Over time, we get to know our commenters fairly well. There are some we know and love! Some we know and find mildly amusing. Some we don't know and are afraid of. Then there are the ones—or, the one—who seem to arrive only to defend the New York Times. Let's meet our commenter Urnidiot! Is s/he—we're kinda going with he!—a Times employee? Married to a Times employee? Let's go to the evidence!

The Hollywood Reporter has chosen former Variety editor-at-large Elizabeth Guider as its new editor. How does spitemeistress Nikki Finke rate the hire? "[A] joke... an unimpressive choice who sources tell me was passed over and demoted at Variety... [THR] was looking for a softball editor, someone who wouldn't ruffle advertisers' feathers." [DHD]

Yesterday, the Bancroft family was undecided about accepting Rupert Murdoch's bid for Dow Jones. Today? The deal seems likely to happen, but who the hell knows? There's a proposal on the table for "the Dow Jones board to create a fund to cover payments to firms advising Bancroft family members." Those payments are expected to be around $30 million, but "the money would be paid only if at least one of two key holdout shareholders agreed to the deal: Christopher Bancroft and a group of trusts managed by Denver law firm Holme Roberts & Owen."

Profits at the Financial Times are up 28% for the first half of the year. Might be a good place to go work if you're currently at a business paper where there's some uncertainty over ownership at present, right? [Guardian]

· Johnny Depp continues in his quest to wash the bitter, piratey taste of commerce out of his mouth, signing on for an adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's novel The Rum Diary. [Variety]
· Brett Ratner, Billion Dollar Director Day also sees the announcement of a new two-year deal with 20th Century Fox TV, for whom he produces Prison Break and the upcoming Women's Murder Club, establishing that there is no visual medium safe from his boundless ambition. [THR]
· The Simpsons Movie takes in $96 million at the foreign box office, setting a number of single-day and opening weekend records and crushing competition like Transformers and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. [Variety]
· Perhaps because nearly every Simpsons fan in America was watching the World's Favorite Dysfunctional Family at the multiplex, a repeat of the TV show finished behind CBS's Big Brother in the Sunday night ratings race. [THR]
· All hail your new global leader: Variety editor-at-large Elizbaeth Guider jumps to THR as editor, where she'll be "the global leader responsible for the editorial vision and strategic direction of The Hollywood Reporter's daily and weekly editions, digital content offerings and industry-leading executive conferences while overseeing its staff of editors and reporters worldwide." [THR]

Simon Dumenco: Photoshopping magazine covers is okay, particularly when it's used to hide giant boners or Pauly Shore's doody. [AdAge]

Star magazine will miss its first-half targets; the title has been selling about 600,000 copies per week, a number which may drop further as the summer winds down. [WWD]

Late on Friday, Associated Press executive editor Kathleen Carroll sent around a memo noting the closure of asap, the A.P.'s multimedia attempt to keep up with the kids. asap, said Carroll, was a "wildly inventive source of stories and sounds and pictures and video unlike those found anywhere else" and a "terrific journalism success," which was good at everything except, you know, making any money. (But what did them in? Was it the content-free Q&A with Jonathan Safran Foer? Was it their insistence on addressing the youngster via use of the second person?) No word yet on what's going to happen to the unit's 24 staffers, but with all the prize-winning journalism they've created over the last two years, it shouldn't be too hard for them to find other work. Full memo below.

Supermarket magnate and Kate Hudson friend (and probable Radar investor!) Ron Burkle still wants to buy something—anything—in media. This time around he's looking at American Media Inc. Again. [NYP]

New Yorker writer George Packer has turned his magazine piece on Iraqi translators into a play, which will debut early next year. [WWD]

During a briefing yesterday concerning the recommendations of a panel appointed to investigate the treatment of our wounded soldiers, President Bush singled out former ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff, who was grievously injured in Iraq.

If Rupert Murdoch's son James takes over News Corp., the company's pro-Israel stance may change. At a 2002 meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, "Murdoch said he didn't see what the Palestinians' problem was and James said that it was that they were kicked out of their f— homes and had nowhere to f— live." The Sun is worried about the succession: If News Corp. goes wobbly, who will be left to speak for the Jews? [NYS]

U.S. News & World Report is shedding photographers. Makes sense: You can run the same old pictures of the country's best colleges year after year, right? [NYP]

Rodale—home of Men's Health superhunk Dave Zinczenko and the South Beach Diet—is looking to expand. Bono's Elevation Partners may want in. [NYP]

Sometime in the year 2050, you'll be able to explain to your gay husband's adopted children's adopted children that there once was a newspaper called the New York Times and also show them the documents that explain exactly how it went down the tubes. [NYT]

Paula Zahn resigns from CNN. (We hear next week is her last.) [TV Newser]

Washington City Paper and the Chicago Reader get bought by Creative Loafing, which owns alt-weeklies in Atlanta, Tampa, Sarasota, and Charlotte. Finally, some news from alt-weekly land that doesn't involve Village Voice Media. (Anyone know how much they went for?) [Romenesko]

"All the outrage surrounding this particular book notwithstanding, contemporary publishers impose these blackouts not in the interest of readers but to protect the carefully planned publicity campaigns they create for books on which they have advanced large sums of money. This is the economic imperative that leads publishers to withhold the contents of even nonfiction manuscripts that contain news that the public has a vital interest in knowing. It's also why newspapers, including this one, routinely break those embargoes without any pang of conscience. Our first and most compelling obligation is to our readers' right to know and not to the commercial interests of publishers." [LAT]

This morning, we received an email solicitation to subscribe to a magazine called Scarlet, which promised, for only £1 an issue, to be "THE MAGAZINE THAT TURNS WOMEN ON." Well well well! Color us intrigued. It turns out it's, like, this totally British version of Our Bodies, Ourselves plus Cosmo plus self-empowerment + skankiness... wait, did we just describe Jezebel?

Are you and your family free this Thursday, July 26? Are you attractive? Can you read an ad that's only barely written in English? Then you may be able to participate in a Real Simple photo shoot! You'll even get $200!