Maynard Institute archives

War in Lebanon Spills Over to Media

by richard0507

Critics Target Coverage, TV Station Bombings

“The International Federation of Journalists today condemned Israeli air raids on Saturday that hit transmission stations used by several Lebanese television channels and the reported killing of a media worker working for the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation,” the organization announced on Sunday.

“These attacks once again put media in the front line of the conflict,” said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary. “They represent an appalling threat to press freedom and to the safety of media staff and cannot be justified.”

On July 20, a group of Israeli journalists resigned as members of the Brussels-based organization, accusing it of having “terrorists” in its ranks, Assaf Carmel reported Thursday in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper.

“I have no intention of being a card-carrying member of an organization that would give a similar card to Hezbollah member, whether he is firing Katyusha or serving as the group’s propaganda man at its TV station,” IFJ member Yaron Anosh said. “A terrorist is not a journalist, and if an international organization prefers to have terrorists as members then count us out.”

The actions reflect another side of the Israeli-Hezbollah war — the battle over and in the media.

“Some foreign journalists covering the conflict have complained that they have had an easier time reaching Lebanese and Palestinian speakers than getting comments from official government spokespeople. Many Israeli viewers have complained that reports in the foreign press have focused too much on claims of disproportionate force on the part of the IDF,” the Israeli Defense Forces, “and that the reports have neglected to put the current fighting within the context of how it started,” Gil Hoffman, reported July 17 in the Jerusalem Post. But Hoffman quoted two Israeli information figures as saying that Israel was winning the international battle for public opinion.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s media adviser Assaf Shariv “said that Israelis have been interviewed by the foreign press four times as much as spokespeople for the Palestinians and Lebanese. As proof of Israel’s success, he also cited a poll of Sky News viewers that found that 80 percent believe that Israel’s attacks on Lebanon were justified,” the Post story said.

“We have never had it so good,” the Foreign Ministry’s deputy-director general for media and public affairs, Gideon Meir, was quoted as saying. “The hasbara effort is a well-oiled machine,” he said, referring to a public-relations effort.

“Which may explain why we know so little about what is happening in Lebanon and Gaza – and why we know so little about what is happening inside Israel too,” according to Jonathan Cook, a journalist based in Nazareth, Israel, writing in a piece that appeared last week on several Web sites.

In the Daily Star in Lebanon, Marc J Sirois wrote on Thursday:

“The fury of Israel’s offensive in Lebanon has more than a few observers shaking their heads. The vast majority of Western media reports do not accurately portray the fact that the vast majority of the dead are civilians, most of them women and children. A Reuters dispatch this week described Israel’s choice of targets as ‘puzzling,’ but for the most part Western television viewers, newspaper readers, and Web surfers are reading highly sanitized versions of the news, spun in such a way as to dilute the brutality of the Israeli onslaught and especially to ensure that blame is placed squarely on Lebanon in general and Hizbullah in particular.”

In a piece on Al Jazeera called “Watching American TV in Beirut,” Habib Battah said, “In recent days, many American news programmes have demonstrated an exceptionally weak knowledge of Lebanese politics, skewed further by a lack of access to areas that have been attacked in the country and their victims.” He singled out the “Today” show for examination, and praised MSNBC.

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Hannah Allam, Soledad O’Brien in Mideast

Hannah Allam, the 2004 journalist of the year of the National Association of Black Journalists, and Soledad O’Brien of CNN are reporting from Beirut and Jerusalem, respectively.

“Traveling the streets of Beirut leaves one clear impression: Lebanese believe that not a single inch of their country is beyond the whir of Israeli warplanes, the hiss of a falling bomb or the devastating explosion when one hits,” Allam wrote Wednesday from Beirut. Allam is Cairo bureau chief for McClatchy Newspapers, which purchased Knight Ridder, her former employer.

O’Brien reported on Friday on the security measures in Old Jerusalem. “You can see at this checkpoint, everybody’s I.D. is being checked. Israel controls security around the old city, and so they’ve really increased the security in light of the recent escalation and fighting. . . . See that blimp up there? That blimp is armed with cameras and those cameras are doing surveillance over the entire old city.”

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Ken Parish Perkins Presses for Answers on Race

Five black journalists, no Asians and likely no Latinos were among the 180 to 200 on the Television Critics Association tour continuing this week in Pasadena, Calif. “The question of why there aren’t more ‘black’ comedies, dramas or even characters in television in 2006 has been a steady theme at this summer’s press tour,” Bill Brioux wrote Saturday in the Toronto Sun. “With the cancellation of network comedies starring Bernie Mac and Damon Wayans, and the folding of UPN into the new CW, the number of black faces in principal roles on American television is noticeably diminished.”

“Which brings us to Chris Rock, Ali LeRoi and ‘Everybody Hates Chris,'” Peter Ames Carlin wrote Wednesday in the Oregonian of Portland.

“During a Q&A session with executive producers of the CW’s four black-cast Sunday sitcoms, talk got heated when it turned to the lack of black-cast dramas,” wrote Lisa deMoraes of the Washington Post.

“I may stand alone but I kind of feel like that notion in and of itself is kind of unnecessary,” said LeRoi, executive producer of “Everybody Hates Chris,” in deMoraes’ piece.

“‘Shows like “Grey’s [Anatomy]” are the model. ‘The Wire’ is the model. J.J. Abrams has done a fantastic job of involving ethnic people in his shows. You don’t need a black drama, you just need a drama that’s realistic and involves people in the world.

“‘Except for ‘Oz’ – that’s a black drama,’ he added, getting a laugh.

“One reporter said it sounded as if LeRoi and the others were resigned to the fact you can’t get a black-cast drama on the air.

“‘Well, you are black, I think,’ Chris Rock, the other exec producer of ‘Chris,’ said to the reporter. ‘Do you ever think your life is going to be as good as white people’s? I don’t. Have you given that one up yet?’

“‘I don’t quite understand that,’ the reporter said.

“‘It’s a tough road – hey, have fun on the way. You’re going to die in about 28 years; that’s life,’ Rock said.

“‘You are not answering the question,’ the reporter eventually pointed out.

“‘It’s not a resignation. It’s a business,’ LeRoi said, jumping back in.

“‘The only reason Hollywood even exists is because Jewish people couldn’t be on Broadway. They decided to make another business where they could do what they wanted to do,’ he continued.

“‘You know, if you don’t like dealing with network executives, then write a book. Nobody has the right to be in show business. Nobody has the right to be on a TV show. We all argue about ‘I’d like to see more representation about this and more representation about that.’ But at the end of the day, dude, you got to sell some soap. . . . So, black drama, smack drama, man, I don’t care. It’s about making a good show for the audience that’s buying the product. Find your audience and sell them what you can sell them.'”

The television critics didn’t name him, but the black journalist was Ken Parish Perkins, who now writes a television column for the Chicago Defender after resigning over plagiarism charges last year at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

He told Journal-isms that no one ever answered his question. “Rock was evading the question by cracking jokes. I was trying to be serious about it,” Perkins said. He said he used a technique he usually employs in private interviews. “I had to get him to a point where he was really pissed off at me. Unfortunately, it happened to us in public. I couldn’t back down, because I wanted an answer.”

Perkins said his question was part of a bigger story he’s working on: “What is it like being a black writer for a television show?” On Sunday night, he said he had just come from a reception with the Writers Guild of America West and saw “very few” black faces. “Every year I see fewer and fewer.” While whites can write for black-oriented shows, Perkins said, why are so few African Americans writing for white ones?

Perkins listed the other black journalists on the tour as Melanie McFarland of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Kevin D. Thompson at Florida’s Palm Beach Post, Mekeisha Madden Toby of the Detroit News and Suzanne C. Ryan of the Boston Globe.

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Congo Crisis Called Deadlier Than Darfur, Tsunami

“The crisis in Darfur, long neglected, finally burst into the world’s consciousness,” Lydia Polgreen wrote Sunday in the New York Times. “Congo remains largely forgotten. It is hard to understand why. Four million people have died in Congo since 1998, half of them children under 5, according to the International Rescue Committee. Though the war in Congo officially ended in 2002, its deadly legacy of violence and decay will kill twice as many people this year as have died in the entire Darfur conflict, which began in 2003.”

A week earlier, in the Washington Post, Richard Brennan and Anna Husarska of the International Rescue Committee wrote, “Ignorance of the calamity occurring in Congo remains almost universal, even though the numbers that reflect it – particularly the key indicator ‘excess mortality,’ the number of deaths above normal levels – are staggering.

“We found that in the most affected zones, the mortality rate over the years covered by our studies (1998 to 2004) exceeded the ‘normal’ rate for sub-Saharan Africa by nearly 4 million people. This makes the crisis in Congo the deadliest anywhere since the end of World War II, dwarfing Bosnia, Kosovo, Darfur and even the South Asian tsunami. Yet for the most part, these deaths have gone all but unnoticed.

“Perhaps this is because of the nature of the dying. In an era of instant news cycles, more attention is paid to those who die violently than to those who die of disease. In our most recent Congo survey, only 2 percent of the deaths were attributed to the simmering conflict there. The rest resulted from easily preventable and treatable diseases that are the indirect – but no less devastating – result of the strife. . . . Nearly half of the victims were younger than 5, but they still received almost no attention. The disappearance of 4 million Congolese was well-documented (our study was published in the British medical journal the Lancet), but it was viewed as unheroic, seemingly apolitical and therefore untelevisable.”

Among the consequences: A bipartisan relief bill pending in the Senate that would “bring money, mission and media attention to this suffering nation . . . has not yet reached the floor for a vote.”

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Thomas George Leaving Denver for NFL Network

Less than two years after moving from the New York Times to the Denver Post, sports columnist Thomas George is changing jobs again, this time to become managing editor of the NFL Network, Scott Monserud, the Post’s assistant managing editor for sports, said late Monday.

“I think he had a great following for his style, and he was a good complement to Mark Kiszla,” another Post sports columnist, Monserud told Journal-isms. “Mike is kind of a hard-hitting columnist. Thomas’ style is more of the big picture, ‘let’s sit back and look at things from a different perspective.’ When you have two strong columnists,” it’s good to have two different styles, he said.

When George was hired in November 2004, the Post wrote: “For 16 years, George, 44, has chronicled the NFL at The Times, in addition to covering events such as the NCAA men’s and women’s Final Fours, the NBA, Major League Baseball and college football.”

“His wealth of experience and views about the world of sports will challenge and entertain readers. I am very pleased to have a journalist of his caliber writing a column for us,” Editor Gregory L. Moore said at the time.

“It’ll be a challenge to find a new one,” Monserud said Monday of the columnist’s slot. George’s last day is to be a week from Tuesday.

NFL Network is the year-round television channel fully owned and operated by the National Football League.

On Sunday, George wrote that being injured in an auto accident taught Anthony Lynn, the Cowboys’ running backs coach and a running back on Denver’s two world champion teams, that, “Sometimes, I guess, we get a little full of ourselves.”

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Asian American Publisher Named in California

“Elaine Zinngrabe, general manager of three Times Community Newspapers in Orange County, will take the reins today as

 

 

publisher of the Glendale News-Press, Burbank Leader and Foothill Leader,” the Glendale, Calif., paper reported on Tuesday.

“Zinngrabe will take over for Will Fleet, who left to become president and publisher of the Bradenton Herald on the gulf coast of Florida.”

Zinngrabe, who holds a bachelor’s degree and an MBA from the University of Southern California, started her career in the newspaper business in 1995 as a copy editor and reporter with the Seattle Times, the story said.

Zinngrabe is a former national board member of the Asian American Journalists Association and 2000 graduate of AAJA’s Executive Leadership Program, AAJA said, adding that she becomes one of four known Asian Americans to become publisher of a mainstream U.S. newspaper.

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Men Disappearing from TV Newsrooms

“When women made their first strides into television newsrooms some four decades ago, their presence was something of a shock to the male establishment (a period of change humorously portrayed in ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’ and more recently in the Will Ferrell film ‘Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy’),” Paul Farhi wrote Sunday in the Washington Post.

“But nowadays, the gender roles are reversed. Women make up the majority of anchors and TV reporters and have many key behind-the-scenes jobs. And . . . that trend is increasing.

“And men? Outside of a few traditionally male bastions – the sports guy, the weathercaster, the boss – men are disappearing from TV newsrooms.

“Many observers suggest that their departure reflects the transformation of TV news from a ‘glamour’ business to a low-wage, no-growth field with limited career potential. With TV stations laboring under the same financial pressures as others in the mainstream media, men might be discouraged by television news and might be finding better opportunities elsewhere.”

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“Bush’s Poverty Talk Is Now All but Silent”

“As it happened, poverty’s turn in the presidential limelight was brief,” Michael A. Fletcher, a White House reporter at the Washington Post, wrote Thursday. He was referring to President Bush’s statements after Hurricane Katrina.

“Bush has talked little about the issue since the immediate crisis passed, while pursuing policies that his liberal critics say will hurt the poor,” Fletcher continued in a story headlined, “Bush’s Poverty Talk Is Now All but Silent.”

“He has publicly mentioned domestic poverty six times since giving back-to-back speeches on the issue in September. Domestic poverty did not come up in his State of the Union address in January, and his most recent budget included no new initiatives directed at the poor.

“Preoccupied by war and the specter of terrorism and threatened with revolt by his core supporters because of what they see as his free-spending ways, Bush has used the bully pulpit of the presidency not to marshal a new national consensus for fighting poverty but to make the case for cutting taxes along with domestic programs. He has never publicly discussed the growing crisis of young, uneducated black men, whose plight has worsened in the past decade even as the economy has generally flourished, according to a recent spate of academic studies.”

Fletcher’s story appeared the same day Bush addressed the NAACP for the first time during his presidency.

 

 

Meeting Wednesday night for dinner were Tonyaa Weathersbee, Florida Times-Union, left; Errol Louis, New York Daily News; Donna Britt, Washington Post; Derrick Jackson, Boston Globe; Rep. Nancy Pelosi; DeWayne Wickham, USA Today; Askia Muhammad, Final Call, and Gregory Kane, Baltimore Sun.

Black Columnists Meet With Nancy Pelosi

The first two members of the Trotter Group of African American columnists have reported on their three-hour dinner meeting Wednesday with Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the House minority leader.

“In response to attempts by GOP hawks to brand her as soft on national security, Pelosi says that she, as a woman, would actually be tougher on defense than her male colleagues,” Errol Louis wrote Friday in the New York Daily News.

“‘Think of a lioness,’ she said. ‘You come anywhere near our cubs, you’re dead.’

“She meant it.

“Pelosi, like other powerful women in politics (good morning, Sen. Clinton) has mastered the art of presenting herself as a tough, take-charge leader without surrendering her femininity.”

Gregory Kane of the Baltimore Sun, whose politics are at odds with Pelosi’s, chose to emphasize Pelosi’s Baltimore roots.

“Not everything Pelosi remembers about Baltimore is positive,” Kane wrote Saturday, explaining that Pelosi was born “Nancy D’Alesandro, daughter of Annunciata and Thomas J. D’Alesandro Jr., better known to Baltimoreans as ‘Old Tommy.’ D’Alesandro Jr. was mayor of Baltimore from 1947 to 1959, the man who brought major league baseball and National Football League franchises to Baltimore. Thomas D’Alesandro III – yes, he would be ‘Young Tommy’ – was mayor of Baltimore from 1967 to 1971.”

“She recalled how ‘Young Tommy,’ when he was mayor, was booed at, of all places, Baltimore’s annual I Am An American Day Parade. Pelosi suspects that her brother was booed because white ethnics who attended the parade didn’t care for her brother’s pro-civil rights, pro-integration stand.”

Kane also noted, “Outside her office in the Capitol sits a bust of W.E.B. DuBois – a leader of the Niagara Movement that led to the founding of the NAACP – and renowned educator Mary McLeod Bethune.” Pelosi said some visitors confuse DuBois with Lenin.

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Wanted: Community Member to Train as Journalist

Noting that “I often hear readers lament that not enough of us at the newspaper have roots in this community,” Wanda Lloyd, executive editor of the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser, told readers on Sunday, “We are looking for . . . someone from this community who already has a talent for writing, curiosity for gathering information and a mature depth of knowledge about life in Central Alabama.

“If that person comes forward in the next few days, we have a chance to send someone to the Diversity Institute in Nashville. Expenses and training fees are paid by the Freedom Forum, a non-profit organization that sponsors outstanding journalism training programs.

“I know a little about the Diversity Institute. I was the founding executive director when the institute’s first class was launched in 2002.”

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Sports Columnist Cites Diversity Problem in Pipeline

“The solution to diversity in the sports world is twofold: 1. Minorities need to single-mindedly prepare for the opportunities that are available, because the opportunities are available,” sports columnist Jason Whitlock wrote Thursday in the Kansas City Star.

“2. The power structure and decision makers need to accept that true diversity is difficult, and they need to do a better job of cultivating, retaining and supporting the talented and passionate minority journalists they employ.”

Whitlock asked, “How many black people began the process of preparing to be a sports columnist or sports editor 20 years ago?

“During my five years at Ball State, I can remember one – me – as opposed to probably 30 white guys during the same time span. Based on the sports journalism students I meet at Kansas, Kansas State and Missouri, the problem is just as pronounced today as it was 20 years ago.”

He also said, “Out of fear and insecurity, the system sometimes short-circuits and backfires when it’s forced to work with a minority journalist who doesn’t express the proper amount of gratitude, expresses too much self-confidence, too much passion for the business, too much competence and openly expresses his/her opinion on how things should be done.”

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Richmond Paper Imposes Gag Rule on Reporters

“Richmond Times-Dispatch reporter and columnist Mark Holmberg says his posting on the company’s internal message board last week was the first time in about two years he’s used the online forum to share thoughts and concerns with co-workers,” Brandon Walters wrote Wednesday in Richmond’s Style Weekly.

“Now the message board – what T-D staff call the ‘water cooler’ – is no more. Last week executives suspended the intranet forum, however coincidentally, a day after Style Weekly published a July 12 cover story, ‘Truth and Consequences,’ which detailed considerable anxiety at the paper since a new publisher and editor took charge.” Thomas A. Silvestri is president and publisher and Glenn Proctor is executive editor.

“The newspaper’s staff is under a gag rule: Reporters and editors may not comment on the T-D without obtaining permission from the publisher or executive editor, according to a ‘Media Policy’ memo revised Dec. 13 and obtained by Style,” the story continued.

“The memo instructs staff that if they are approached for interviews, they are to ask the reporter to submit questions in writing, and then follow a five-step approval process that includes the promotion manager, the publisher and a ‘strategy for responding.’ (For the full text of the policy, go to www.styleweekly.com.)

“‘It’s an internal issue, and we’re not going to comment on it,’ says Frazier Millner, promotion manager for the T-D. ‘That’s all I’m going to say.'”

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John Lenear of Cleveland Call and Post Dies at 69

“John Lenear, 69, long-time editorial and advertising chief for the Call and Post newspaper, died Friday at University Hospitals. He had prostate cancer,” Richard M. Peery reported July 15 in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

“Lenear had an impact on local politics for more than four decades, during which he worked as a radio newscaster, the producer of an advertising weekly and executive with one of the nation’s largest black community newspapers.”

Columnist Sam Fulwood III wrote on Thursday, “From political leaders to grassroots activists, anybody who paid attention to Cleveland’s black political, civic, business or social circles sought John’s advice or encouragement.

“I admired John, too. I was blessed that John helped me find my way when I arrived here exactly six years ago this week.

“Cleveland – and especially its tight-knit black political circle – can be a tough town for an intruding newcomer.”

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Short Takes

  • An independent and free media may undermine rather than support the rebuilding of states in crisis and post-war situations, finds a new report from academics at the London School of Economics and Political Science. The work is partly based on a workshop co-sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication. “The development of an open and free media environment, like other liberal projects, requires the presence of a strong state which includes, among other features, a well functioning legal and judicial environment that is able to apply checks and balances,” it says.
  • ABC newsman Sam Donaldson serves as the narrator for “American Indian Homelands: Matters of Truth, Honor and Dignity-Immemorial,” a 78-minute film that explores the loss of tribal lands through 120 years of federal policy and how the land loss affects Natives today, Jody Rave reported Sunday in the Missoulian in Montana. “The Indian focus groups that we showed it to absolutely loved it and thought every Indian should see it,” said Cris Stainbrook, president of the Indian Land Tenure Foundation in Little Canada, Minn. Non-Indians wondered, “Is this for real? Are these really facts behind this?” Stainbrook said in the column.
  • In Wisconsin, “The Sheboygan Press produced ‘Brothers in Arms,’ a special multimedia project to recognize the dedication of a memorial honoring Lao, Hmong and American veterans who fought in the CIA-sponsored ‘Secret War’ in Southeast Asia. Thousands of Hmong refugees live in Wisconsin, including 4,000 refugees in the Sheboygan area,” Gannett Co.’s News Watch reported. The memorial was dedicated July 15. Mike Knuth of Sheboygan explained why the project was important and how the newspaper’s print, video and DVD project came together.
  • “When reporters are in danger these days, it usually revolves around work in the Mideast. But let’s not forget it was two years ago Sunday that Sade Baderinwa was mowed down by a hit-and-run driver while covering a story for WABC/Ch. 7,” Richard Huff reported Friday in the New York Daily News. “Baderinwa was struck while reporting on flooding in Hackensack, N.J. Had it not been for co-workers on the scene, she might have died.”
  • Telemundo has promoted Johanna Guerra to VP of network news, effective immediately. The move puts her in joint control of the Spanish-language network news division with Guillermo Santa Cruz, who was named VP of special projects, news and sports last year, Michelle Greppi reported Thursday in TV Week. “Both will continue to report to Jorge Hidalgo, senior executive VP of news and sports.”
  • Disgraced former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair is still looking for a job – he wants to work in human resources, “‘to protect employees who find themselves in situations’ like the one he fell into,” Matt L. Perrone of the Times Community Newspapers of Northern Virginia wrote on the PopMatters Web site. “I cannot imagine anything I could do, no matter how long I live, that will change that first line of my obituary,” Blair told Perrone.
  • “The leaders of two media organizations serving the state’s African American and Latino communities have formed a partnership, called Voices United, for the purpose of creating a stronger unified message and media presence within their communities, and to lead the way for greater understanding and cooperation between their respective readerships,” the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder reported Wednesday. It is joining with the Latino Communications Network, which includes La Prensa de Minnesota and other publications.
  • “Media experts say there’s no formula for determining why one woman’s death splashes across newspapers and newscasts around the country and another’s does not. But they say readers and viewers respond when they relate to the lives of those struck by tragedy,” Jennifer Emily reported Thursday in the Dallas Morning News. “Although media experts say national news organizations are drawn to pretty blondes,” other factors are also significant, Emily wrote.
  • “Former Philadelphia anchor Toni Yates has landed at Ch. 7, where she’ll be a New Jersey correspondent,” Richard Huff reported Friday in the New York Daily News. “Based on the poised way Yates delivered a piece on migraines this week, I can’t imagine it will be long before she is behind an anchor desk somewhere.”
  • Michael Wright has accepted a position as the Jaguars beat reporter for the Florida Times Union. He was at the Daily Press in Hampton, Va., according to the Sports Task Force of the National Association of Black Journalists.
  • Jerry Brewer has accepted a columnist position at the Seattle Times. He is leaving a similar position at the Courier- Journal in Louisville, according to the Sports Task Force of the National Association of Black Journalists.
  • FEMA rules make it hard for reporters to talk freely to residents of FEMA trailers, Sandy Davis reported July 15 in the Baton Rouge (La.) Advocate. “During an interview in one trailer, a security guard knocked on the door, ordered the reporter out and eventually called police, saying residents aren’t allowed to talk to the media in the park. Similar rules were enforced in Plaquemines Parish, where 242 new travel trailers in a FEMA park in Davant recently were empty. Security guards there allowed a reporter and photographer to drive through the two side-by-side parks, but ordered them not to talk to anyone or take pictures.”
  • “A U.S.-based press freedom watchdog is in Venezuela to investigate complaints that President Hugo Chávez is using news laws and the courts to silence journalists critical of his leftist government,” Dominican Today reported Wednesday from Caracas.
  • “Media activists gathered yesterday to show their support for jailed Straits Times reporter Ching Cheong in downtown Los Angeles,” Amanda Natividad reported Friday for AsiaMedia. “A chief correspondent for China, Ching was accused of using money provided by Taiwan to buy political, economic and military information and was charged with passing secrets with Taiwan for a period of five years. He has been detained on the mainland since April 2005 and is scheduled to be sentenced later this month.” News conferences were scheduled for nine other cities around the world.
  • Bravo’s new ‘Tabloid Wars’ reality show, a six-episode series that takes viewers inside “the manic, hurly-burly world” of the New York Daily News, debuts Monday, Matea Gold reported Wednesday in the Los Angeles Times.

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