Today’s inert “iPod Killer” article (complete with cheesy graphic) is brought to you by the San Francisco Chronicle, which talks up the MTV/Microsoft “Urge” music service as if it weren’t an obvious demitasse of suck.

Microsoft Corp. is teaming up with MTV Networks to introduce a music service this week that will challenge the popular iTunes music service.

Microsoft plans to release on Wednesday a test version of Windows Media Player 11 and MTV’s Urge music store. Like iTunes, the Windows Media Player lets users rip music from their CD collection and store it in a library. Without leaving the media player, users can also find and download new songs from the Urge music store.

Call me jaded, but I liked the iTunes/iPod killer better when it was called Rhapsody. Or Napster. Or Wal-Mart. Or Google Music. Or Sony Connect. (do feel free to continue this in the talkbacks… it’s fun!)

But to mention the existence and subsequent failure of all these previous iTunes/iPod killers would be to provide context, and as a useful tool for understanding the value and worth of news, context is something journalists are very careful to not include in their stories. I worked at CNN for a few years, and tired of playing this game (for what it’s worth, I also liked the vile plague that will kill us all when it was called “flesh-eating bacteria”. This “bird flu” is lame lame lame).

So, as a present to lazy, ignorant journalists who need to get their stories out on time so they can go complain about the low regard in which they’re held, I offer the following “Mad Libs”-style template for new music service stories. Simply insert the proper values in to the blanks, and you’ll have a typical article written in five minutes.

On (day), (tech company) announced a partnership with (media company) to offer a new service to challenge the popular iTunes Music Store and the dominant iPod media player. The (name that sounds cool only to patronizing marketing twits) service will offer songs via a subscription service. “We believe that customers are interested in sampling a wide variety of music,” said (name of PR flack from music company that thinks it can make more money by shifting the world to a zero-rights rental model).

Initially, the new service will have

available for download, including exclusives from (a no-talent pop star), (an “American Idol” runner up), and (some crusty act nobody’s cared about since the Reagan administration).

Analyst (overpaid analyst), of (company that overpays analysts) said that the proliferation of alternatives will surely weaken the iTunes and iPod standard because

Project manager (MS employee with too few/new options to retire) said that the new version of Windows Media Player is even better than iTunes because

And there you have it. Facile business journalism with just a fraction of the work once required. Should give you guys and gals lots of time to play Solitaire.