Imagine being asked to solve a problem so difficult that the smartest people you know have been trying to figure it out for months, even years, without getting anywhere. Now imagine doing it with one metaphorical hand tied behind your back.

That gives you an idea of the challenge Steven Waldman faces in his new job as the Federal Communications Commission's designated deep thinker on the future of media. As a special adviser to Chairman Julius Genachowski, Waldman will be asked to assess the health of the news business and come up with recommendations for improving it -- without exceeding the agency's relatively narrow charter.

Oprah Winfrey has been the queen of all media for most of the 23 years she's been on the air. But it looks like she's about to pull a Howard Stern -- packing up her free, over-the-airwaves broadcast and taking it to a more exclusive venue.

According to Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke, Winfrey is days away from announcing her decision to end her syndicated talk show with plans to resurrect the show on cable after the launch of the Oprah Winfrey Network, or OWN. The Oprah Winfrey Show would cease to exist in its current form in mid-2011, when her syndication deal with CBS Corp.'s (CBS) CBS Television Distribution expires.

I'm beginning to suspect the Parents Television Council is actually a front group controlled by the entertainment industry. The group, which calls itself "the nation's most influential advocacy organization," has trained its rhetorical cannons on The CW Network, which has been promoting an upcoming episode of Gossip Girl featuring a three-way sexual romp between its teenage characters.

"To include a storyline like this on a program that is expressly targeted to impressionable teenagers is reckless and irresponsible," says PTC president Tim Winter. "We are asking each CW Network affiliate to use their common sense and preempt this episode."

Rupert Murdoch wants everyone to know that Fox News doesn't start playground fights -- but it's not afraid of them, either.

On a conference call to discuss News Corp.'s (NWS) fiscal first-quarter earnings, the 78-year-old chairman, dialing in from Sydney, Australia, was asked about reports that Fox News had agreed to a "cease-fire" in its war of words with MSNBC, and about a recent White House effort to isolate and discredit his network.

"We did not start this abuse, which we thought went way beyond," Murdoch said about the hostilities with MSNBC, implying that it was the rival network's commentator Keith Olbermann and colleagues who had initiated them. "It was personal and went way beyond -- not on me but on others. Finally, we had to allow people to retaliate. The moment they stop, we'll stop. We don't believe in it, and we don't think it's good business."

On Wednesday morning, during Time Warner (TWX)'s third-quarter earnings conference call, chairman Jeff Bewkes said, "We'll continue to take a look at non-strategic and less profitable titles."

Apparently, one of those non-strategic titles is Fortune Small Business. A Time Inc. spokesman confirms to DailyFinance that the Fortune spin-off is suspending publication.

The news comes just as the publisher embarks on a fresh round of job cuts aimed at saving $100 million in costs. Between 400 and 500 jobs will be eliminated, according to The New York Times, only a year after the company shed 600 workers.

The guillotine has begun its descent at Time Inc. Sources at the publishing company (which is part of the same conglomerate as DailyFinance parent AOL) say executives have asked for an emergency meeting with representatives of the Newspaper Guild to discuss job eliminations. A Time Inc. spokeswoman declined to comment, but John Shostrom, chairman of the company's Guild unit, said the meeting will take place "soon." He said it was Time Inc. that called the meeting.

"They act, and we react," said Shostrom. "The Guild doesn't lay people off. We just fight back when they make proposals to lay people off."

Despite a long-awaited economic uptick, the media industry continues to recess, but one small part of it is still growing: Gawker Media. Nick Denton's blog archipelago is expanding its footprint today with a new video site, Gawker.tv.

"The web is a visual medium," Denton says. "As a former print journalist, that's a hard thing for me to acknowledge. But that's the great virtue of the web: It's so measurable. The numbers force one to acknowledge what readers want. Actually, given what they want, I shouldn't call them readers -- rather, viewers."

What is it, exactly, that some officials in Washington, D.C., have against bloggers? I don't know, but it's requiring them to adopt uncomfortable intellectual poses to justify their prejudice.

Last month, the Federal Trade commission adopted new guidelines governing endorsements and sponsorships. Under the new rules, a blogger who receives freebies -- samples of cosmetic products or consumer electronics, review copies of books or video games, etc. -- from companies that he or she writes about is, in effect, being paid to write about those companies. Failure to disclose those payments constitutes a form of advertising fraud and carries potentially heavy penalties.

The shooting war between Fox News and the Obama Administration is over, at least for now. Officials from the two camps met for a parley on Wednesday, emerging with what's being described as a "truce."

A ceasefire is more like it -- if that. Both sides, having spent their ammunition and mussed their uniforms, have agreed to lay down their arms for a time and attend to other matters before resuming hostilities. But make no mistake: The hostilities will resume.

Apparently no one told Rupert Murdoch that the recession is over. Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (NWS) is closing its Boston bureau, according to a memo sent out Thursday by managing editor Robert Thomson.

"The economic background to the closure is painfully obvious to us all," wrote Thomson, adding that the nine reporters who worked in the bureau "will certainly be able to apply for openings elsewhere on the paper."

The last layoffs at the Journal took place in February, when the paper eliminated 14 newsroom positions. So far, it has avoided making deeper cuts of the sort that have afflicted most large U.S. newspapers, including The New York Times, which recently announced its second wave of newsroom downsizing.