Great media news tidbits courtesy of the null device. First, the New York Daily News gossips about a doomsday tape Ted Turner reportedly had made for CNN to show if it was ever determined the world was about to end.

Turner, it seems, has been a doom-and-gloom kind of guy from the very day in June 1980 when he launched the cable network. He said then, as only he could, “We gonna go on air June 1, and we gonna stay on until the end of the world. When that time comes, we’ll cover it, play ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee,’ and sign off.”

Keeping with the eschatological theme, when Disney recently acquired Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Family cable to add to its ABC family, along with the deal came a contractual obligation to air Pat Robertson’s 700 Club in perpetuity “(or until the Rapture, whichever comes first)”, as MarketWatch puts it.

Murdoch could well be included on Robertson’s blacklist of people who pollute popular culture, but he didn’t often pop up by name.

Disney, on the other hand, has been publicly blasted from Robertson’s electronic pulpit on various occasions. Among its sins, he believes, are its gay-friendly employment policies and its tolerance of gay and lesbian celebrations at its Orlando theme park. The latter were even supposed to bring down fires, floods and pestilence (or at least butterfly ballots) on the good people of Florida.