TODAY'S LINKS: A New Daily 'E&P' Feature

By: David S. Hirschman In today's edition, the Tribune Co. may be looking to sell off the Cubs, an update on Art Buchwald, and questions over the New York Times' nomination of Manohla Dargis for a Pulitzer.


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Is Tribune Looking to Sell Off Cubbies?
Tribune Co. finds itself in a pickle: Should it sell the Chicago Cubs, its game-losing but money-making team? Or keep the Cubs and toss out something else? With speculation mounting that Tribune could be the newspaper industry's next takeover play, the media company faces increasing pressure to do something.

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Buchwald Still in Good Humor
Former syndicated columnist Art Buchwald checked into the hospice Feb. 7 after he chose to quit life-prolonging kidney dialysis. But he is far from done, with embracing friends new and old, with making wisecracks, or- after a half-century of writing more than 8,000 newspaper columns and 30 books -- with whacking his favorite targets, politicians and self-righteous folks of every faith and stripe.

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Fuss at 'NYT' Over Dargis Pulitzer Nod
While film critic Manohla Dargis has many fans at the Times, the nod surprised some colleagues there, particularly since respected critics with longer histories at the paper have yet to win the award -- or even been named as Pulitzer finalists. (Chief theater critic Ben Brantley and Dargis' fellow chief film critic A.O. Scott were most often mentioned by sources.)

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'LAT' Managing Editor Frantz Wants Fewer Words
Managing Editor Doug Frantz thinks that stories in the Los Angeles Times are too flabby and he wants to tighten them up. Everyone at the paper has heard this before?it comes up every couple of years?and yesterday afternoon they heard it again via memo.

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Justice Dept. Opens Antitrust Investigation Into MediaNews Bid for Knight Papers
Were the company, which already owns the Marin Independent-Journal, Times-Herald in Vallejo, Reporter in Vacaville, Oakland Tribune, Alameda Times-Star, Daily Review in Hayward, Fremont Argus, Tri-Valley Herald and San Mateo County Times along with weeklies in other Bay Area cities, to add the Contra Costa Newspapers, the San Jose Mercury News, the Silicon Valley Community Newspapers and the Daily News chain on the Peninsula, it would complete a semi-circle around San Francisco with a combined circulation upwards of 800,000.

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Questions Over Meth Stats in 'WaPo' Story
On March 19, the newspaper warned readers of a growing meth epidemic in the D.C. area. Turns out, there are plenty of sources out there that suggest the paper got it all wrong -- including plenty of statisticians and on-the-record experts indicating there is no big meth problem in the region.

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Will 'Boston Herald' Go Freebie?
There's been chatter about the paper going free, and last Friday, owner Pat Purcell acknowledged, "That?s something we've looked at." But the Metro is already there. Purcell has talked about Philip Anschutz's Examiner experiment, which entails producing and distributing free daily tabloids to upscale Washington, DC, and San Francisco neighborhoods. But that?s expensive, and Purcell has said that to "take on 200,000 [home deliveries] out of the gate would be a bit of a stretch."

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Danish Muslims Sue Newspaper Over Drawings
A group of 27 Danish Muslim organizations have filed a defamation lawsuit against the newspaper that first published the carricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad, their lawyer said Thursday. The lawsuit was filed two weeks after Denmark's top prosecutor declined to press criminal charges, saying the drawings that sparked a firestorm in the Muslim world did not violate laws against racism or blasphemy.