Whacko Obit watch - I'll be there!

USA Today's front page looked like a poster for the now-cancelled Jacko comeback concerts in London. Comedian Rob Corddry, the former Daily Show correspondent, joked: "I wish it had been Michael Jackson that broke the story of TMZ dying." So did alot of hacks. The AOL-owned TMZ claims a Demerol overdose caused the singer's heart to fail, quoting his family.
Despite the twitterati fest, it took the LA Times to do the "heavy lifting" and get a confirmation of details of the death, followed by the Associated Press, before many people believed it. "The last piece of Michael Jackson has expired!" the Onion headlined; Meanwhile, meanspirited blogger Perez Hilton, known for the premature announcement of Fidel Castro's demise, initially labelled the 911 call a "dubious stunt" and had to pull his snarky blogpost (of which a screen-capture is posted here. Magazines are "crashing" commemorative issues of the weird and tragic life of the otherwordly pop star, with images and tributes from celeb friends.

Jackson was 50, and had been in the public eye for four decades, ever since the Jackson 5 released their first hit I Want You Back. USA Today said

Jackson died after going into cardiac arrest at his rented home in Los Angeles, where he was preparing for 50 sold-out concerts at London's O2 Arena. When paramedics arrived at his home, Jackson's personal physician was performing CPR. They treated him for almost 45 minutes at his house but was in a coma when he arrived at the UCLA Medical Center. He was pronounced dead at 2:26 p.m. The Los Angeles Police Department said it would launch an investigation into the death, but cautioned that this is simply standard procedure for someone who was so famous and they have no reason to believe any foul play was involved.

Slate noted:

so many people turned to the Internet to confirm rumors of his death that Google's computers interpreted all the simultaneous searches for "Michael Jackson" as an automated attack. In a story inside, the LAT notes that the first to report the star's death was the gossip site TMZ, which announced it at 2:44 p.m. But it became clear that many outlets around the world weren't comfortable taking the site's word for such an important piece of news and, instead, credited the LAT, which bannered the death at 2:51 p.m. Interestingly enough, even though TMZ and CNN are both owned by Time Warner, the news channel didn't confirm the death until almost two hours later.

Jackson's death overshadows the passing of 70s icon, Farrah Fawcett. The LAT is alone in fronting the news that the Charlie's Angels star died yesterday of anal cancer, which she had been fighting since 2006. She was 62.

Most painful topical pun of 2009, so far

"How do you solve a problem like Korea?" -- Rupert Murdoch's Sky TV parses the Sound of Music when contemplating the nuclear testing in Asia. Their answer? "Possibly you don't."

A freelance print journo's foray into telly

Freelancer reporter Graham Johnson's travails with Zig Zag productions in London, trying to provide shock tv for hardmen without deep pockets, seems to be a lesson in schlock tv reporting for (hardly) men. Here's an excerpt from "Strong-arm tactics", Johnson's Guardian piece about the visual media's darkside:

The first thing you learn about TV folk is that they've got no stories. I'm generalising here. When I say TV folk, I mean some TV documentary makers, as opposed to the (slightly) more honourable breed of TV news reporters and execs.

The second thing you learn is that they haven't got any money to pay for stories. This brings me on to the third thing you learn about TV people - if they can't afford to buy stories, then they will try to take them from you... Many down-trodden print journalists look at TV as being the promised land, which will one day make them famous, give them the credit they deserve and free them from the pressure of tough news execs.

Memo to careworn, overworked print journalists: the magic of TV. It's all a blag. It's an illusion. Stay where you are.

Click here to read the complete article.

Roxana back in the US of A - land of the free press

Oops, this journalist in the spotlight did blunder by obtaining a classified document, an Iranian assessment of US combat in Iraq, and keeping it. Did not publish it, either. After she tripped over to Israel, the Iranian authorities thought this dual citizen may have divulged its contents to "enemies". Hence a kafkaesque trial was held behind closed doors and a judge imposed an 8 year sentence. The reporter attempted a hunger strike protest inside. But Ms. Saberi says to get her through the night in the Tehran prison cell, in her darkest hour, she'd belt out the American national anthem, the "Star Spangled Banner."
"Corny, I know,: says the former Fargo-born Miss North Dakota. "It's good to be back in the 'land of the free and the home of the brave,' " she beamed. Roxana's unusual Japanese/Iranian features are extremely attractive and I envision a hot career for this freelance newscaster.

See the BBC file here

Addendum: She's already won a prize at the Cannes Film Fest!
According to the Associated Press:

A film co-scripted by U.S.-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi won a prize in one of the Cannes Film Festival competitions on Saturday.

"No One Knows About Persian Cats" won a special jury prize in the festival's Un Certain Regard competition.

The film is a lively look at Tehran's underground music scene and the risk of censorship and jail faced by Iranian musicians.

Saberi shares a screenplay credit on the film, which was directed and-co-written by her romantic partner, Bahman Ghobadi.

Hacks get low pay for low value product, says CSM

The Christian Science Monitor (available only online and not in reading rooms, folks)
runs a piece , rather against the grain, on why journalists don't deserve high pay. I think the self-recrimination pieces are turning readers off, too

Pope-arazzi scrum in the Holy Land

A Papal Scrum and a clear case of a government flack manhandling a tough Jewess shooter at the sacred Dome of the Rock are featured in Julian Rake's post on the Reuters' Axis Mundi blog. Herding cats is a cinch compared to security gorillas' heavy-handed attempts to control the pope-arazzi and the local press on this historic visit, which required 80,000 security troops plus a popemobile and was codenamed "Operation White Cloak"!
Dion Nissenbaum at Checkpoint Jerusalem dubbed it Media Smackdown, round one, and perhaps there may have been a foreboding sense of a potential Vatican Celebrity Death Match in this volatile place. Ask Hedi Levine, of Sipa photo agency, aka the shovee.



It takes all kinds: A journalist named Jeff Israely on the Vatican pool and a cameraman named Tony Gentile were following the octogenarian German Pope B-16 - he da bomb! - whose Italian handler protested had never, never, never been in der Hitler Youth; oops, the Pope had detailed this youthful interlude in his official autobiography and in speeches at Auschwitz and Cologne. Whatever. Some of the pool journalists were gestured just to "talk to the hand" during these scuffles. Watch the professional comportment in this very controlled and accredited venue. The helipad from Hell!

Video from the Grave accuses Guatemalan President

This brave correspondent puts the dead in deadline. Talk about from Guatemala to "Guate-peor! [from GuateBad to GuateWorse]. A noted journalist recorded this accusatory video, which has been released by his lawyers after his brutal assassination. The resulting
political storm threatens to bring down the president.