Free Republic

Katie Couric and ABC television are on the verge of signing a $20 million deal, which would give Katie her own talk show, as well as significant involvement in ABC News -- and the big casualty could be "General Hospital." ABC would also give Katie a 1-hour, 5-day-a-week syndicated talk show, that would begin in September, 2012. Our sources say ... one option ABC is considering is giving its affiliates back the hour where "General Hospital" airs to make room for Katie. In other words, ABC would axe the third longest-running soap in history and the last one standing on...

Garry Trudeau was inarguably the most famous person in the room Friday. But the man behind the long-running comic strip "Doonesbury" said he felt a little chagrined as he stood before about 400 Vietnam veterans and their spouses. "It's humbling to receive an award for storytelling in a room of people so filled with stories," the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist said. Trudeau was in Tucson to accept the President's Award for Excellence in the Arts from the Vietnam Veterans of America at the group's national conference, held this week at the Hilton El Conquistador Hotel, 10000 N. Oracle Road.

The media-personal injury trial lawyer alliance. NBC's Today on Monday trumpeted the latest legal action brought by the law firm which employs notorious agitator Erin Brockovich, whom NBC identified with the very respectable description of "environmental researcher On the May 5 Today, MRC analyst Geoffrey Dickens observed, Katie Couric hyped how some alumni of Beverly Hills High School in California, which has oil wells on campus, "say toxic fumes from the wells have given them cancer." Relaying the claims of "environmental researcher" Brockovich, Couric treated her as simply a concerned woman: "Erin says what troubles her the most is the...