In your laboring Friday media column: Rupert Murdoch gets his due, rumors of more Washington Post cuts, the Oakland Tribune is dying, a rare August with lots of news, and Matthew Freud may be the last man standing.

  • Rupert Murdoch is getting a $12.5 million bonus "for the year to the end of June." Hahahahahahaha.
  • Following yesterday's news that the Washington Post is closing most of its local bureaus, the paper's own ombudsman says "I hear persistent rumors, which I cannot confirm, of a target in the newsroom of another $2 million in cost cuts this year." Uhhh. That would be bad! We seem to be having a little mini-throwback to the 2009 days of "every newspaper collapsing," do we not?
  • And while we're on the topic, the Oakland Tribune is about to rebrand itself as a regional paper and fold a bunch of local papers into itself. They are not doing this because of good performance, you see.
  • Unlike the vast majority of Augusts in history, this past August was objectively a huge news month. God, it was terrible. October better be positively somnolent, to make up for it.
  • In Businessweek, Felix Gillette takes a long and interesting look at PR man Matthew Freud—husband of Elisabeth Murdoch—and his attempts to maneuver himself and his wife through News Corp's ongoing scandals unscathed. Well, sure, he might escape with his reputation. But did he get a $12.5 million bonus?

[Photo via AP]