Departures anchored the year's top media stories

There were reporters facing imprisonment, Election Day snafus, and Iraq war mea culpas. But in media circles, 2004 may be best remembered for goodbyes.

NBC anchor Tom Brokaw's departure was years in the making, but CBS's Dan Rather suddenly announced he, too, was moving on. PBS mainstay and liberal icon Bill Moyers signed off. USA Today said so long to its editor after a regime-changing ethics scandal. Howard Stern announced plans to leave his syndicated home for satellite radio. Management problems at WBUR-FM (90.9) ended the tenure of general manager Jane Christo. Erudite talk master David Brudnoy signed off for the last time. And an FCC assault on indecency forced media outlets to part with large sums of cash.

Changing of the (old) guard: Having outlasted James Arness's 20-year run as Marshal Matt Dillon, Brokaw and Rather ended their long stints as America's nightly houseguests. (Rather announced he'll depart in March.) The Brokaw transition to Brian Williams was smooth. Rather, who left no certain successor, announced his departure before CBS released its post-mortem on the flawed ''60 Minutes" report on George Bush's National Guard service. The big question is when will the audience-hemorrhaging network newscasts go the way of the Edsel?

The FCC hunts indecency: Ever since Janet Jackson's northern exposure at the Super Bowl, the Federal Communications Commission has been a Rambo against raunch, fining radio and television outlets. In moving to satellite radio, shock jock Stern said he'd had enough of censorship. Fear that the FCC would take umbrage at the violence and graphic language in the Academy Award-winning ''Saving Private Ryan" even kept some ABC affiliates -- including WCVB (Channel 5) -- from airing the film on Veterans Day.

To the right, march: Conservatives used to cite PBS programming as the poster boy for lefty media bias. Now, the departure of Moyers and the addition of ''Crossfire" conservative Tucker Carlson and members of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board have some liberals worried that public TV is tilting toward the prevailing political winds in Washington. Officially, the programming mantra is ''diversity." But what's next? Will Big Bird become a hawk?

New day at USA Today: The nation's biggest daily was rocked by the discovery that high-profile reporter Jack Kelley had plagiarized and fabricated. When the dust cleared, Kenneth A. Paulson had replaced Karen Jurgensen as editor, vowing to encourage more fun and better communication in the newsroom. Meanwhile, disgraced New York Times reporter Jayson Blair released his book ''Burning Down My Master's House" to the kind of reviews that greeted the Beatty-Hoffman bomb ''Ishtar."

Signing off at WBUR: A fast-moving management scandal ended Jane Christo's memorable 25-year reign at the public radio station. A talented programmer and notoriously tough boss, she resigned as 'BUR's inner workings suddenly attracted the interest of Rhode Island's governor and attorney general, Boston University, and the local media. Her replacement, Peter (son of Arthur) Fiedler vowed to stabilize the station. Listeners will probably be happy if they just cut down on the on-air fund-raising.

Brudnoy's last broadcast: For the past decade, veteran radio talk master David Brudnoy was perhaps Boston's most public figure, sharing the roller coaster ride of illness and recovery with his listeners before finally succumbing to cancer earlier this month. Not everyone agreed with Brudnoy's brand of libertarian/conservative ideology, but his cerebral style and willingness to tackle complex issues were engaging anachronisms in a talk radio world populated by the likes of Michael Savage and Jay Severin.

Keeping score at CBS4: Turnover was the theme at CBS4 (Channel 4), where the departures included veteran news director Peter Brown and general manager Ed Goldman. An anchor chair shake-up moved Josh Binswanger into Joe Shortsleeve's old role opposite Lisa Hughes. Station spokesmen were crowing about demographic gains in the November ''sweeps," but CBS4 still needs to shake its longstanding reputation for lagging in the ratings wars.

Journalists in jail? A number of journalists -- from Rhode Island TV reporter Jim Taricani to Judith Miller of The New York Times -- faced possible incarceration for failing to reveal confidential sources. First Amendment advocates say that privilege is vital to the free flow of information, but some of the public seems more skeptical, viewing journalists as putting themselves above the law. (The most sympathetic jailed reporter of all time may have been Mary Richards, the perky WJM-TV producer who was locked up for protecting a source in an Emmy-winning episode of ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show.")

Iraq and a hard place: News outlets such as The Washington Post, The New Republic, and The New York Times offered different forms of mea culpa for not subjecting the Bush administration's claims about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction to greater scrutiny and skepticism. At the same time, the brutal media images pouring out of Iraq -- abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, mutilated bodies of American contractors, and videos of beheadings -- tested the boundaries between the public's right to know and its tolerance for horror.

Election Day feint: Commentator Mickey Kaus called it the seven-hour presidency of John Kerry. The release of early exit polls on a number of websites on Nov. 2 created such a media buzz that cable news commentators were making thinly veiled references to President Kerry hours before the polls closed. But the story changed abruptly once the votes were counted. And for the third election cycle in a row, problems with exit polls confounded network pundits.