For all the years following the ad blackout that occurred on the fatal day, 9/11-themed content has aired on TV without advertising, signifying "a stigma for the marketing community, which has largely tried to avoid 9/11-themed specials and documentaries," writes Brian Sternberg. But this year, that stigma is dissolving, with companies like AT&T and General Motors already sponsoring content leading up to the tenth anniversary. "There is a different tone than in years past," says Harry Keeshan, exec VP-director of investment at Omnicom Group's PHD, in the article.

The New York Times has partnered with local public radio station WNYC to launch Schoolbook, a site that will cover news of New York City public and private schools -- with customized pages for all 2,500 of them. Schoolbook will be edited by the Times' Mary Ann Giordano, who oversees the paper's community news sites The Local, with reporting from WNYC senior reporter Beth Fertig. The site launches Sept. 7.

Here's an interesting trend: the launching of magazines offering advice on using social media.  Four titles from GSG WorldMedia will launch next month, focusing respectively on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google: fb & Business, Tweeting & Business, LI & Business and The Big G & Business.The magazines will be distributed through Office Depot in a variety of formats -- with print expected to account for just 5% of the total circulation.   Some 5 million readers will receive the magazine for free via an opt-in Office Depot email list.  The GSG titles join The Social Media Monthly, launched last week by …

Howard Stern is taking credit for the death of CBS Radio's long-time Philly FM rock station WYSP, which is switching to a simulcast of sports-talk AM station WIP. Stern said the station couldn't survive because of his syndicated morning show's move to Sirius XM a few years back. Meanwhile, the station's final morning show host -- "Partridge Family" child star Danny Bonaduce -- boasted of his own prowess: "It's been made clear to me that I exceeded their [CBS'] expectations and they don't want to lose me," he told the Philadelphia Daily News' Dan Gross.

Back in May, Liberty Media announced plans to acquire 70% of Barnes & Noble for $1.02 billion. Three months later, Liberty has ended up investing $204 million for a minority stake in the bookseller. Zacks Investment Research says the change in strategy apparently resulted from disagreement between the two parties on how to value the Nook e-reader in light of massive fluctuations in the stock market and ongoing economic volatility.

Bravo's in the cross-hairs, as the suicide of a "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" husband has ignited renewed focus on the ways reality show producers increase a show's drama quotient. "The tactics used on reality shows are well-established, more than a decade into the popular genre," write Sharon Waxman and Tim Molloy. For the "Real Housewives" franchise, these tactics include "plying them [show participants] with alcohol to dampen inhibitions, manipulating situations to create conflict and editing scenes to heighten the drama." The article includes a link to a slideshow titled "Tragedy Strikes: A Dozen Reality TV Personalities Who Have …

Josef Adalian's scorecard on summer TV's ratings hits and misses is in slideshow form so it goes down quick and easy. The shows themselves are organized into categories from HBO Sunday Dramas to Showtime's Monday Comedies. As a fan of the show, we're glad to see that "The Glee Project" got its own separate slide -- probably because it's an anomaly, with "pretty much disastrous" ratings that turned around to become "a legitimate hit by Oxygen standards." In fact, "among young folks 12-24, 'Glee Project' has risen a jaw-dropping 217 percent since its little-seen debut," Adalian writes.

"In the aftermath" of the Television Critic Association Tour, Tim Goodman handicaps the upcoming TV season and the state of the networks in this insightful, well-written piece. Here's Goodman on how NBC's Robert Greenblatt masterfully spun his "lowered-expectation mantra" on the network's fortunes: "'I don't know if in the next one, two, three years we're going to see any kind of significant lift,' he told USA Today. Is he good or what? Because he's completely right. And if he's not, he's the new king."

Ashton Kutcher, cover boy for September's Details, also edited an online version of the mag. And? "Turns out Hollywood's prettiest boytoy is one compromised whore of a magazine editor, directing most of his recommendations and profiles to tech companies he's invested in, with nary a word of disclosure. It's shameless even by Condé Nast standards," writes Gawker.

Reader's Digest refines its tablet strategy by allowing readers to subscribe through its iPad app, for $1.99 per month or $14.99 per year. Print subscribers can get the iPad version for free for six months, and individual issues are still sold for $1.99.