TODAY VOTERS DECIDE if Tony Blair gets returned to office for an historic third term as Britain’s Prime Minister. He’s sure to win, but not by as big a margin as he wants.

He’s been endorsed by the U.K.’s top-selling daily newspaper, The Sun – owned by Australian-American Rupert Murdoch (below, right). Surprisingly. possible terms for that support emerged here in Manhattan last week.

POPE BENEDICT XVI is enjoying quite a media honeymoon. As Cardinal Ratzinger he was such a severe disciplinarian, and his guarding of Church orthodoxy so steely, that he was nicknamed “God’s Rottweiler” and “the Panzer Cardinal“. But he’s now a darling of the press.

ANOTHER POPE IS FINALLY CHOSEN, and so ends another historic episode of ritual, mystique and secrecy – more suited to the novelist’s craft than the journalist’s.

SOME OF OUR CITY‘s ever­-suspicious press corps are spotting conspiracies again.

Last week’s entirely creditable Pulitzer national reporting prize for The New York Times and its expose of killer railroad-crossings is being linked – much less creditably – with a sloppy Times debacle.

THE WORLD’S MOST VISIBLE RELIGIOUS LEADER EVER will disappear tomorrow from human view, deep below St Peter’s Basilica – with, of course, the media following as far as they can.  

ZIMBABWE GOES to the polls today. But one citizen’s vote will be missing.

He’s freelance journalist Cornelius Nduna (left), recently reported in MEDIA BEAT to be on the run from President Robert Mugabe‘s security men. Thankfully he’s reached safety in the neighboring country of Zambia.  

VIACOM MAY BE suffering severe blows – a staggering $18.4 billion loss last quarter, plus presiding over CBS News‘ public disgrace. But it’s good to report the media giant is trying to do something right – fight AIDS.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH the following sentence? “The fact that you have these homicide bombers now, wreaking such hatred and violence while people pray, is to me an indication of their failure.”

BLOGGERS, OR AT LEAST THOSE of a right-wing bent, are crowing about having claimed the head of Eason Jordan at CNN, just as they feel they won Dan Rather‘s at CBS.

DEFAMATION LAWYERS are gearing up for a new bonanza – now that Google is to extend its reach into the fresh treasure-trove of television transcripts.

IN HER BROADCAST TODAY, OPRAH WINFREY  is doing something unusual for a talk-show host. She’s show­casing her own acting performance in ABC‘s “Desperate Housewives.”

WHO WILL REPLACE POWELL? No, this is not about Colin Powell‘s successor. Yester­day,  Condoleezza Rice, despite last-minute gestures from some energized Demo­cratic senators, won confir­mation as Secretary of State.

SO HE’S BEING inaugurated again. And the nation’s fighting a war.

Celebrity crime-writer Dominick Dunne is about to get more exposure, of the kind he doesn’t like.

His battle with ex­ Congressman Gary Condit is generating even more spill-over than the stories on  “Today” this week. The NBC TV show focused on Condit’s denials (more emphatic than before, but still disputed) of having a romantic relationship with the murdered intern Chandra Levy.     

They are stunning, heart­stopping images. And there are so many of them.

Every day seems to bring more. Scenes of the tsunami crashing down on unsuspecting coastal communities may not have been available to us all immediately, but thanks to the growing non-professional use of digital mini video-cameras – there they were, very soon afterward.     

“AMERICA HAS SPOKEN!” So pronounced the re-elected George W. Bush, in a landmark quote for the year – one delivered in his best “Don’t mess with Texas” tones.  

JOURNALISM TOOK BIG losses this week. New York lost the greatly lamented columnist Jack Newfield; the world lost Anthony Sampson (left).

I didn’t know Mr. Newfield, regrettably; I am grateful I did know Tony.

YOU HAVE to be SOOOOO careful with these Latin American dictators. That applies even if they’re 89 years old, sickly, and out of effective power for eight years.     

General Augusto Pinochet has been freshly investigated in The New York Times‘ business pages, just as he faces charges of kidnapping and murder during his time as Chile’s head of state.

YOU’LL HAVE ADMIRED the Time Warner Center, of course. The communications giant doesn’t, you probably know, occupy that entire eponymous Center, but Chief Executive Richard Parsons was eager to get the company name emblazoned on the whole luxurious shebang of a building  …  top-notch restaurants, glitzy stores, pricey food market and all. 

THE REPLACEMENT GAME gains pace at Business Week. As longtime Editor-in-Chief Steve Shepard heads toward running the new graduate journalism school at CUNY, Mark Morrison, the magazine’s Managing Editor, might appear an easy shoo-in.