Media News and Notes from All Over

TRAGEDY MINUS TIME Khalifa

• Operation Enduring Humor: The New York Times introduces us to Saad Khalifa host of Hurry Up, He's Dead, Iraq's answer to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Recent segments of the satirical news broadcast, carried over satellite network Al Sharqiya, include a pronouncement that the U.S. would be pulling it's troops by 1/1—as in, one by one. (Hey, Jon Stewart doesn't kill every night, okay?) One Iraqi viewer told the Times that her family enjoys the show (when they have electricity to watch it): "We need fun in our lives because of our tragic circumstances ... Most of the channels focus on the violence, the bodies. But this program depicts our tragedies in a funny light."

• Decidedly less amusing...: Hustler-turned-White House correspondent Jeff Gannon flops with a Mark Foley joke that hinges on the punchline, "I did not have text with that Congressman, Mr. Foley." Gannon breaks Comedy Rule No. 1 by explaining to Rush & Molloy correspondent Corky Siemaszko, "You have to hear it in the Bill Clinton voice." We'll take your word for it, Mr. Gannon—if that is your real name.

• Breaking up is hard to do: A newspaper's Keith Kelly reports that Time, Inc. may have to break apart its Parenting and Time4Media Groups in order to sell them off. No word on how this will impact already jittery employees who felt blindsided by the announced sale.

• Source watch: A federal judge is demanding to know who New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof's source was for a column fingering an alleged perpetrator of the 2001 anthrax attacks. No word on whether or not the paper will champion Kristof as a First Amendment martyr like Judith Miller.

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