Robservations on the media beat:

• During the brief time Rupert Murdoch owned the Chicago Sun-Times in the 1980s and in all the years since, he's never spoken to me. But on Saturday, he tweeted. It started with a tweet I posted Friday night about the media mogul’s reported interest in buying the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. That prompted a man in Merseyside, England, named Robby Faulkner to tweet: “I think you control enough of the media don't you think Rupert?” In response to Faulkner and me, Murdoch wrote from his personal Twitter account (346,817 followers): “haven't you heard of the Internet? No one controls the media or will ever again.” His News Corp. issued an official denial of talks to buy the two newspapers, but Murdoch added to the speculation with his presence in Chicago. Just two days before his message to me, he tweeted: “In Windy City, Chicago. What a truly great metropolis. Great challenges, but great people,” followed by: “Maybe Rahm Emanuel will make great mayor of this city. Real sob, just what needed to face great challenges.”

Kimbriell Kelly, editor and publisher of the Chicago Reporter, is leaving the civic-minded nonprofit investigative news organization after eight years to join the Washington Post’s investigative team.

Calling employment at the Post “my dream when I was in J school,” Kelly told me: “I'm really excited about this opportunity, particularly to work on investigative stories that I care about, that impact people and their lives.” Her appointment is effective November 12.

Robservations on the media beat:

• NBCUniversal is getting ready to turn the clock back with a new digital subchannel filled with “retro reruns” and old movies. Nothing is official yet, but from the looks of its tentative lineup, it appears to be a pale imitation of Weigel Broadcasting’s Me-TV and Tribune Broadcasting’s Antenna TV. Set to debut January 1 as COZI TV, the new network will be airing in all 10 markets with NBC-owned stations, including NBC 5 here. A working schedule, obtained Tuesday, kicks off mornings with Lassie, followed by Roy Rogers, The Lone Ranger, The Virginian, The Adventures of Kit Carson and Alias Smith and Jones. Middays feature Marcus Welby, M.D. and Highway to Heaven. Movies air in afternoons, followed by rotating comedies Burns & Allen, The Lucy Show, Ozzie & Harriet, Red Skelton and Groucho Marx. Prime time includes Charlie’s Angels, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman and Magnum P.I. It’s not known what the new network will replace on NBC 5’s digital tier. Station officials did not respond to calls for comment.

Robservations on the media beat:

• The hottest show on Chicago radio in the ’80s was hosted by a middle-aged mom from the northwest suburbs. First airing Sunday nights on the former WKQX-FM and then five nights a week on WLS-AM (890), clinical social worker Phyllis Levy held forth with explicit advice about sex and compassionate conversation about relationships. Though it drew consistently high ratings, the show fell victim to a crusade by the National Federation for Decency and a crackdown on sex talk by the FCC. After a brief comeback in Boston, Levy left radio for good in 1996. She sold her private practice, All About Women, to Alexian Brothers Medical Center and eventually gave up counseling to move with her third husband to Hawaii, where they volunteer for Maui Cultural Lands and Pacific Whale Foundation, among other groups. “I’m completely absorbed in the land and the ocean,” Levy told me the other day. “Here, we call the caretaking of things “malama,” so I malamed so many people for years, and now I’m taking care of the land and trying to protect the oceans.” Now 72 and a grandmother of two, she added: “We’ve found our Eden, the place where we feel so blessed, where we feel healthy and the place that brings the best out of us.”