If only it were that easy. Music and film execs obsess about our evil file-sharing ways, but demonizing the public they so desperately need won’t stop the free fall in the value of content.

The impending war, the threat of terrorism, and the troubles on Wall Street, in the media business, and with the economy as a whole are creating a perfect storm of anxiety for New Yorkers. Is this a passing phase? Or (gulp) our new reality?

Does the ouster of Random House head Ann Godoff signal the death of books? Nah—the publishing business as we know it died a long time ago. It’s just that nobody’s told book people.

For faithful followers of brilliant careerist Walter Isaacson's brilliant career, what's to be learned from his leaving CNN? Maybe that everyone at AOL should run for the nearest exit.

It's a great new parlor game -- imagining what happens if your favorite media tycoon gets hit by a bus. And figuring out who wins and who loses can tell us a lot about our future.

Running full circle.

When the media decides it’s punishment time, no amount of spin-doctoring and TLC can shave the sentence. Especially when spin-doctoring and TLC got you into trouble in the first place (hello, Harvey!).

Or rather, dear America Online, you had it. But as the suits at Time Warner prudishly looked away, you squandered your lead as the nation's leading purveyor of dirty chat.

At Michael's, the media elite watch each other watching each other.

Earnest politics makes for bad TV -- which is why the scrappy, outsider, underdog approach championed by Fox News has made it the new psychic heart of the Republican Party.