In your sweltering Wednesday media column: the NYT repays Carlos Slim, the global advertising market is back, a columnist is canned for plagiarism, a book review feud, and the media's most ineffectual lawyer says goodbye.

  • The New York Times Co. is repaying the $250 million loan it got from shady Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim five months earlier than it had previously said. This is akin to you repaying your highest-premium credit card which you got when you were in college and liked to purchase things while drunk. Suze Orman is proud, NYT.
  • Despite the sickening slow-motion collapse of vast swaths of the European economy, the global advertising market is "expected to return to pre-recession levels this year." That's good news for those of you who work in media, and would like to continue working in media, without having your place of work go out of business. But bad news for people susceptible to flashy Nike ads. So, the world continues to break even as usual.
  • Steve Penn, who's been a "human interest columnist" at the Kansas City Star for more than a decade, has been fired for plagiarizing material from press releases. Man, that's like the least cool thing to plagiarize.
  • Dwight Garner totally panned Peter Manso's new book in the NYT Book Review last weekend, and now Peter Manso is responding with a strongly worded and too-long-to-be-published letter! It's an old-fashioned literary feud! Six years from now, Peter Manso can publish a scathing book about this whole episode!
  • Tom Crone, the top legal executive at scandal-plagued News Corp. division News International, is reportedly leaving the company. Just a bit late.

[Photo: Getty]