'New York' Going Back for Seconds on CBS?

Sumner Redstone's empire is bracing itself for its second lightning strike in half a year from New York magazine -- but this time, it's determined not to supply the electricity.

At the Nielsen/Dow Jones Media and Money conference yesterday, writer Joe Hagan -- who was granted remarkable access to Katie Couric for his fairly devastating July cover story on her first year at CBS -- showed up nice and early for a keynote address by the Viacom chairman, evidently hoping to use the public forum to get a quote from the uncooperative mogul for his upcoming piece.

But PR minders were ready for him. When Hagan raised his hand during the Q&A session, a microphone was brought over to him, then abruptly withdrawn before he had a chance to speak.

Viacom spokesman Carl Folta claims it was just coincidence: "We didn't know that he was working on a story. The session ended because Sumner needed to catch a flight." Suuuuure.

The buzz in media circles has Hagan working on a piece about Dan Rather and his lawsuit against CBS. Is that what he intended to ask Redstone about? Hagan declined to specify the topic of his story beyond saying it's a company that used to be a subsidiary of Viacom but is no longer -- a company, in other words, like CBS.