David Carr, a columnist and reporter for The New York Times, has battled his own crack addition; he has survived cancer. Perhaps strengthened by those struggles, he’s now taking on a force that sometimes sends other reporters running for the hills: The PR department of Fox News.

Rapidly shriveling stock prices have produced a new misery index for the nation’s beleaguered newspaper industry: sky-high stock dividend yields. So high, some observers believe, that some cash-strapped companies will soon have to cut dividends, putting even more pressure on their stock prices.

David Barstow provided a fascinating report in yesterday’s New York Times, about the Bush administration’s courting of retired military brass who provide military analysis to the TV networks and other media outlets.

Howell Raines, a frequent target of media critics, has decided to become a media critic himself.

The former executive editor of The New York Times, who lost his job in 2003 in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal, will serve as media columnist for Conde Nast Portfolio.

In technology, 2007 was the year of the iPhone. All that hype followed by all those sales. No wonder Time magazine declared the iPhone the invention of the year.

In technology writing and video performing, 2007 had to be the year of the ubiquitous David Pogue, a self-proclaimed “card-carrying nerd” with the ability to translate techno speak into plain English.

“The NY Times tech guru is a playful geek whose love and passion for all things gadgety shines through with every over-the-top video he makes,” wrote the people at gizmodo.com.

Son of a diplomat, a long-time journalist, a teacher, Charles Kaiser is, by any measure, well-connected.

And all of these connections made him the right person for a sitdown interview with Andrew Rosenthal, editor of the editor page of the New York Times editorial page.

Bad times for newspapers can be good times for newspaper lobbyists.

Major publishers, which often cover K Street as a hotbed of corruption, spend thousands each year to advance and protect their own interests.

Yet one issue that has fueled the Washington media lobby for years may soon disappear. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin J. Martin has drafted a plan that would abolish rules forbidding companies from owning both a newspaper and broadcast outlets in the same city.

The New York Times is backing down - somewhat - on a controversial ad placed by the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org that infuriated conservatives.

Under the headline “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?” the full-page ad contended that the American commander in Iraq was “constantly at war with the facts” in giving upbeat assessments of progress and refusing to acknowledge that Iraq is “mired in an unwinnable religious civil war … Today, before Congress and before the American people, General Petraeus is likely to become General Betray Us.”