In your unexpected Thursday media column: Michael Moore's reputation as the foremost authority on newspapers is challenged, the Sun-Times' unions play a dangerous game, Jenna Bush does a TV thing, and Alex Balk is persecuted without end.

Slovenly documentarian Michael Moore has a pretty good idea about why America's newspaper industry is in the toilet! 1) Greed; 2) Americans are dumb; 3) Republicans.

Apparently science has discovered the one force in nature that can silence Michael Moore: The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Ashes may still be raining down on the city. Summer doldrums may be stifling the rest of America. But for Hollywood, this week marks the kick-off of Festival Season! Ole! And the party is breaking out everywhere you look.

The trailer for Capitalism: A Love Story, Michael Moore's new movie, is here. It's about banks, and how they're bad, and how the working man can't get by any more. He tries to make a citizens' arrest of AIG. Ha-ha.

• More data about the Biggest Television Event Ever™: Some 31 million people tuned into the Jackson memorial on TV, and video sites report that they delivered more than 10 million live streams on Tuesday. [THR, VB]
• One TV person not pleased with all the Jackson coverage: Conan O'Brien, whose new Tonight Show has seen ratings drop as a result. [NYT]
• News Corp. has paid more than $1.6 million to settle court cases involving reporters in Britain who hacked into public figures' cell phones. [Guardian]
• Is Liberty Media going to bail out Harvey Weinstein? Let's hope so. [NYP]
• None of the major media companies appear keen on buying Twitter. [LAT]
• Comedy Central has ordered up a sitcom starring Napoleon Dynamite's Jon Heder, which will be produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay. [B&C]
• The title of Michael Moore's new movie: Capitalism: A Love Story. [NYDN]

Today there is news of: Will Smith and a new awful-sounding sappy movie, New Line's new lady policy, a Steppenwolf legend going to TV, and Michael Moore has made a big fat new movie about fat cats.

"Twenty years ago when I made Roger & Me, I tried to warn people about what was ahead for General Motors. Had the power structure and the punditocracy listened, maybe much of this could have been avoided." Hah, really?

Michael Moore turns 55 today. Social fixture (and Estee Lauder heiress) Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer is turning 39. Model Jessica Stam is 23. Writer Ken Auletta is turning 67. Former NBC CEO Bob Wright is 66. Actor Kal Penn is turning 32. Model/actress Jaime King turns 30. Former New Line co-chief Michael Lynne is 68. Real estate heiress and socialite Beth Rudin DeWoody is turning 57. Comedian George Lopez is turning 48. Valerie Bertinelli is 49. And Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel is 19.

The attack from Obama's left flank began in earnest yesterday, as two reliably liberal forces openly compared Barack Obama's plan for escalating the war in Afghanistan to Bush's fiasco in Iraq.

Also: Britney Spears will scare you, Gossip Girl stars are better than you, Michael Moore will make a fool of you, and Scarlett Johansson will drink with you (if you are an old man).

Take note, beleaguered Wall Streeters: Your girlfriend may have left you (now that you're unemployed) and your therapist may no longer be taking your calls (now that you're no longer paying your bills), but there's at least one person out there who wants to hear all about your troubles: Michael Moore! The filmmaker says he's currently looking for "a few brave people who work on Wall Street" to interview for his upcoming documentary on the financial meltdown. Hey, it's not like you have anything better to do, right? [NYT]

• Naomi Campbell has settled a lawsuit by a former maid who alleged the world's most temperamental supermodel threw her phone at her head after she failed to find a pair of misplaced jeans back in 2006. [NYDN]
• Casey Johnson and Courtenay Semel appear to have made up following their violent brawl. They're heading to Sundance together. [P6]
• Guy Ritchie spent time at Madonna's apartment on Tuesday. Not because they're reconciling, but because Madonna's daughter Lourdes insisted on it. [NYDN]
• George Soros has a new "friend," a model 50 years his junior named Kate Gibbs. This is what she looks like, just in case you're curious. [P6]
• Book agent and man-about-town Luke Janklow and his wife, Sweetiepie owner Julie Janklow, appear to be headed for divorce. [P6]

• Jennifer Aniston's secret to looking so good on the cover of GQ? Photoshop, of course. [NYDN]
• In his new book, Donny Deutsch recommends people stay faithful to their spouses, which is a little bit ironic considering he was involved in the breakup of a marriage just weeks ago. [P6]
• Tom Brady proposed to Gisele Bundchen on Christmas Eve. [TMZ]
• Lindsay Lohan says she may have a half-sister, although her father is denying it. [People]
• Michael Moore is trying to lose weight, you'll be happy to hear. [P6]
• John Costelloe, the actor who played "Johnny Cakes" on The Sopranos, has been found dead in an apparent suicide. [People]
• Paris Hilton says the heist at her LA home was an inside job. [NYDN]
• Eartha Kitt died on Christmas Day at the age of 81. [Us]

· Showtime and Stan Lee are indeed developing a drama about the life of a gay superhero, as Hero author Perry Moore hinted back in May. And he just happens to be gay, OK? He's not, like, Poppers Boy or Wonder Trannie. [Variety] · Michael Moore is shifting the scope of his next movie from foreign affairs to the U.S. economy, allowing him to return to the struggling backroads of Roger & Me's Flint, where he's shocked to find the "Rabbits: Pets or Meat" lady has expanded her roadside stand into HARECO—the world's largest bunny-distributing conglomerate. [THR] · Meryl Streep will star in a movie based on Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World. Finally! A cat movie from grownups! [Variety] After the jump: Which new dad is going to wish they never even heard the name David O. Russell in a matter of months?· ABC won the night with the Three Hours of Country Music Industry Auto-Fellation You'll Never Get Back Again Awards. [Variety] · Matthew McConaughey's life is about to be made a living hell by director David O. Russell in The Grackle, about a "barroom fighter in New Orleans who hires himself out for $250 to settle disputes." He then dispatches a couple of walleyed Malibu surfers to beat the shit out of the warring parties. [Variety]

Click to viewThe latest shockumentary from portly auteur Michael Moore, Slacker Uprising, has launched today. To watch the film, you have to sign up with an email address. While Moore says his fans should go ahead and download it, there's no actual link to do that. And you can't embed the whole film on third-party sites without pulling some code from the bowels of the HTML source — which I've done here, while also restoring the "share" button so you can easily post it yourself wherever you like. Heck, if Moore just wants the film out there, why not distribute it on BitTorrent and save on bandwidth costs?Presumably because The Weinstein Company, Moore's studio, wouldn't want to be seen as somehow legitimizing file-sharing. And it would like to keep your email address on file, the better to flog paid downloads on Amazon.com and iTunes, as well as the DVD, when those are available. But really, Moore doesn't want to make a dime on this thing. He just wants you kids to get off your butts and vote. Free Internet distribution serves his political agenda; paid downloads serve Weinstein's commercial goals. With two masters to serve, is it any surprise Moore's film is making an awkward debut?

“Outrageous humor, passionate partisanship and common sense.” —St. Petersburg Times Eight years ago the Supreme Court chose the President. Now it’s our turn. Read the first chapter of “Mike’s Election Guide 2008” and enter to win a copy of the book. Send a note to contests@gawker.com with "Mike's Election Guide 2008" in the title and enter to win a copy of the book. The usual rules apply.Chapter 1 of Mike's Election Guide 2008:

"Outrageous humor, passionate partisanship and common sense." -St. Petersburg Times Eight years ago the Supreme Court chose the President. Now it's our turn. Read the first chapter of "Mike's Election Guide 2008" and enter to win a copy of the book. Send a note to contests@gawker.com with "City of Thieves" in the title and enter to win a copy of the book. The usual rules apply.

Slacker Nation, which focuses on chubby doc jock Michael Moore's trip around the country to drum up support among the youngs for "voting," will be distributed online for free. Online video site Blip.tv will be hosting the download in a nice little marketing coup (the fact that Blip.tv cofounder and CEO Mike Hudack loves him some Obama couldn't have hurt in striking that deal). "This is being done entirely as a gift to my fans," Moore said in a prepared statement. Time will tell if it's a gift to the Democratic party — Moore's stunt tactics, like his ramen noodle giveaways featured in the trailer, often galvanize older Republicans who actually do show up to the polls on election day, unlike young Democrats.

So what if Hurricane Gustav displaces thousands, destroys their homes, and further devastates an already devastated region of these United States? Filmmaker Michael Moore sees a silver lining around the eerily quiet eye of the disastrous storm: It will screw-up the Republican National Convention. Already, John McCain is saying his party might have to postpone the Convention. And Moore couldn't be more tickled. He told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, "I was just thinking, this Gustav is proof that there is a God in heaven. To just have it planned at the same time, that it would actually be on its way to New Orleans for Day One of the Republican convention, up in the Twin Cities, at the top of the Mississippi River."