Robert Giroux, who discovered and edited some of the most unusual and paradigm-shifting voices in 20th century fiction, died today at his home in Tinton Falls, New Jersey, at the age of 94. Here's the obituary from the New York Times, for now:

If the flamboyant Roger Straus presented the public face of Farrar, Straus, Mr. Giroux, as editor-in-chief, was its quiet mover, working behind the scenes to shape its list of books and establishing himself as the gold standard of literary taste. The publisher Charles Scribner Jr., in his memoir, “In the Company of Writers: A Life in Publishing” (1991), wrote, “Giroux is a great man of letters, a great editor, and a great publisher.

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It hasn't even been 24 hours since Republican Presidential candidate John McCain's speech in St. Paul and already a tribute site has been created to the protesters who disrupted him on stage.

The site, The Ground Noise and the Static, derives its name from the response Mr. McCain offered to supporters after members of the anti-war group Code Pink heckled him onstage:

My friends, my dear friends ... Please, please don't be diverted by the ground noise and the static. I'm going to talk about it some more, but Americans want us to stop yelling at each other.

Another McCain heckler, Adam Koresh, was interviewed by The American Prospect's Dana Goldstein.

Two magazines are preparing profiles of The New York Times' Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.

New York magazine has assigned Joe Hagan to write a profile, and David Margolick is preparing a piece for Portfolio. Both articles are write-arounds, and neither author has scored an on-the-record interview with Mr. Sulzberger, according to a source familiar with the situation, who also says that Mr. Sulzberger has no plans to talk to either of the writers.

Mr. Margolick's story was scheduled to run in the October issue of Portfolio hitting newsstands on Sept. 23, but it was dropped at the last minute, sources said. The story may need to be recast.  read more »

Not content dabbling in stunt journalism and celebrity profiles, Joel Stein has decided what he really wants to do is use his writing to make a difference.

Actually, that's not quite right. He wants to use it to drum up fake controversy, as he admits in his latest Los Angeles Times column.

Mr. Stein was in Denver covering the Democratic convention (or something) when he spotted the following scene:

I was at a party thrown by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom featuring a bunch of indie bands, including Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, which played its catchy new song 'Satan Said Dance.  read more »

And the memos just keep on coming. Here's Bill Keller's statement to the staff of The New York Times about the consolidation of Metro and Sports:

To the Staff:
As you've learned from Arthur's message, beginning next month the paper will be reconfigured. Metro news will appear in the A-book along with International and National news. Sports will be combined with Bizday, except on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, when we will offer freestanding sports sections. I just want to elaborate a little on what this means for the newsroom.

The aim, of course, is to save money -- and, importantly, to do it without cutting back coverage.

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Well here's one movie we're definitely not going to make it through without crying. We can't even read the news article from MSNBC without tearing up.

Sony Pictures is in negotiations to secure the rights to the story of Christian the hugging lion and the two men, John Rendall and Anthony "Ace" Bourke, who adopted him. The movie will be based off their 1972 book, A Lion Called Christian. There was also a 1971 documentary about the boys reuniting with Christian, but this will apparently be a dramatized version. We'd rather go for the doc, but the new deal is a testament to the power of YouTube and viral cuteness.  read more »

As we reported earlier, here's the text of Arthur Sulzberger's e-mail to his staff about the changes to The New York Times' Metro and Sports sections:

To the Staff:
Given the business challenges we face, we are constantly looking for ways to reduce costs that do not affect the quality or quantity of the journalism we provide to our readers. Next month you will see one such way in the metropolitan edition of The Times.

Beginning Monday, Oct. 6, we will introduce a new layout of the paper by consolidating some sections. Metro will be integrated into the Main News section Monday through Saturday.  read more »

We're tuning into our desktops more and more these days. The Conference Board, a business research organization, and market research firm TNS Global have the proof! According to their recent report, online viewership of television broadcasts has almost doubled since 2006. One-fifth of families fire up the laptop instead of the big screen. The top two destinations were the official TV channel homepage and YouTube.com. Nine out of ten online viewers check out videos and TV shows at home. But about 15 percent are catching up on Heroes at their workplace. Tsk tsk!

Here's more from the report:

The top five types of shows viewed online are news, drama, sitcom/comedy, reality shows and sports, with user generated content following close behind.

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In his most recent column, Robert Novak explains how hitting a pedestrian with his car made him realize that something was wrong with him, ultimately leading to the diagnosis of his brain tumor.

As Mr. Novak writes:

I did not realize I had hit anyone until a shirt-sleeved young man on a bicycle, whom I incorrectly thought to be a bicycle messenger, jumped in front of my car to block the way. In fact, he was David A. Bono, a partner in the high-end law firm Harkins Cunningham. The bicyclist was shouting at me that I could not just hit people and then drive away.  read more »

Media Mob has learned that The New York Times will make an announcement later today that it plans to cut the number of sections it has in the paper during some days of the week and it will fold in the Metro Section and Sports section into other sections of the newspaper.

According to newsroom sources, the Metro Section is moving into the A-section and the Sports section will move into the Business section for some portion of the week.

The move is being made to save money on printing. According to one newsroom source, neither metro editor Joe Sexton nor sports editor Tom Jolly was "thrilled with the decision, but they understood.  read more »