Embrace your imperfections, but don’t look at my laugh lines: Embrace diversity, they said. Ditch the airbrush and celebrate women of every age, shape and size. It sounded like a powerful shot across the bows of glossy fashion magazines, except that the gunpowder was lit yesterday by a model, a former fashion editor and a photogenic youth minister …

… Mrs Murdoch’s digitally unaltered face will appear on the cover of a popular women’s magazine. A giant version of the picture was unveiled at yesterday’s launch and,  yes, there was evidence of laughter lines and a few tiny imperfections. It was a potent statement of intent, diluted somewhat by Mrs Murdoch’s mock-theatrical attempt to shield her unadulterated image from a crowd of high school students. — The SMH

Bloody Victorians: Nothing like a little Vic bashing to boost circulation. Or so it appears in this wonderfully quirky story in today’s NT News.

The NT News reports:

A Territory woman says she has been the victim of daily road rage since she hired a car with Victorian numberplates two weeks ago.

Now you just can’t even make that up!

More doom projected for scribes: So, we asked New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. at last night’s benefit for The News Literacy Project, what advice did he have for young people who want to go into journalism these days, you know, given the job market? “Why don’t we not go there?” he said, laughing. Then he went there anyway. “Um, what I would tell them is the industry is in the midst of a massive transition,” he said. — NY Magazine

Grappling with the bottom line: Halfway through 2008, executives at The Dallas Morning News realised they had a big challenge on their hands. Advertising revenue was declining at an alarming rate, a slide that has yet to subside for Dallas or the industry at large. — Editor & Publisher

The quest for Newspaper 2.0: The tablet race is getting hotter by the day. NEC is readying a seven- or eight-inch-screen Android tablet for the Japanese market, according to Slashgear, and expects them to eventually sell in the millions — though the initial production run is rumoured to begin at about 150,000. — Fast Company

Gawker Media gets served: Remember when the global economic crisis was supposed to drive legions of desperate, unemployed computer programmers into cyber crime? It turns out the real threat comes from unemployed advertising agents. Scammers posing as the well-known ad agency Spark-SMG tricked Gawker Media into running a fake Suzuki ad last week that served malicious code, according to a report in Silicon Alley Insider. — Wired

BBC won’t sell Lonely Planet: The BBC’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, today said it has no plans to sell Lonely Planet, the travel guide publisher it bought in 2007. The acquisition of 75% of Lonely Planet for £89 million has been dogged by concerns over BBC Worldwide’s commercial ambitions. Last month the Commons culture, media and sport select committee attacked the deal and it was also singled out by James Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation’s European and Asian businesses, as an example of the BBC’s expansion into areas not connected with its programs. — The Guardian UK

US Newspaper circulations: a graph: Fascinating look at newspaper circulation over the last 20 years. Handy for PowerPoints should you need it. — SteveRubel