Other People’s Riffs For The Week: The only way Dan Rather could have had a tougher week was if he got mugged at his Baghdad hotel. His interview with Saddam Hussein took a lot of shots for being parsed out over four nights.

If He Was A Rapper, We’d Call Him ’15 Percent’: Viacom’s Mel Karmazin broke out the street swagger yesterday, predicting that the approaching upfront process would give his company a 15% lift in ad prices. Personally, I love that kind of talk.

Freedumb: The San Francisco Examiner going from paid to a free business model is not a good thing. I read about a lot of people who are claiming that free is the wave of the future when it comes to urban newspapers.

I Know It’s Only Advertising, But I Like It, Like It, Yes I Do: To me sitting through an award show on TV is kind of like playing a round of golf. It’s three hours during which I wonder whether my time would be better spent doing something else.

Actually A Working Phone Connection Can Be Tougher To Get: Joe Sharkey in The New York Times this week said: “About seven years ago, in one of those boneheaded statements that can haunt anyone who expresses an opinion in indelible ink, I declared grandly that I wasn't much impressed with the Internet. That, to be sure, was back in the days when Internet hucksters were proposing to spin gold from base metals, but there's nothing like a paralyzing snowstorm on the heels of a long slog on the road to drive home the point that today a working Internet connection …

A Dose Of Sanity: The plan US News and World Report has devised a brilliant plan in case of war or debilitating homeland attack. According to the Media Industry Newsletter, management has a plan to effectively split the book in two, with front of book war coverage, and then a second table of contents to showcase and separate other features.

As The Page Turns: I’m not expressing any irrational exuberance over the recent PIB report that starts 2003 on an up note. The overall rise of 10 percent in dollars is good to see.

Privileges: Fox News keeps pushing the envelope on conservatism, accuracy and fairness. Ratings rise as a result.

What Concerns Me Is The “Yet” Part: According to The New York Daily News, Laura Bush, who is rarely outspoken in her public remarks, said yesterday she thinks "constant news alerts" on TV about terror are frightening people.

The King Is Gone But Not Forgotten: Wednesday night millions of people tuned into Fox for what its promotions hinted was the night when Big Joe would drop his decision and his big lie. Reminded me of a scene I saw from a documentary about the Sex Pistols.