The Breakfast Meeting: The Fox News-MSNBC Campaign, and Adult Films\' Anti-H.I.V. Strategy

This presidential election, Fox News and MSNBC have become the poles that mainstream, two-party politics in the United States revolve around, Jeremy W. Peters reports, as they have pushed their stridency to new levels. Not only does that mean that the candidate for the other side receives barely any positive coverage, according to research, but the negative coverage can turn disturbingly personal. Both Fox News and MSNBC have idly speculated on the mental health of candidates on the presidential tickets.

• Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corporation owns Fox News, has been using Twitter to comment on the presidential election. On Monday, he expressed doubt that his preferred candidate, Mitt Romney, would prevail: “Everybody searching for any scrap of news about election tomorrow. plenty of straws to grasp for Romney, probably not enough.”
• President Obama's campaign in the last few days has been assisted by an array of performers including Jay-Z, Dave Matthe ws, Stevie Wonder and John Mellencamp. Bruce Springsteen, who has also been performing at rallies for Mr. Obama, on Monday gave a call from Air Force One to Chris Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey and lifelong Springsteen fan who has been working with the president on the recovery from Hurricane Sandy. The call was promptly relayed by the governor to reporters.

AOL on Tuesday morning reported third-quarter revenue of $531.7 million, which was flat but higher than expected, Reuters said, with the strongest advertising growth the company has seen in seven years. The results pleased analysts as an increase in advertising outweighed a decline in subscription revenue for AOL's dial-up services.

The pornographic film industry conducts frequent H.I.V. tests of its actors, and has an extensive system of sharing the test results, Donald G. McNeil Jr. reports from California, that has proved successful, the industry says. According to the industry's med ical consultants, about 350,000 sex scenes have been shot without condoms since 2004, and H.I.V. has not been transmitted on a set once. Los Angeles County on Tuesday will be voting on a ballot measure that would make it illegal to shoot a pornographic film without the use of condoms; the filmmakers resist, saying that films showing actors who use condoms are simply not as popular.

Noam Cohen edits and writes for the Media Decoder blog. Follow @noamcohen on Twitter.