Not a great time for newspapers. First, Jim Romenesko unearthed a memo from the Newspaper Guild Of New York noting that since New York Times management-union negotiations are "still stuck" on the "show-stopping issue" of proposed "radical" pay cuts, "hundreds of people from every department, including many of our best known journalists, have quietly signed pledges to withhold their bylines, photo credits, and producing credits." And did you know that Superman's alter ego, Clark Kent, just quit the job he's held forever at the Daily Planet, saying "journalism has given way to entertainment" -- and will probably …

After "obsessively" watching the Presidential TV debates and tracking reactions to them on Twitter, Adweek is weighing in with these post-mortem insights: (1) Obama's "horses and bayonets" comment "generated 105,767 tweets per minute, the highest of the debate," writes Charlie Warzel.The Obama campaign quickly capitalized on the buzz, and bought the promoted tweet on the #horsesandbayonets hashtag within 15 minutes; (2) "Foreign Policy isn't as interesting as Game 7 or Monday Night Football"; (3) "When in doubt, declare you've won before it's over.... President Obama's Twitter handle declared its candidate as …

Confonted with a bounty of political advertising demand -- more than they have inventory to accommodate -- Washington, DC, TV stations are boosting their clutter levels by trimming back conventional programming and adding news content to squeeze in extra political spots.

Voters exposed to political ads on Facebook weren't any more likely than others to recall the candidate's name or have a favorable impression of, much less vote for the candidate, according to findings of a study conducted by Columbia University political science Professor Donald Green, and University of California, Berkley, grad student David Brookman.

Given their need to hyper-target voters with specific appeals, political candidates not surprisingly are utilizing browser-based cookies to target online ad messages to specific users, according to this "expose" in the Huffington Post The article reports on a "slideshow" presentation posted online, then removed, by one of the cookie targeting firms, CampaignGrid, which claimed the deck was posted in "error." "It was an unapproved version of a sales deck that was posted by an intern who no longer works for the company," CampaignGrid Chairman Rich Masterson wrote in an email to the Huffington Post. Which only goes to …

In one of the most surprising, and controversial, appeals of a poltical ad so far this season, Republican nominee Linda McMahon broke TV ads in Connecticut this week for her Senate race against Democrat Chris Murphy by implying that she is supported by President Obama's supporters. The spots feature voters identified as Obama supporters endorsing McMahon.

The price for a 30-second spot on Fox's "American Idol," once the most expensive real estate in TVland, have fallen by a third, according to Ad Age. Taking over the honor of priciest ad spots: NBC's "Sunday Night Football."

Dish Network and AMC have settled their carriage dispute, which means the channel resumed its programming on the satellite network Sunday for "$700 million in cash for the distribution deal," writes Brian Anthony Hernandez.  "Dish Network’s 14 million TV subscribers, who were no longer receiving AMC shows because of a legal battle, can stop groaning as loudly as zombies now," he writes snappily.

'Eating Well' magazine is doing fine since its purchase by Meredith Corporation last year, with a respectanble  gain in circulation, a decline in ad pages less than half that of competitor Cooking Light, and a growth of more than 30% in its licensing and custom  publishing business, which "now make up about one-quarter of Eating Well’s total revenue," writes Christine Haugney.

Could the Daily Beast have been the nail in the coffin for Newsweek's print edition? That's what Michael Learmouth argues: "Newsweek and The Daily Beast are meant to be compatible, but one could argue The Daily Beast is the very thing killing Newsweek.... What TDB and its ilk offer -- original writing from a few big names mixed with aggregation-with-attitude -- turns out for many readers to be a just-good-enough substitute to a newsweekly." According to Learmouth, most magazines will not kill their print editions "because they're too busy balancing what analyst Ken Doctor calls 'the straddle,' using the …