MEDIA
• News Corp. surpassed Time Warner to become the largest media company on the planet, and Murdoch held off a shareholder revolt in order to keep his family tyranny in place. [Hollywood Reporter, USAT]
• ESPN poached marquee columnist Rick Reilly from Sports Illustrated after 22 years with the mag. Dan Patrick, who SI just poached from ESPN, will take Reilly’s place at the back of the book. [NYT, Deadspin]
• Stephen Colbert took his campaign to the Tim Russert show: “This is not a dream, you are not going to wake up from this. I am far realer than Sam Brownback.” [NYT]
FINANCE
• With more than 26,000 job cuts on Wall Street already this year, city officials are worried that the slowdown may be even worse than expected. [NYT]
• The New York Board of Trade plans to close all of its futures pits in the next six months as electronic trading takes over. There goes the entire plot of Trading Places. [NYP]
• How to mourn real loss amid rising and falling stocks? Andrew Ross Sorkin talks about death on the Street. [NYT]
LAW
• Some judges are beating the traditional start date of clerkship hiring by holding interviews at midnight or 6 a.m. [Above the Law]
• New statistics show the Supremes are giving undue favor to top litigators only the rich can pay, blocking civil-rights and civil-liberties cases that have made up the court’s docket for most of the last 50 years. [Law Blog/WSJ]
• Martin Weisberg, an M&A partner at Baker & McKenzie’s New York office, was indicted in a case involving $55 million of insider trading. [New York Law Journal]
FASHION
• Rumors are flying that Ferruccio Pozzoni will join Alessandra Facchinetti at the helm of Valentino. Wouldn’t Jack and Lazaro be a lot easier to say? [British Vogue]
• Now that she’s put on some (healthy) pounds, Kate Bosworth will star in the new Coach campaign — in China. [Fashion Week Daily]
• John Varvatos is thisclose to moving into the CBGB space. That sound? Oh, it’s Joey Ramone rolling in his grave. [Racked]
