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No surprise here: Barack Obama is Time's person of the year.

-CNBC's budget is getting cut by as much as 10 percent, even though the channel has been enjoying record ratings. [NYO]

-New documents that have surfaced in the case of Dan Rather v. CBS show that the network may have had somewhat more influence of the "independent" panel it appointed to investigate Rather's story about President Bush's National Guard service than it has let on. [NYO]

Did the press favor Barack Obama over John McCain, and, if so, was it partisanship or something else? Could John McCain have won with a different campaign? Was Sarah Palin the right pick for vice president?

These are some of the questions debated last night at a panel discussion hosted by The Week. Dan Rather, Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, Slate editor in chief Jacob Weisberg, Republican strategist Ed Rollins and Democratic consultant Bob Shrum were the panelists.

Highlights:

-Sumner Redstone's daughter, Shari, has resigned as chairwoman of Midway Games, a likely sign that the family will sell the company to help pay down its debt. [WSJ]

-Barack Obama is scouting for a new head of the F.C.C. Two African-American women, Julia Johnson and Mignon Clyburn, are on his shortlist. [BW]

-This year's political coverage has been dominated by women -- like Katie Couric, Rachel Maddow and Campbell Brown. [Salon]

-Wait, no! It's been dominated by gay reporters like Adam Nagourney and Jeff Zeleny. [Out]

-Barack Obama's multi-network half-hour infomercial managed to be "both poetic and practical, spiritual and sensible," according to critic Tom Shales. Oh, also "elegant," "elegiac" and "skillfully edited." [WaPo]

-When it comes to the presidential campaign now wrapping up, is life imitating The West Wing? [NYT]

Is there anything that's both more pointless and more irresistible than arguing about press bias? Each side seems incapable of perceiving any bias except the kind it disagrees with, and neither side has even shown the slightest ability to change the other's mind.

-MSNBC president Phil Griffin says 24-hour cable news is for people who "want depth" in their journalism. Related: I just snarfed coffee all over my keyboard. Drat you, Griffin! [NYO]

-Arianna Huffington is totally fine with having Tina Brown as a competitor, really. But one person who's not fine with the whole thing is Barry Diller's head of web programming, who has already expressed concerns about how much The Daily Beast, Brown's IAC-backed news-and-culture website, is going to cost. [NYT]

No matter how in the tank (as this election season's second most overused linguistic trope, after "Main Street/Wall Street," would have it) much of the media may be for Barack Obama, it's worth remembering that some journalists are actually in the other guy's corner...shamelessly, rabidly, hilariously in his corner.