Every movie about a strike needs a heroine, someone brash enough to stand on top of a table with a megaphone and demand justice.

But some credit for the possible ending of the three-month-old strike by the Writers Guild of America may be going to a different sort of heroine.

New York Times reporter Michael Cieply writes today that Laeta Kalogridis, most recently the executive producer of Bionic Woman, helped bring the warring parties together not with a megaphone but with a phone and with e-mail.

Ellen DeGeneres is like the Big Easy. She’s all about fun. After Hurricane Katrina, add big heart.

Ellen, a native of New Orleans, has raised over $10 million dollars for Katrina relief. In Fat Tuesday’s episode of the Ellen DeGeneres Show, she focused again on Katrina relief efforts. Former President George H. W. Bush sent a videotaped message thanking her for her fundraising.

In the same show, Ellen gave a new GM Acadia to a single mother who lost her home in the hurricane and works 20 hours a day so she could rebuild. She continues to ask her viewers to support Brad Pitt’s Make It Right, a group that hopes to build 150 environmentally friendly homes in the Lower 9th Ward. She has raised over $800,000 for Pitt.

With the writers strike, many TV addicts are left with only reality television to entertain them. To help fill the void, reality show heavy-hitter, American Idol, returns tonight and tomorrow for its seventh season premiere on Fox.

But American Idol may be one reality competition that isn’t actually about winning or losing. Lately, winners have been losing recording contracts and losers are topping charts, winning Grammys and Oscars, and debuting on Broadway.

The world of a beauty queen can’t be easy. All those parades, all those ribbon cuttings, all those speeches.

But, as the recent case of Kumari Fulbright shows, it gets even harder if you fall off the pedestal.

“Arizona Beauty Queen Charged With Kidnapping, Torturing Ex-Boyfriend,” announced FoxNews.com, in a story about Fulbright, who was Miss Pima County 2005 and Miss Desert Sun 2006.

Move over Martha Stewart because Rachael Ray’s souffle is rising.

In a year that saw the share price of the once-mighty Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia sag precipitously, Stewart dropped off Fortune’s list of the 50 Most Powerful Women.

Ray, meanwhile, strengthened her claim as America’s new domestic diva in 2007. She signed a new contract with Food Network, and pulled down $16 million for her thriving year-old network television talk show.

If you’re familiar with the phrase, “You know you love me,” you’ve been tuning into one of the latest guilty pleasure TV shows: Gossip Girl.

The new drama is from writer and producer Josh Schwartz, best known for creating the The OC, which went off the air in February 2007.

Awkward. That’s the best way to describe John Bowman’s position in the writers strike that began today. He is chairman of the negotiating committee for the Writers Guild of America, but also executive producer of the new series, “Frank TV,” starring comedian Frank Caliendo.

By striking, Bowman is walking away from his producer job.

This is the first industrywide writers strike since 1988. About 12,000 movie, TV, radio and animation writers are involved.

He claims he IS America in the title of his best-seller, I Am America (And So Can You!). So why is it so surprising that Stephen Colbert has announced he’s running for president?

For starters, Colbert is running only in South Carolina. And he’s a comedian.

There are many ways to meet one’s fate on The Island. ABC’s Losties have perished because of a man-killing smoke monster, gunshot wounds, deadly illnesses and drowning. Add another character-killer to the list: DUI.

In Hawaii, where the series is filmed, several Lost stars have been caught driving under the influence and it seems the punishment for the offense goes beyond the courthouse punishment. All actors who have been arrested in Hawaii during filming have had their characters killed off on the show.

Fans of NBC’s hit comedy series The Office have spent many Thursday nights waiting and hoping for the central star-crossed couple, Jim Halpert and Pam Beesly, to finally start dating.

After sitting through Pam’s engagement to Roy and Jim’s relationship with Karen, Jim and Pam enthusiasts got their wish in the season three finale. Jim turns down a position at Dunder Mifflin’s corporate headquarters in New York, dumps his current paramour, and asks Pam to dinner.

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.

Oprah Winfrey just got a little richer.

NBC Universal announced today that it would buy Oxygen Media, the cable TV network founded by Winfrey, CEO Geraldine Laybourne and three TV producers, for $925 million.

The purchase is yet another indication from NBC Universal that it is targeting women viewers. Other Universal properties with significant female audiences include iVillage, Bravo and the Today show.

TV can be a goofy business, but this couldn’t be the script the boys in Hearst Tower had in mind when they offered $600 million a few weeks ago for the small piece of Hearst-Argyle Television they don’t already own.

A special committee of Hearst-Argyle directors advised against the deal last week, calling it “inadequate” and saying it is “not in the best interests” of stockholders, other than Hearst.

Tom Scott, already half of a business-world power couple, is bringing new focus on the affluent through his broadcast network, Plum TV.

Scott is a co-founder of Nantucket Nectars, the beverage company bought by Cadbury-Schweppes in 2002. His wife, Emily Scott, founded J. Crew.

Florida investor Bruce Sherman finds himself in the midst of another media company buyout. This time it’s Hearst-Argyle Television, which received an offer from majority shareholder Hearst Corporation.

Hearst, a privately held publisher of newspapers, magazines and Internet properties, already owns more than 73 percent of the broadcaster’s shares. It is offering $600 million for the remainder.

The affair between Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and a local TV reporter may become an issue in a proposed real estate development in the city.

Telemundo, owner of KVEA-TV, is weighing the fate of journalist Mirthala Salinas, who reported on the mayor while she was romantically involved with him.

At the same time, NBC Universal, owner of Telemundo, has proposed a $3-billion development in Los Angeles that includes 2,900 new homes and 1.6 million square feet of commercial space. The project would require city approval.

All is not what it seems on the island.

The survivors of the crash of Ocean Flight 815 have untold connections that viewers of the hit ABC show Lost glimpse in strobe-like flashbacks.

The astute viewer (addict would be more appropriate) knows more than the characters. Jack and Claire, for example, have no idea that they’re step-siblings. Nor has Jack learned that Shannon’s father was in a car accident with Sarah, Jack’s future wife. Jack, the physician on duty, chose to save Sarah but not Shannon’s father.