In your blustery Wednesday media column: the newspaper industry burns, News Corp can't handle hardcore music, NPR needs more black people, and the NYT sells a jet: What is happening in the land of dying newspapers today? Only the usual tragedy and grief. The Miami Herald is laying off a fifth of its...

Last month, the Justice Department charged former NPR correspondent and editor David Malakoff with possessing child porn. Now Malakoff has admitted it. The details are shocking primarily for their stupidity: The short version: Malakoff downloaded at least 150 images of child porn on the work compute...

Reporting on the California Supreme Court hearing yesterday, NPR reporter Karen Grigsby Bates decided to focus on the people really hurt by Proposition 8, which in her view, means Prop. 8 supporters. She talks with Dave Leatherby, "a devout Roman Catholic father of 10" who runs an ice crea...

Thrilla in vanilla: Michael Jackson's press conference announcing some London shows he'll soon cancel was not exactly a thriller. See the video Scanner Emily shared yesterday. Dr. Sanjay Gupta has decided to turn down a job in the Obama Administration. Hero of the day: the nurse who bought a...

Plenty of people are pissed off about a NPR report yesterday that characterized gay activists as conducting a "witch hunt" against donors to Yes On 8. "This seems to be an effort to indiscriminately go after anyone who contributed money, regardless of their position on gay issues," says Frank Schube...

In your muddy Thursday media column: the grownup version of 'Jocks vs. School Newspaper Nerds,' a blogger passes away, everything is too sexy, and rumors of magazine troubles: Ha, the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association is suing Gannett for covering the news. Really. The WIAA says that th...

For years European journalists have felt that their American counterparts have given business and political leaders an easy ride. Since the meltdown in the financial markets, there has been a notable shift with today's interview of the UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, by Steve Inskeep (http://www.np...

It was bad enough when a Fox News producer was fired for possessing child pornography. But now a former NPR correspondent has been charged in a child porn case. The problem is media-wide! The Department of Justice says that David Malakoff, who resigned last June as a science editor and correspondent...

Lowbrow conservatism, name-calling, neocons, bullying bluster, blind loyalty to George Bush and the abandonment of elitism on talk radio have allowed carny barkers to run away with the right. Although we've said similar stuff many times, this time it's an influential conservative magazine. (...

The video embedded above is of Alisa Miller of Public Radio International. In less than five minutes, she very succinctly shows how much time America’s media focuses on international issues. The most startling fact: aside from ABC’s one-man crews, Africa, India, and South America are lef...