American Journalism Review may be shuttered. The media journal is a victim of declining interest in print publications dedicated to journalistic navel-gazing, and a lawsuit from malevolent Santa Barbara News-Press owner Wendy McCaw. [WaPo]

Today on the New Republic website, retired blogger Elizabeth Spiers reviews the second issue of Portfolio. Spiers finds the title pretentious and lacking in substance. Her suggestion? Replace editor Joanne Lipman with former New Yorker head Tina Brown, who will bring both flash and purpose to the title. Surely Tina, who is currently sitting on her ass awaiting royalty checks from that Princess Diana book, would go for it. But what would happen to poor Joanne? We've come up with a plan that requires a little editorial shuffling throughout the media world, but ends up with everybody comfortably ensconced in positions for which they might be better suited!

How Rupert Murdoch was allowed to ruin Britain's Times. (Hint: It was Margaret Thatcher's fault.) Anyway, a chilling vision of the future, if you work at the Wall Street Journal. [Independent]

Dow Jones VP Paul Ingrassia (brother of Times Biz editor Larry, as we are always reminded) plans to leave the company in early 2008. Ingrassia, who was passed over for the managing editor job at the Wall Street Journal in favor of Marcus Brauchli, claims that the move has nothing to do with Rupert Murdoch's acquisition of the company, but, really, why else would you leave? [Reuters]

Serial killer David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz used to correspond with Jimmy Breslin at the Daily News; now he's reduced to sending missives to A.M. New York. Sure, the guy's a psychopath who murdered six people, but you've got to feel a little sympathy for him: A.M. New York? Really? [AMNY]

If you're not an adherent of Balk's Law ("Anytime an article mentions 'Godwin's Law,' skip to the next page") you might find something interesting in this article about Wikipedia's "impolite side." Or this one, about a new site that lets you see just who's editing their own Wikipedia articles. The Times sure is fascinated by Wikipedia, huh?

Men's Health acquiesces to the demand from MediaVest—the ad buying firm whose clients include Wal-Mart, Kraft, Coca-Cola, and Procter & Gamble—that "publishers guarantee each issue's circulation instead of averaging multiple issues like usual." Will other titles follow suit? There's a lot of bluster, but, yeah, probably. [AdAge]

Remember those blissful days back in April, before anyone knew about Rupert Murdoch's evil plans to take over the Wall Street Journal and the biggest media acquisition story going was the one about Chicago real estate magnate Sam Zell's plans to buy Tribune? Yeah, we thought we were done with that one too. Unfortunately, not yet! The Times, Journal and Los Angeles Times all take a look at the deal, scheduled to be completed tomorrow, and agree: The damn thing might not happen. Why?

"Many publishers consider the Internet, and Google in particular, a greater threat to their livelihoods than Osama bin Laden." A Los Angeles Times opinion column argues that the Google's new comment system, which allows a news article's subjects to give their side of the story, will be the death of journalism. [Techdirt]

Aspiring Peter Braunsteins and other glossy magazine editrix fetishists may want to check out the shiny new escalators at the Hearst Building. If you peek through the glass at the right time, you might be able to see some Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire ladies' undercarriages. [NYM]

There aren't enough naked knockers in the world to save England's fading lad mags. [Independent]

Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC's "Countdown," looks at the Wikipedia Scanner episode, in which a website made it vastly easier to trace edits made to the online encyclopedia back to the organizations that made them. He notes that two News Corp.-owned media properties — the Times of London and Fox News — reported on the scandal without noting their own, er, contributions to Wikipedia. Fair enough. But, then again, did Olbermann note any edits made by his colleagues at NBC?

Today's Wall Street Journal takes a look at South Africa's Daily Sun newspaper. It's pretty fascinating: "The Daily Sun offers an eclectic stew, integrating the news of the day with heavy doses of soccer and sex. It covers the comings and goings of local witches known as sangomas and troll-like spirits called tokoloshe, which other newspapers shun as silly superstitions. 'You're not going to be received in this market if you view ancestor worship as an oddity,' [publisher Deon] du Plessis says unapologetically. 'Beeld,' a major paper read by white Afrikaaners, 'would hardly denounce the existence of the Holy Trinity.'" [WSJ]

Slate's media scold Jack Shafer gets to abuse newspapers today by writing about a new study that found that fewer than 2% of stories with errors got corrected in a group of ten metro daily newspapers. This is where we jump up and down and yell "One of us, one of us!" Can we put the bogeyman of how those stupid blogs are error-ridden and never correct anything in a shallow grave now? (Actually maybe let's see how the rest of today goes here before we start gloating. Feeling kind of over-caffeinated and error-ridden already! Might print anything!)

The Seattle Times editor who objected to the very few members of his newsroom who cheered the resignation of Karl Rove has clarified his thoughts in an email to the staff. "A good newsroom is a sacred and magical place," he told the staff. Also, he wrote in the memo, "Please, please get your robe sizes in to wardrobe by the next dark moon for the autumn equinox celebration. If you don't have your new robe, we won't let you into the star circle when we butcher the goats, and Gaia will be angry!"

We hear that New York Times Business honcho Larry Ingrassia is trying to lure fired Portfolio deputy editor Jim Impoco (whose bio is still on Portfolio's website) back to his old Times home in Biz. That would be an interesting, if not entirely unpredictable, turn of events. (Where is there to work, anyway?) And they have something in common. When Ingrassia left the Wall Street Journal for the Times, one of the great benefits for him was getting away from Lipman.

Have you forgotten that it's Audit Bureau of Circulation time? Whee! People's sales declined, probably because a steady diet of Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears grows tiring after a while; we need some hot new celebrities to hit the rehab circuit and, sorry, Amy Winehouse just won't cut it. Over on the serious side of things, Time takes a massive hit, dropping 17.1% in paid and weekly circulation against the same period last year. A Time spokesperson claims that the drop is a result of the magazine's heroic struggle for transparency—shedding copies distributed to doctor's offices and the like—and that the industry will eventually be forced to follow suit, which sort of jibes with our theory that it's all part of new managing editor Rick Stengel's plan to make sure there are only seven people who read Time, but that those seven people absolutely savor every single word. [WWD]

Today at 11 a.m., the union at Dow Jones held a meeting in the large conference room on the 9th floor of DJ headquarters down at 1 World Financial Center. The topic of discussion: "taking an action to tell Rupert loud and clear that his 'investment' in Dow Jones must start with a quality contract." Hmm! How'd that work out? Well, we understand that the conclusion that the union came to is to... sign a congratulations card for Rupert! That'll definitely sway him. Oh, and there's also talk of "taking some action" by midweek if tomorrow's bargaining session doesn't go well. This could get good!

Time to separate the Matt Coopers from the Judy Millers: "Five reporters must testify about their law enforcement sources in a former Army scientist's lawsuit against the Justice Department, a federal judge in Washington ruled yesterday.... The reporters — Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman of Newsweek; Allan Lengel of The Washington Post; Toni Locy, formerly of USA Today; and James Stewart, formerly of CBS News — have acknowledged receiving information from the Justice Department and the F.B.I. about Dr. Hatfill, the judge, Reggie B. Walton, wrote in his decision yesterday. But they have refused to name their sources." [NYT]

Publishers, despite the hardbitten skepticism of their journalist underlings, vie with the denizens of Silicon Valley for the crown of gullible neophilia. So they ignore reports of Second Life's impending demise, and instead fix their eyes on the virtual world's elusive 8.7 million registered users. Virtual World Productions has decided to stake a claim in virtual journalism. Its goal is to grow into the News Corp. of virtual worlds — never mind that Reuters and CNET beat it to the punch in establishing Second Life bureaus.