dog. Yeah, remember that part? And then she gave him that "I adore you for not being mean to me, but I don't really understand what you're saying" look? And he kind of laughed?

It just somehow seemed a little more harsh than "I know people who are on Ritalin."

Matt Lauer's delicate touch [Elena Howe, Los Angeles Times]

Because we now have such mind-blowing television as Super Nanny, Wife Swap, and Extreme Makeover Home Edition, the regular news about rape, murder, and kidnappings just don't do it for us anymore.

So, prime time news shows (dubbed newsmagazines) are really searching for that entertainment factor to punch up their ratings. Primetime, Dateline, 20/20 … all of these drama enduced news programs, are desperately trying to compete with the rise of reality television.

Sawyer's April 21 "Primetime" featured a stepfamily so abusive it seemed like "Supernanny" spun out of control, with tape of a father punching his teenage daughter … Newsmagazines have "morphed into something that is farther away from news and much closer to entertainment," said Joe Foote, acting dean of the University of Oklahoma's journalism school. "They're a long way from their roots."

That's right, ABC — nothing says entertainment like a guy beating the crap out of his teenage daughter. Plus, Super Nanny always edits out the part when the British lady locks the kids in the basement for a week with no food or water.

Network Newsmagazines Struggle to Survive [David Bauder, AP News]

Remember that whole Dateline series "To Catch a Predator" about Internet sex marauders, trolling MySpace for access to your tween son and daughter's underage underoos? Well the New York Times would like you to forget about those fears.

But some Internet safety experts say that a fear of networking sites has grown disproportionately to actual demonstrated threats, and that there is an unjustified paranoia about the sites.

"Everyone is freaked," said Parry Aftab, the director of Wired Safety, a nonprofit group of volunteers who conduct safety meetings for parents. "They are convinced the Internet Bogeyman is going to come into their window," she said. "To date that has not happened."

How lovely! But there are more important safety issues here than children's innocence. Like the safety of Dateline's existence. The NBC news mag is on the chopping block, people — now that's something to have community-wide meetings about.

Don't Talk to Invisible Strangers [Anna Bahney, NYT]

• Simon Dumenco weighs in not on the Oscars, but on whether reading media blogs makes you fuckable. The answer? Abso-fucking-lutely.[AdAge]

• Men's Vogue, it turns out, is a hit. Jay Fielden – and we're just guessing here – is not. [WWD]

• NBC Universal is forking over $600 million for iVillage, which sounds like a whole lot of cash for an online estrogen fest. [The Street]

• How, exactly, does a status-seeking media social climber manage to standby his money-losing trash rags? Daniel Gross is on the case of American Media Inc.'s David Pecker. [Slate]

• The Chinese love Jann Wenner's products, when written in Chinese. [London Times]

• Has Dateline's timeline come and gone? We hope not, if only because we'll miss that online sex predator series. [B&C]

• Embroiled Village Voicer Nick Sylvester may be suspended from the alt-weekly, but he's gone for good at Pitchfork. [The Nation]

• To enter the Bloomberg house of financial news, you must have your glamour shot taken. [Washingtonian]