This week, Adweek has offered a retrospective of Fox News now that the “little network that could” is the midst of celebrating its 15 years on the air. Mediaite readers know that, last week, the network celebrated this milestone with a party, during which Fox News head Roger Ailes held up an issue of USA Today, from 1996, that had taken a skeptical view of the then brand-new network.

But more than merely looking back on the network or its influence on politics and pop culture (or its ability to throw a pretty good party), the Adweek piece notes how Fox News managed to change the way TV itself works.

Adweek‘s Michael Wolff, who has previously used organized crime as a metaphor to explain Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp., expands on the “mafia” metaphor in a new article that portrays Murdoch as the ultimate boss around whom the entire corporate structure has been built. “It’s an organization all about doing what Rupert wants you to do, or doing what you imagine Rupert wants you to do, or doing what you imagine your boss imagines Rupert wants done. There are few companies as large as News Corp. that are so devoted and in thrall to one man.”

Michael Wolff, author of a biography of Rupert Murdoch, has told Reuters that Murdoch–and his family–must go. “I don’t think this company can go forward–both News International and News Corporation–with the Murdochs running it.” Wolff believes the legendary Murdoch name itself has, after weeks of scandal surrounding phone hacking and the closing of the company’s News of the World, become toxic. “I think the Murdochs have to, and will, step out of not only day to day running it, but they won’t have jobs.” Wolff says that will likely happen within 60 days.

Adweek‘s Michael Wolff, who wrote a biography of Rupert Murdoch insists that the Murdoch who signed full page apology letters in U.K. newspapers ahead of his testimony today before a panel of the British Parliament is not apologizing for the actions of a few “rogue employees,” but rather, for what his company “is.” On Bloomberg TV, Wolff said “this is not an aberration, this is what his newspapers have always done.”

Last week, there was a bit of an on-air flub on BBC’s World News channel that somehow escaped the blooper-happy eye of the Internet. However, today, the clip went viral and it went viral hard. For good reason too. You haven’t seen hilarious until you’ve seen Michael Wolff, intending to be interviewed in his role as Rupert Murdoch biographer, instead get caught up in a segment about baseball. Seriously, this is great.

Well, it would appear that the talks between Salon.com – which has been on the sales block a few months now – and Micheal Wolff‘s Newser.com have broken down. Wolff’s site, which aggregates stories from around the web, was slated to buy the news and opinion site, but the two could not agree on money matters… And it would appear that The Huffington Post and Aol are to blame.

From the “What New York Media Types are Fighting About This Week” file comes a(n ongoing) feud between Rupert Murdoch biographer and Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff and Elizabeth Spiers, Gawker founding editor and current editor in chief of The New York Observer.

On Monday, finalists for the Mirror Awards — the Newhouse School’s annual honoring of excellence in writing about journalism and the media — were announced, featuring some of the best writers and thinkers in our industry, including our own Philip Bump.

The work of the finalists is excellent. One of our writers was nominated. So why do you sense that there’s a “but” coming?

Sigh. Because there is. Actually, two.

The growing battle over content aggregation, web ethics and linking legality between TheWrap’s Sharon Waxman and Newser’s Michael Wolff continued this morning on CNN’s Reliable Sources.

Howard Kurtz served as “referee,” but the battle was mostly a rehash of both sides’ talking points.

Michael Wolff has written a column today on Newser hitting back at comments made by Sharon Waxman of The Wrap and also at the cease and desist letter The Wrap’s legal team sent Newser yesterday. We’ve been following the growing feud between the two all week as well as the developing debate over the ethics of news aggregation or curation. The Wolff/Waxman fight has been particularly fun as it combines the intellectual interest of a fascinating debate as well the slightly less high-brow enjoyment of some really catty insults. This latest column doesn’t disappoint on either facet.

Recently, The Wrap and Newser, both esteemed purveyors of news, have been locked in a battle over proper journalistic crediting on the web, the practice of writearounds, and the general state of Internet citation. Their tet a tete has recently culminated in a cease-and-desist letter, which is sure to become the haute accessory in the coming fashion season. Therefore, we’ve created our own automatic generator of your own Cease-and-Desist letter!

Michael Wolff’s Newser.com is an aggregator of news from around the web. Sharon Waxman is the Founder and Editor of The Wrap. In an interview with CurationNation.org, Wolff responded to the then rhetorical question about what he’d do if Rupert Murdoch sent a cease and desist letter regarding content from the NY Post or the WSJ. Wolff’s response was that Murdoch would be on shaky legal ground. Well, now he may get his chance to find that out – as yesterday Waxman sent a cease and desist to Newser regarding content from The Wrap. In the following interview Waxman explains her take on the line between curation and plagiarism and why she feels Newser crosses the line.

The battle over the legality and ethics of news aggregation has been heating up all week. This morning we collected all of the punches thrown in the massive fight on Twitter between four journalists that went on yesterday afternoon. That all appeared to end amicably enough, with the main combatants, Nicholas Carlson and Anthony De Rosa, seemingly laughing about it this morning. Unfortunately though, the other fight on the subject, the one between The Wrap’s Sharon Waxman and Michael Wolff of Newser, has not ended nearly as well.

Yesterday, we wrote about the battle of words between Newser’s Michael Wolff and The Wrap’s Sharon Waxman, the ethics of news aggregation, and what constitutes stealing. But shouldn’t a debate about new media like this really be waged in a more modern way than Waxman’s and Wolff’s long (and abridged) columns? This is perhaps why four journalists took to Twitter to battle it out with brutal 140-character punches.

Sharon Waxman of The Wrap and Michael Wolff of Newser are currently in the midst of a heated war of words about the ethics of news aggregation and the citing of sources. This is an interesting debate (definitely of interest to us here) and one that could go on forever. Here we have collected the punches thrown in this round of the argument.

The question, koan-like in its infinitude and all-meaningfulness, of whether Rupert Murdoch‘s self-importance outstrips his actual importance at last seems capable of an answer. Today, one of Murdoch’s papers, The Australian, carries a story on a briefing Murdoch gave to announce the unexpectedly rosy results his media conglomerate Newscorps, enjoyed last quarter. The answer appears to be yes.

Michael Wolff: “There’s the sex vibe, the exhibitionism and preening, the weird family stuff, the phony authenticity, and the euphoric sense of his own arrival…while Brown may be Palin-like he may actually be much better than Palin. “

Rupert Murdoch dropped the hint that he was thinking about pulling The Wall Street Journal’s content from Google earlier this week, decrying them and other aggregators as “parasites.” Conveniently overlooked: plenty of News Corporation sites pull content from other sites, some extensively.

This month’s Michael Wolff Vanity Fair column is about how much Rupert Murdoch hates the Internet. And no wonder! It’s full of pornography, stalkers, thieves, and worst of all…aggregators. Get your check books out, kids, Rupe isn’t interested in any free rides.

Newser, Michael Wolff and Patrick Spain‘s news aggregation eyesore, has raised $2.5 million from private investors (i.e. some of the same friends who funded Spain’s HighBeam Research and Hoover’s) after one round of fundraising, according to paidcontent.org.