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NBC Local and Fox announced last week their plan to pool resources to cover local news in certain markets, an encouraging sign that TV stations are beginning to understand the desperate need to rationalize their massive newsgathering costs. Is there too much local TV news? I think yes, and it's a warning bell I've sounded for some time.

Mitt Romney might want you to let Detroit go bankrupt, but David Pecker doesn't. Earlier this afternoon, the American Media chief sent all of his employees a fact chief supplied by the GM and intended to build support for an auto-industry bailout. American Media publishes the National Enquirer, Star and a number of fitness titles; it used to own two automotive magazines, Auto World and MPH, but folded both.

Here's Pecker's email:

In case you didn't believe him the first 20 times, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer repeated today at the company's annual shareholders' meeting that he has no intention of making another offer for Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO).

B2B online media and events company TechTarget (NSDQ: TTGT) has acquired The Brian Madden Company, a Website and conference provider geared toward IT professionals in the cloud-computing space. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

At a time when many media companies are retrenching, women's magazine publisher Meredith (NYSE: MDP) Corp has pulled out its checkbook and taken a minority stake in Real Girls Media Network. The publisher of Better Homes and Gardens and Fitness wants to use the San Francisco-based women's content and social net aggregator to buttress its 31 websites.

Online Media Daily: Video Search Startup Taboola Raises $4.5 Million

Some consolidation unwinding in the health content area and another deal that won't happen for WebMD ... WebMD Health Corp. and Marketing Technology Solutions, the owner of QualityHealth.com, have "mutually terminated" the acquisition of MTS, a deal announced in September for $50 million in cash plus a possible $25 million earn-out.  Instead, WebMD has signed an ad services pact with MTS and acquired a minority preferred interest.

Blinkx isn't taking no for an answer. Despite dropping its pursuit of pay-per-click ad network MIVA last month after being rebuffed, it's now restarted the reverse-takeover bid after recording strong earnings last week. At $0.55 per share ($19 million), the new bid is far less than the $1.20 ($41 million) first offered back in August, but is still 108 percent up on MIVA's Tuesday close of $0.26 and comes in all-cash.

—National Geographic gets in game : National Geographic Ventures, the for-profit unit of National Geographic Society is launching a gaming division, and its first title is a free download called Herod's Lost Tomb. The game is accessible via PC, Mac and iPhone, with forthcoming titles being developed for the Wii, PS3 and various handheld devices. Former Take-Two exec Chris Mate will head up National Geographic Games.

Citysearch, the online local online guide which is part of IAC (NSDQ: IACI), is undergoing its first major relaunch in about a decade; for now it is in beta, here.