News Media

BEIJING - "Beijing power struggle heralds end of China Communist Party," screams one headline. More sensational headlines purport to reveal how the wife of recently sacked Politburo member Bo Xilai poisoned an Englishman, who may have been her lover. And if that weren't enough, other stories claim that "Bo planned airline crash" and "slept with more than 100 women. " It's payback time for Chinese exiles, especially those with a printing press, television station or just a computer at their disposal.

BEIJING - "Beijing power struggle heralds end of China Communist Party," screams one headline. More sensational headlines purport to reveal how the wife of recently sacked Politburo member Bo Xilai poisoned an Englishman, who may have been her lover. And if that weren't enough, other stories claim that "Bo planned airline crash" and "slept with more than 100 women. " It's payback time for Chinese exiles, especially those with a printing press, television station or just a computer at their disposal.

On July 15, 1984, athlete Kari Swenson was kidnaped while running on a mountain trail near this resort town about 20 miles north of Yellowstone National Park. Her abductors--who the next morning shot Kari through the chest and killed one of her rescuers--were self-proclaimed mountain men Don Nichols, 53, and his 18-year-old son, Dan. They had long shunned society, hiding out in the mountains and surviving on squirrel meat, poached livestock and caches of red beans.

The case of slain Florida teenager Trayvon Martin and the man who shot him, George Zimmerman, has become the most covered story in America, eclipsing even the presidential election, according to one media-tracking organization. But the many Americans who turned their attention to the violent incident got radically different accounts of what happened on that rainy Sunday night in Sanford, depending on where they got their news. The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism found that about one-fifth of the total news space was devoted to the shooting.

Sipping coffee in a strip mall, Joseph Farah looks like something out of a spy novel -- suave, mysterious, bushy black mustache. He's surprisingly relaxed, considering he believes his life is in danger because of his occupation. He runs a must-read website for anyone who hates Barack Obama. Once a little-known Los Angeles newspaper editor, Farah has become a leading impresario of America's disaffected right, serving up a mix of reporting and wild speculation to an audience eager to think the worst of the president.

There's been a lot of ink spilled and hot air expended about how to cover and comment on the World Trade Center disaster, the anthrax scare and the bombing of Afghanistan. How aggressively should the media pursue operational details? Have they been too uncritical of the administration's domestic antiterrorist policies? Should they keep their clothes on? This last question is certainly not going to be entertained by Dan Rather or Christiane Amanpour.

The octo-spectacle just won't go away. And instead of running from the limelight, Octomom Nadya Suleman and her zany cast of characters have thrust themselves head-on into the circling, hungry maw of the 24/7 cable-radio-Internet-Twitter news cycle. Suleman's media juggernaut reached new highs this week, starting Monday with her ex-boyfriend, who tearfully went on national TV to demand a paternity test.

Press authorities on Monday ordered the temporary closure of Shargh, Iran's leading reformist newspaper, just days after the publication printed a cartoon that appeared to lampoon Iranian nuclear negotiations. In a letter to the paper's managing director, the Press Supervisory Board ordered the shutdown "for publishing articles insulting to religious, political and national figures, and fomenting discord."

I don't go to many parties anymore, mostly because they require a degree of conviviality I am emotionally incapable of providing. Inviting me to a party, my wife says, is like inviting a shark to a swim meet. I spend most of my time in the attack. She claims I even wag my head from side to side before striking, the way a great white does. "You goad everyone until they get crazy," she said Thursday. "I'm not sure you should even attend tonight's dinner party."

Cal Lutheran University's communication arts department will sponsor a free half-day workshop for aspiring journalists Sept. 21. The workshop, co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times Ventura County Edition, is intended for high school and college students interested in pursuing careers in the news media. The event will be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Cal Lutheran, 60 W. Olsen Road.

The blame game surrounding the wreck of the Costa Concordia has spread like ripples on a tranquil Mediterranean bay. Eight days after the hull of the liner was ripped open by a rocky outcrop, the dynamics of the brutal interruption of a starry-night cruise past a small Tuscan island aren't clear. But that hasn't stopped an almost unseemly rash of finger-pointing. There appears to be no doubt about the personal responsibility of Capt. Francesco Schettino, who has acknowledged bringing the 1,000-foot-long floating city startlingly close to the craggy coast of Giglio island, leading to a Friday the 13th tragedy that has so far claimed 12 lives, including a woman whose body was recovered Saturday from a submerged ship corridor.

A federal appeals court Friday quashed the conviction of an Arizona man who plotted to randomly shoot football fans at the 2008 Super Bowl, saying the rambling manifesto he mailed to news media before aborting the attack didn't violate the law against threatening actual people. A full 11-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the statements mailed by Kurt Havelock to newspapers and websites in which he vowed revenge against "the baneful and ruinous ones" insufficient to constitute a specific threat.

A year ago, 27% of those polled nationwide said they agreed with the tea party, and 22% said they disagreed. Last month, according to the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, it was the reverse: 27% said they disagreed with the tea party, and 20% agreed. If the tea party folks are feeling a bit paranoid about the abundant publicity this poll got when it was released this week, they have some justification. A 5- to 7-percentage-point swing over the course of a year is hardly the stuff of counterrevolutions.

The deepening scandal surrounding the London tabloid News of the World is being covered very differently by the media outlets of News Corp. — owner of the paper — and their chief rivals. The home page of the New York Times on Friday morning was splashed with stories about the phone-hacking scandal, including a piece about the arrest of a former aide to British Prime Minister David Cameron; an analysis of the Tory government's connection to News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch; a profile of Rebekah Brooks, the embattled chief executive of News International, Murdoch's British publishing group; a piece about News of the World staffers; and an article about the public uproar in Britain.

A former head of Formula One racing who successfully sued a tabloid newspaper over a story about his orgy with five women lost his bid Tuesday to force media organizations to notify subjects before publishing information about their private lives. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that the pre-notification sought by Max Mosley would have "a serious and unjustified chilling effect" on freedom of expression. The court also said that enough rules and institutions exist to protect complainants seeking redress against reports they consider inaccurate or unjustified.

In signs of worsening relations with Washington, Pakistan's prime minister angrily rejected claims that collusion or incompetence allowed Osama bin Laden to hide near the Pakistani capital for years, and news media made public what they claim is the name of the top CIA agent in the country. A private TV station and a right-wing newspaper with ties to Pakistan's spy agency have each reported the name in recent days, marking the second time in six months that journalists here have sought to expose the local CIA station chief.

Justice Department and White House officials are privately raising legal and political objections to the CIA's virtually unprecedented call for prosecution of news organizations for publicizing national security secrets. CIA Director William J. Casey has asked the Justice Department to prosecute the National Broadcasting Co. and is now considering whether to recommend prosecution of the Washington Post for publicizing information about secret eavesdropping operations carried out by U.S.

News media employees walked off their jobs today, causing newspapers to cancel editions and shortening TV newscasts as the nation's first general strike in three years began. Italy's trade union confederation said millions more workers will be on strike Wednesday, the main day of walkouts expected to paralyze industry, schools, public transport and utilities, and government offices. The strike was called to protest government economic policies.

Everyone has an opinion about what's news and what isn't. Even parking enforcement officers. Some Los Angeles news reporters and photographers using city-issued media parking permits are being ticketed by officers who do not believe newsworthy activity is taking place. "I've been cited too many times to count, maybe 10 tickets," said Gary Leonard, a photographer for the Los Angeles Downtown News. One recent ticket — carrying a $53 fine for being in a loading zone on Broadway — was slapped on Leonard's windshield directly above the city's media parking placard.

Not one, but two relationships have been making front-page headlines here in Britain this week, and they couldn't be more different. The first is of a handsome young couple (yes, that one) on the verge of tying the knot before an audience of millions, whose courtship and wedding plans have been pored over by hundreds of overexcited news organizations that consider no detail too trivial for publication or broadcast. The second is an extramarital affair between one of Britain's most respected TV journalists and an unidentified colleague.