Word on the street is that ESPN is planning to lay off "200 to 300" employees in the coming months.

The go-to euphemism surrounding the impending layoffs, according to Variety's Brian Steinberg, is "the changing media landscape," primarily the "cord-cutting" phenomenon. In July, the Big Lead blog, in discussing Keith Olbermann's expected departure from ESPN, explained that "millennials are eschewing expensive cable TV bills and streaming everything online." While that might explain flat viewership or even a modest decline, cord-cutting is only a minor part of the problem. Someone needs to explain why ESPN's ratings have fallen by a stunning 30 percent in the past 12 months.

The Associated Press's report yesterday on the law license suspension of indicted Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane, a Democrat, apparently bore too much resemblance to how the wire service typically reports on troubled Republicans and conservatives. The Monday afternoon report by Marc Levy and Mark Scolforo identified her position in its headline ("Court suspends Pennsylvania attorney general's law license"), named her in its opening sentence, and tagged her as a "first-term Democrat" in its second.

As will be seen after the jump, today's AP report on how Kane's office is trying to cope with not having someone allowed to practice law at the helm reverted to predictable form: running an incredibly vague and almost incoherent headline, saving Kane's name for Paragraph 2, and holding the identification of her Democratic Party affiliation until Paragraph 9 (even then, referring only to a "fellow Democrat").

Thomas Roberts set aside four full segments on his MSNBC Live program on Monday and Tuesday to a panel of six Catholics who dissent from the Church's teachings on sexuality and abortion. Roberts hyped his guests as "Catholics like me who have been deeply wounded in life by the Church." He noted how a divorced woman stayed with the Church and asked, "Do you feel as if you're almost on a cyclical relationship with someone that is almost abusive to you, but that you still go back seeking acceptance?"

Maybe they should have called it The Transgemmys. The 67th Primetime Emmy Awards was a veritable smorgasbord of transgender celebration and advocacy. Hollywood was tripping over itself to prove how progressive and welcoming it is to the hot new trend in gender and sexuality.

With college football games airing Saturday on ABC, CBS, and NBC, none of the three aired their evening newscasts for viewers in the eastern or central time zones, but the CBS Evening News was shown in the western U.S. and featured another segment hinting at a link between the Planned Parenthood baby parts video scandal and a string of recent fires at their facilities.