Bill Clegg

What happened to NBC, wonders Felix Gillette. "In recent days, MSNBC’s president, Mr. Griffin, has told a number of reporters that the change was not made as a result of outside pressure. Still, some TV insiders continue to play the MSNBC parlor game, speculating about how and why the McCain camp appeared to have succeeded in budging MSNBC where Hillary and her democratic supporters had failed."

Cheers! John Koblin reports that The New York Times will celebrate its own coverage of the Beijing Olympics with "Champagne and egg rolls to reward the 'stunning' coverage The Times produced on the Web, and in the newspaper..."

Publishers are clambering to put together books on Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, reports Leon Neyfakh. Plus: After David Carr, Bill Clegg.

PLUS: Femocracy '08... What Has Happened to the Toronto Film Festival?... Ira Silverberg

Literary agent Bill Clegg has been the talk of the town since last week, when Radaronline.com reported that Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, his boss at the William Morris Agency, had gone out with a proposal for a memoir he intends to write about his descent into and recovery from crack addiction.

Today, Pat Strachan of Little, Brown acquired the rights to Mr. Clegg's book, which is tentatively called Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man. Ms. Walsh confirmed that Ms. Strachan had made the acquisition but declined to comment further. Mr. Clegg did not respond to an e-mail. 

Mr. Clegg was the subject of much concern and speculation within the publishing industry in 2005, when he abrupty stopped coming into work at the agency he ran at the time with Sarah Burnes, and left his clients—Nicole Krauss, Susan Choi, and Andrew Sean Greer among them—without representation.  read more »