Remember Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the journalists for Al Gore's Current.TV locked up in a North Korean prison for crossing that country's border? Well, since Gore and Hillary haven't been successful securing their release, they're sending in The Closer.

• Détente? The feuding between Fox News and MSNBC has grown so fierce that News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch and GE's Jeff Immelt met up recently "to figure out how to defuse tensions between the two channels." [LAT]
• The Boston Globe reports that two groups of investors have submitted preliminary bids to buy the newspaper from the New York Times Co. [AP]
• Breathe easy: Oprah has not been harmed. The suspicious package outside Winfrey's Harpo Studios this morning turned out to be harmless. [AP]
• All that idiocy on Lou Dobbs' part over the past couple of weeks hasn't done much to boost his ratings on CNN. His numbers continue to fall. [NYO]
• Those McKinsey consultants are paying off! Editors at Condé Nast were told yesterday they'll no longer be reimbursed for newspapers. [Daily Intel]

Bill O'Reilly recently agreed to let fellow Mexican-hater Lou Dobbs onto his show to talk about how Barack Obama is from Kenya. But Dobbs' employer CNN apparently wouldn't let him appear on its chief competitor, Fox News. Imagine that.

So here's Anderson Cooper on his show tonight talking to Erica Hill about an innocent little interview he did with ABC's Bachelorette, Jillian Harris. But then a clip from the interview is played and Cooper immediately inquires about the sexing.

This is what happens when a sad old CNN anchor embraces wingnuttery in order to try to siphon off viewers from Fox News: The bottom falls out of his Nielsen ratings, very rapidly.

In his on-going quest to relentlessly shame Birther-sympathizing, race-baiting conservative talking heads, Jon Stewart introduced a hilarious new Daily Show competition segment last night called, "So You Think You Can Douche."

Lou Dobbs, CNN's resident immigrant-hating xenophobe, has provoked a good deal of controversy in recent days for indulging those wacko conspiracy theorists who seem to believe that Barack Obama was not actually born in the United States, but instead came into this word at a fanatical madrassa in Indonesia or wherever. But is President Obama the black man that Dobbs should be most concerned about these days? We think not.

Colin Powell was the guest on Larry King Live last night and the old lizard asked him about the Henry Louis Gates controversy, which provoked Powell to offer some interesting thoughts about the incident.

Hey remember when CNN management told Lou Dobbs to shut the hell up about the incessantly stupid birther nonsense? Well, they took it back! And Dobbs wasted no time mounting that crazy horse.

With Glenn Beck running loose spouting all sorts of crazy-talk, you just knew at some point he'd say something to cause enough of an uproar that the Fox News brass would have to address it. Beck finally did that today.

Tonight Bill O'Reilly, apparently oblivious to the fact that others at his own network have contributed greatly to inflaming the Birther madness, attacked Lou Dobbs for pushing the story. He then turned around and defended Dobbs' shameless Birther ratings pandering.

CNN president Jon Klein has had just about emotherfuckingnough of this "Birther" shit on his network. Klein sent out this email last night telling Lou Dobbs et al that "this story is dead."

• How's the New York Times Co. planning to lift itself out of the financial mess it's been in? Times Co. chief Janet Robinson says more cuts are on the way and the company is planning to sell off more assets. Also, there's some sort of paid membership model in the works, apparently. [WSJ, Gawker]
• Related: The paper says it will sell its stake in the Red Sox by January. [BG]
• What you missed at Walter Cronkite's funeral yesterday. [NYT, WaPo]
• Best-selling author E. Lynn Harris has died. He was 54. [NYT]
• More magazine is teaming up with Candace Bushnell on a new Web series starring 90210's Jennie Garth and Talia Balsam from Mad Men. [MW]
• After a ten-year run, today is Paula Froelich's last day at Page Six. [NYM]

Oh for the love of God when will the Republican's extra-chromosome wing let this go?! Sadly, not anytime soon, what with Lou Dobbs beating back Alan Keyes and Sean Hannity to take over as captain of the USS Dipshit.

• Janice Min isn't renewing her contract as editor-in-chief of Jann Wenner's Us Weekly. Her No. 2, Michael Steele, will become acting editor in chief. [NYT]
• Condé Nast announced yesterday that it had retained the management consulting firm McKinsey to "develop new perspectives." They sure have their work cut out for them. Condé revealed today that its monthly mags witnessed a 37 percent drop in advertising in September. [Gawker, AdAge, NYO]
• More pain at Condé may be on the way: "Significant cost cuts, including more layoffs and the closing of more magazines" are coming, says Keith Kelly. [NYP]
• Yet more Condé news: The company is closing down Men.Style.com so it can focus on the soon-to-be relaunched websites of GQ and Details. [AdAge]
• The Boston Globe's largest union voted yesterday to approve the new contract that had been proposed by the New York Times Co. [NYT, E&P]
• This can't be a good sign about the state of affairs at CNN: Time Warner Cable is moving it from channel 10 to 78 and replacing it with FX. [MCN]

Bill O'Reilly is so torn up over the death of Walter Cronkite. According to Bill, Cronkite was a liberal, but he didn't let his political views influence his reporting, unlike everyone around today, everyone except Fox News of course.

In your early Friday media column: Laurel Touby is officially chillin like a villain, the Boston Globe gets another contract vote, Nikki Finke is mysterious, and CNN's creative accounting of what it means to be "number one."

• McGraw-Hill, which announced recently that it's looking to get rid of BusinessWeek, has now announced plans to get rid of 550 employees. [WSJ]
• Jim Spanfeller, the president and CEO of Forbes.com, either decided to leave the company or was forced out, depending on who you talk to. [DF, NYT]
• As expected, the new Harry Potter movie raked it in yesterday. [THR]
• Donald Trump's long-running libel lawsuit against author (and New York Times business editor) Timothy O'Brien has been dismissed by a judge. [NYP]

Oh noes! Barack Obama was giving a speech on urban policy late this afternoon when his precious teleprompter fell and shattered all over the floor. How could he possibly get through it?

Bernie Madoff's only remaining purpose in life is to be exploited by the media. Who will land the first jailhouse TV interview with the villain? We handicap the possibilities, below.