There's a new kingpin of media in Chicago -- James Tyree, 51, chairman of Mesirow Financial and scheduled to be the next owner of the Chicago Sun-Times and most of the leading newspapers in the suburbs. Media kingpins aren't what they used to be, but Tyree said he's not content with modest expectations.

Tyree insists his venture into publishing will turn out better than Sam Zell's disastrous dalliance at Tribune Co. "For one thing, there's no debt on this company, and we're not going to put any debt on it," he said.

While friends have questioned his wisdom for investing in an industry under siege, Tyree said he's convinced there's still a business model to build around "high-quality, high-integrity and focused local content." As he takes control of the Sun-Times and 58 suburban newspaper titles plus corresponding Web sites, Tyree said he will stay out of decisions about coverage or editorial endorsements while concentrating on strategic and capital planning.

OpenMedia.ca and the Council of Canadians are raising concerns about what the CanWest filing for bankruptcy protection means for increased concentration and foreign ownership of Canadian media. The organizations are calling on the federal government to use the filing as an opportunity to expand media democracy in Canada rather than use it as a pretext for potentially reducing foreign ownership restrictions on Canadian Media.

“Following the failed business model already employed by the Aspers and Goldman Sachs in television has been a profound mistake for CanWest,” says Garry Neil, a Council of Canadians board member and cultural policy expert. “It is worrisome that the Aspers might be kept around in order to satisfy ownership rules, possibly just as window dressing to mask a major foreign takeover of Canadian media.”

Federal regulators are virtually certain to scrutinize any substantial pairing of cable leader Comcast (CMSCA) and content behemoth NBC Universal, the two media giants at the center of a frenzy of merger speculation, according to antitrust experts. If consummated, the mega-media merger would combine NBC Universal's vast stable of content with Comcast's giant digital-distribution network.

"It's virtually guaranteed that FCC [Federal Communications Commission] regulators would review this deal," Glenn Manishin, a former antitrust counsel and trial attorney at the Justice Department's Antitrust Division, told DailyFinance. "This could be a signature case for Chairman [Julius] Genachowski to demonstrate the principles he enunciated when he was confirmed." Manishin predicted any deal would also face review by the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department.

NBC Universal executives declined to deny a report Wednesday night that Comcast, the cable giant, is in talks to buy the television and movie company from General Electric. Comcast also did not deny the report that bankers for the two sides discussed a possible deal Tuesday in New York.

Such talks often lead nowhere, but rumors have circulated for months that GE might be looking to unload the news and entertainment company. NBC is stuck in fourth place among broadcast networks, and Universal Studios is enduring a rough movie season.

The wireless industry is gearing up to fight new Net neutrality rules that the Federal Communications Commission is formulating to keep the Internet open. On Monday, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski gave a speech at the Brookings Institute in Washington, D.C., outlining plans to turn the agency's principles for open Internet access into official regulation. In addition to making sure that network operators cannot prevent users from accessing lawful Internet content, applications, and services of their choice, or attaching unharmful devices to the network, Genachowski wants to add two more rules.

The first would prevent Internet access providers from discriminating against particular Internet content or applications, while allowing for reasonable network management. The second principle would ensure that Internet access providers are transparent about the network management practices they implement.

Broadband providers such as AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon Communications have opposed regulation or new laws that would dictate how they could run their networks. Up until this point, the Internet has been free of any regulation. And these companies would like to keep it that way.

Over 200 people gathered in downtown Denver for a Save the News event organized by Kim Humphreys of I Want My Rocky and Josh Stearns and Craig Aaron of Free Press Wednesday night Sept 16. Stearns stated "a vital part of the news ecosystem" was lost 6 months ago when Rocky Mountain News was closed by the E. W. Scripps corporation. Three months prior to the Feb 27 final edition Humphreys found out her employer was being put up for sale. She had the idea to organize because, as the site says, "Without watchdogs, our democracy won't work. As journalists, we can't be objective about our own existence."

This week, Lou Dobbs is broadcasting his radio show from a national lobbying conference sponsored by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), an organization founded by a white nationalist and designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. At a time when studies document the growing link between anti-immigrant hate speech and increased violence against Latinos, Dobbs' appearance at FAIR generates especially profound concerns among those targeted by his almost daily attacks: immigrants and Latinos.

For years, Dobbs and CNN banked on the fact that many of the Latinos who bear the brunt of his systematic media assaults--Spanish-speaking immigrants--were unaware of the threat that Dobbs posed. But all of that is changing; Latinos are increasingly making the connection between racism in the media and discrimination in their hometowns, and coming to a simple, yet historic conclusion: Lou Dobbs is the Most Dangerous Man for Latinos in America. That's why Presente.org is joining with Latino organizations throughout the United States demanding that CNN get rid of Dobbs. And we are not alone. In the coming weeks, CNN President Jon Klein will be inundated by a growing national chorus of calls to stop promoting Dobbs' brand of "news."

Michael Moore gave his "two cents" on the state of the daily newspaper at Monday morning's press conference for his latest film, Capitalism: A Love Story. Moore revealed an earlier cut of the film explored the hard times facing the industry, but ultimately decided the issue was too large to fit into the film, adding it may warrant a film of its own down the road.

"If you want to give me 90 seconds," he told the press, "I'll give you my two cents about why I think a year from now, or two years from now, we're not going to have daily newspapers, and that we're in the last year of reading the daily newspaper. And for those of you who are from daily newspapers, I thought about, before I came here, I though this the last time I'm going to talk to some of these papers, which is kind of a sad feeling - that I won't see you again unless you're on the Internet after this. This is it. So, do you want to hear that?"

When my teenage son ignores me while tapping away furiously on his cell phone, I have the consolation of knowing that he has joined the quickest-growing form of two-way communication in human history.

A decade ago, just about no one in the U.S. sent these messages, known as Short Message Service (SMS) texts. This year, we will zing out 1.2 trillion of them, predicts market-intelligence firm IDC.

That translates to a barrage of messages from each user, especially teens, who seem to be receiving new text messages — a.k.a. "blowing up" — more than they take new breaths. The average U.S. mobile teen now sends or receives an average of 2,899 text messages per month, according to Nielsen Mobile. "With teens, the act of picking up a phone and calling someone is dropping away," notes Christopher Collins, a senior analyst with Yankee Group.

What's most amazing about the texting craze is just how inexpensive it is for mobile carriers to provide this wildly popular service. SMS messages are not only extremely short (maxing out at 160 characters), but they also cleverly exploit today's digital phone networks, leveraging transmission channels between phone and cell tower that were originally designed to coordinate voice calls. "They cost the mobile carriers so little that you could argue that they're free," says Collins.

Reporting from Sacramento - In the long-running battle between cable television and satellite, the cable TV industry is quietly trying to persuade the Legislature to levy a tax on its competitors.

With just six days left in the legislative session, cable advocates in Sacramento want lawmakers to slap a new 5% tax on satellite service to match the 5% franchise fee that cable companies pay to string or bury their wires across public property and into homes.

Cable companies argue that it's matter of fairness. They say it is not right for them to pay a fee, while fast-growing satellite providers -- DirecTV and Dish Network -- don't have to pay anything for the right to beam their signals into people's homes from space.

Satellite companies disagree, saying such a tax discriminates against their 3.6 million customers in California, especially rural residents living in remote areas not served by cable. Satellite providers shouldn't be penalized with a tax because they use innovative technology and don't have to dig up the streets or people's backyards, DirecTV says.