Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

• Détente? The feuding between Fox News and MSNBC has grown so fierce that News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch and GE's Jeff Immelt met up recently "to figure out how to defuse tensions between the two channels." [LAT]
• The Boston Globe reports that two groups of investors have submitted preliminary bids to buy the newspaper from the New York Times Co. [AP]
• Breathe easy: Oprah has not been harmed. The suspicious package outside Winfrey's Harpo Studios this morning turned out to be harmless. [AP]
• All that idiocy on Lou Dobbs' part over the past couple of weeks hasn't done much to boost his ratings on CNN. His numbers continue to fall. [NYO]
• Those McKinsey consultants are paying off! Editors at Condé Nast were told yesterday they'll no longer be reimbursed for newspapers. [Daily Intel]More

• It's been two years since Ben Silverman became co-chairman of NBC Entertainment. And what a two years it's been, huh? [LAT]
• The largest union at the Boston Globe will vote on a new contract on July 20, even though it's yet to iron out a deal with the New York Times Co. [BG]
• Reader's Digest's plan to remain relevant: It's going to become even more conservative and old-fashioned, and embrace religion and stuff. [NYT]
• How are some newspaper reporters dealing with unemployment? They're turning to careers as go-kart racers. Just as you suspected. [Fortune]More

• It's only been a week since Conan took over the top-rated Tonight Show, but David Letterman has already passed over him in the ratings. [NYT]
• Also: Dave Letterman's new contract will keep him at CBS through '12. [LAT]
• Yesterday the Boston Globe's largest union rejected the New York Times Co.'s proposed package of cuts. The NYT responded by implementing a 23 percent pay cut anyway and now the union is taking the matter to court. [NYT]
• Ratings are down for CNN's Lou Dobbs. And thank God for that. [NYO]
• It's official: Ari Emanuel is the new Mike Ovitz! Both the New York Times and The Daily Beast invoke Ovitz's name in lengthy pieces on "the pre-eminent power player in Hollywood" and "Hollywood's new don." [NYT, TDB]
• Sound the alarms! Swine flu has returned to Condé Nast! [Daily Intel] More

• Monthly mags continue to suffer: Ad pages have dropped by 23 percent on average, although the situation is particularly dire at Condé Nast. [NYP]
• Maureen Dowd landed in a bit of hot water after it was revealed she'd "borrowed" from blogger Josh Marshall for her op-ed column yesterday. She's since offered a (dubious) explanation and apology. [E&P, HP, Politico]
• Television networks start selling ads for the fall season today as part of upfront week, although the economy is putting a damper on things. [NYT]
• Despite few successes and many failures, NBC golden boy Ben Silverman still has a job. For how much longer, though, is anybody's guess. [NYT]
• Angels & Demons was No. 1 at the box office with a $48 million haul. [WSJ]
• If you can't find Newsweek on newsstands, that may be because the magazine has totally redesigned itself. [Newsweek, WaPo, HuffPo] More

• UBS will make a fourth round of job cuts and is closing several divisions. [BN]
• A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Bank of America for failing to disclose the risks associated with the acquisition of Merrill Lynch. [Reuters]
• More BoA-Merrill trouble: It seems the bank accelerated bonus payments last month so it could hand out the cash before the bank changed hands. [FT]
• The SEC has filed charges against missing hedge funder Arthur Nadal. [NYP]
• Win Bischoff's goodbye email to Citigroup employees. [Deal Journal]
• A record $152 billion was pulled from hedge funds in the fourth quarter. [DB]
• In other bad news, Microsoft is cutting 5,000, Intel is laying off 6,000, and Sony says it lost $2 billion more than expected last year. [WSJ, CNN, BN]

It's become an integral part of modern life: You experience a random physical symptom—a headache, say, or a muscle twitch, or a rash—and whereas in those prelapsarian days before the internet, it might have preoccupied you briefly then disappeared before you'd even gotten around to calling a doctor, now a quick Google search will diagnose it as the first sign of a devastating, and terminal, disease. Cyberchondria is epidemical, a new study reveals, which is not surprising given that web searches tend to offer the impression that rare, fatal illnesses are afflicting people like colds and flus. More

♦  Prosecutors have subpoenaed a dozen Lehman executives, including Dick Fuld, as part of three grand jury probes into the bankruptcy of the investment bank. [NYP]
♦  Warren Buffett has faith: "Buy American. I am." [NYT]
♦  Andrew Cuomo met with AIG's new CEO yesterday, who assured the attorney general the insurance giant would account for excessive executive compensation and will also cancel upcoming conferences. [NYT, Bloomberg]More

♦  Rachael Ray's mammogram is scheduled for tomorrow. And you'll be able to watch it go down if you tune into her show. [NYDN]
♦  The New Yorker just issued its endorsement of Barack Obama. Bet you're really surprised. [NYer]
♦  CNBC hit an all-time record the day the Dow dropped 777 points. [MCN]
♦  ABC's lineup of new shows isn't off to a very good start this season. [THR]
♦  Why Microsoft's ads with Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld was a flop and Apple's "I'm a PC" ad has been a success. [AdAge]
♦  Newark's Star-Ledger is hanging on, but barely. [AP]
♦  As the economy turns south, marketers are turning up the volume and going after their competitors. [WSJ]
♦  Donna Tartt is leaving Knopf for Little, Brown. [Galleycat]
♦  The new, ad-covered subway cars... revealed! [NYT]

See Ya, Jerry | And that's that. Microsoft says it will begin a "new phase" of its marketing campaign for Vista today—and it doesn't include Jerry Seinfeld who signed on less than a month ago. Eva Longoria and Pharrell Williams will pitch the evil empire instead. [Bloomberg]

• The price of oil has dropped after Hurricane Gustav did less damage than initially feared. [CNNMoney]
• Lehman news of the day: Korea Development Bank is, in fact, in talks to buy a stake in the bank. [Bloomberg]
• Some of the biggest hedge funds are having their worst years in history. Among the biggest losers: Atticus Capital, Cantillon, and GLG Partners. [WSJ]
• Taking aim at Microsoft, Google is unveiling a browser of its own called Google Chrome. [NYP] 
• Commerzbank stock has taken a beating following its decision to buy Dresdner Bank for $14.4 billion amid concern by investors that it's overpaying.  [Bloomberg]
• KKR's IPO prospectus "gleefully contrasts itself" from Steve Schwarzman's Blackstone. [WSJ]
  
• Bankruptcy pro Harvey Miller of Weil Gotshal explains why he's going to be busy this fall. [NYP]

• Lehman slashed 1,500 jobs yesterday. But job cuts are expected at several other banks around town very soon. [NYT]
• A handful of hedge funds including D.E. Shaw and Citadel are now pushing Leon Black's Apollo to move ahead with the deal to acquire Huntsman. [WSJ]
• The number of global IPOs this month has been the lowest since 1992. [Dealbook]
• Microsoft will buy the online survey company Greenfield for $486 million in cash, topping the offer that had previously been made by Steve Rattner's Quadrangle Group. [Marketwatch]
• Former Goldman Sachs exec Steve Mandis has left the $12 billion hedge fund Halcyon Asset Management. [NYP]
• The law firms Heller Ehrman and Mayer Brown are in merger talks [AmLaw]
• Linens 'n Things, which filed for bankruptcy in May, may file a plan to reorganize as soon as today. [NYP]
• Dell reported a 17% drop in quarterly profit. [WSJ] 
• The Journal on Eddie Lampert: "As Sears's top shareholder, activist investor Edward Lampert should fire the chairman and architect of this woeful strategy -- himself." [WSJ]

You know Microsoft is hopelessly out of touch when the opening paragraph of the Wall Street Journal article that's supposed to be touting the tech giant's marketing coup starts off something like this: "Microsoft Corp., weary of being cast as a stodgy oldster by Apple Inc.'s advertising, is turning for help to Jerry Seinfeld." Huh? Microsoft is hoping to appeal to the Gen Y demo—people in their 20s—by hiring a spokesman who is 54? Better yet: Seinfeld will be appearing in the commercials alongside Bill Gates himself, who doesn't exactly conjure up an image of cool with iPod-listening, Macbook-carrying hipsters on the L train. The $300 million campaign, which will debut on Sept. 4th, will be promoting Microsoft's Vista operating system, which, company officials acknowledge, has generated a "negative public perception." (That's probably because it sucks.) Why did Seinfeld decide to participate? We're guessing it may have had something to do with the $10 million paycheck.More

• Dick Fuld's Lehman Bros is considering selling Neuberger Berman for as much as $8 billion. [Reuters]
• Morgan Stanley is poaching brokers from Merrill Lynch. [Dealbook]
• Steve Schwarzman's Blackstone Group has set aside $1.25 billion to invest in subprime real estate and acquire "troubled loans on the cheap." [NYP]
• Wachovia's CFO has stepped down. [NYT]
• Two private equity firms, including David Matlin's MatlinPatterson, are eyeing BankUnited Financial. [WSJ]
• Microsoft has given up on plans to acquire Yahoo. Again. [LAT]
• Absolut vodka is now officially in French hands. [Daily Telegraph]
  

• Ford announced an $8.7 billion loss for the second quarter—its worse ever—and an $8 billion write-down. [NYT]
• Daimler AG's profits fell 25 percent and the company slashed its forecast for the year. [Bloomberg]
• Credit Suisse announced better-than-expected earnings for the second quarter. [Bloomberg]
• The head of Microsoft's online division, Kevin Johnson, is leaving the company to become chief of Juniper Networks. [WSJ]
• Gary Crittenden, Citigroup's CFO, says the company has no plans to break itself up. [Dealbook]
• Goldman has raised a new $10 billion fund. [NYT]
• Linens 'n Things, which was taken private by Leon Black's Apollo Management in 2005 and which went bankrupt in May, may be forced to liquidate. [NYP]

• Merrill Lynch's $4.65 billion second-quarter loss was almost twice what analysts had predicted; the firm also wrote down an additional $9.5 billion in connection with subprime losses. [Bloomberg]
• Citigroup's posted a better-than-expected loss of $2.5 billion for the quarter, which Vikram Pandit is spinning as progress since the bank lost $5.1 billion last quarter. [NYT]
• Troubled mortgage financing giant Freddie Mac is weighing selling up to $10 billion in new shares to raise capital. [WSJ]
• AMD president and COO Dirk Meyer will succeed Hector Ruiz as the chip maker's CEO. [WSJ]
• Both Google and Microsoft issued rare disappointing earnings. [Bloomberg]
• Investors swindled by Samuel Israel III's Bayou Group are trying to recoup their losses from Goldman Sachs, Bayou's prime broker. [NYT]
• Teva is acquiring rival Barr Pharmaceuticals in a $7.46 billion deal. [WSJ]