MONDAY'S LINKS: Tony Snow Watches CNN, Book Publishers Confront Digital Future, Singleton's World

By: E&P Staff In today's edition, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says that jounalists' phone records are fair game, book publishers confront the digital age with fear and optimism, and new WhiteHouse Press Secretary Tony Snow insists that there is no official White House policy about which news channel TVs be tunes to.


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Gonzoles: Reporters' Phone Records Fair Game
The government has the legal authority to prosecute journalists for publishing classified information, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said yesterday. "There are some statutes on the book which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility," Mr. Gonzales said on the ABC News program "This Week."


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BookExpo Confronts Changes in Publishing
The thousands of publishers, booksellers and authors who bartered, bantered and partied at BookExpo America would surely agree their industry is in transition, confronted by the shrinkage of reading time and the expansion of technology. But ask what should be done and the arguments begin. Attendees at the three-day gathering, which ended Sunday, could be divided into three categories: those anxious for change, those who accept it and those who resist.


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Tony Snow: No Official White House Policy on News Channels
Reporters en route to Arizona on Air Force One last week opted to watch the movie "King Kong" in the press cabin. Not so Tony Snow, the new White House press secretary and former Fox News commentator, who told reporters that he spent the flight in the staff cabin watching Gen. Michael V. Hayden's confirmation hearings to be the new C.I.A. director -- on CNN. Mr. Snow's seemingly nonchalant mention of the cable network -- "Well, we've been watching it on CNN" -- did not go unnoticed by the "King Kong" enthusiasts or, for that matter, by anyone covering President Bush. In essence it was code to try to convince people that he was an honest broker and that Fox News was not the White House channel of choice.


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AOL, Startups Emerge to Challenge MySpace
It's only natural for companies large and small to want to capture some of the social-networking magic of MySpace.com, a Web site that has risen out of nowhere to become the Internet's second busiest by successfully figuring out what teens and young adults want. AOL joined the pack this month with its own take on social networking, a loose term for services that help users expand their circles of friends by exploiting existing connections, rather than meeting randomly or by keyword matches alone.


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Why Must the 'Philly Inky' Go Begging?
The Inquirer was once a sprawling enterprise with bureaus all over the world and a sniper's mentality on the news, picking off story after story, but it slowly abandoned the city, as did many Philadelphia residents, tilting its resources toward the suburbs. But now that Philadelphia is being reinvaded by the middle class and has a vibrant, residential downtown, Michael wonders why a decent daily paper in a resurgent city seems to have gone begging.


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Who Is MediaNews' Dean Singleton?
William Dean Singleton, the maverick chief executive of the MediaNews Group, had a special announcement for the editors of his 55 daily newspapers when they met in this rustic mountain resort early in May. "We're buying Gannett," he deadpanned. In the seconds before he acknowledged the joke, the editors fell silent. Mr. Singleton is just brash enough, and has been on just enough of a newspaper-buying spree, that making a move on the biggest newspaper company in the country was not entirely implausible.


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McClatchy Close to Selling Philly Papers
McClatchy Co.'s negotiations to sell The Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News have progressed to a late stage this weekend with Philadelphia Media Holdings, a group organized by local advertising and public relations executive Brian P. Tierney, according to a person familiar with the sale.


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'Hartford Courant' Columnist Seremet Dead
If you needed a friend, a source, a laugh, a lift, or maybe just a break from the mundane, the one place you were certain to find it was in the presence of one Patricia Kenney Seremet, author of The Courant's popular "Java" column. Seremet, who was widely known for her wit, warmth, shock of red hair and vivacious personality, died Saturday evening. She was 58 years old.


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Journalism's Human Side
Perhaps only at a journalism awards dinner would the evening's "entertainment" be a lengthy essay on the permutations of contemporary journalism read by New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier. This was a sermon from the podium mount, a tribute of sorts to the man -- the late writer-editor Michael Kelly, killed while traveling in Iraq -- in whose name the evening's event was held. The occasion was the third annual Michael Kelly Award night, sponsored by the Atlantic Media Company, to honor a writer or editor who, in the words of Atlantic's Chairman David Bradley, pursues Mr. Kelly's same "fearless expression and pursuit of truth."