Conrad Black’s U.S. trial hinges on executive graft
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Fallen press baron Conrad Black goes on trial this week in Chicago, insisting that charges of pilfering $84 million in proceeds from his crumbling media empire represent the persecution of the powerful.

The Washington Post’s Editorial Fantasyland
Declaring that Washington Post editorial writers and George W. Bush “have a lot in common—most notably an arrogance of power so extreme that they believe their very words can alter reality.”

Oh, how embarrassing.
The Associated Press got completely snookered [Friday] in its coverage of the flap between Rudy Giuliani and the firefighters — the news org actually quoted someone and identified them as the head of an independent group called “Firefighters for Rudy,” without mentioning that he is actually a Rudy aide.

CNN’s Ware asserted that Democrats’ call for Iraq deadline is “aiding the enemies … of America”
On the March 8 edition of CNN’s Your World Today, Michael Ware, a correspondent based in CNN’s Baghdad bureau, asserted that “anyone trying to put artificial deadlines upon this conflict is only aiding the enemies, so-called, of America, Al Qaeda and Iran. … [I]n terms of the broader strategic framework, it serves only America’s enemies.” Ware also said that “what the Democrats are saying about timetables may as well be happening on the planet Pluto for all that it counts to the bloodshed and the endless combat” in Iraq. Anchor Jim Clancy responded: “Michael Ware, calling it like it is, laying it on the line.”

Beck: Supporters of Dems’ Iraq bill “will be just as responsible” for troop deaths as suicide bombers
On the March 8 edition of his CNN Headline News program, Glenn Beck issued the following warning to members of Congress who support the Democratic leaders’ plan to set a date certain for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq: “If your bill goes through, I hope you can’t go to bed any single night without the images of body bags of our American soldiers coming off those planes. I hope they dance in your head every single night, because you will be just as responsible for their deaths as anyone who has ever strapped a bomb to their chest and screamed, ‘Allah Akbar.’ “

CNN’s Velshi falsely claimed Feb. unemployment rate dropped to “a historic low”
In a March 9 report on the recently released unemployment rate by the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), CNN senior business correspondent Ali Velshi falsely claimed that “[t]he unemployment rate has dropped in the United States to a historic low of 4.5 percent.” In fact, not only is the unemployment rate not at a “historic low,” but the current 4.5 percent rate is still higher than when President Bush took office in January 2001.

Congress to consider allowing protection of anonymous sources
House lawmakers, spurred by recent high-profile cases, plan to reintroduce a bipartisan measure that would allow reporters to protect the identities of confidential sources.

Sports Illustrated Bans Itself From Libraries, Schools
Attention teenage boys! Headed to the library for your yearly fix of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue? Well, dudes, you’re out of luck. The magazine took it upon itself not to send it to schools or libraries, because it might end up in the sweaty hands of people like you. So, sorry. Instead of looking at women in swimsuits, you’ll just have to watch porn on the internet instead.

News as a social play: Here comes MySpace News!
MySpace is getting into the news business with launch due in early 2nd quarter, according to inside sources and the company’s own sales materials. MySpace News takes News to a whole new level by dynamically aggregating real-time news and blogs from top sites around the Web. Creates focused, topical news pages that users can interact and engage with throughout their day.

Prisoners of YouTube
Meet the most hilarious people ever to lose their jobs, friends, livelihoods, and their dignity–all for your personal amusement.

Bloggers blur the line between opinion, product placement
Thousands of bloggers are hooking up with PayPerPost Inc. and other firms to get paid for writing posts touting various products. “The problem is the advertisers are trying to buy a blogger’s voice, and once they’ve bought it they own it,” says Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine.com. Weblogs Inc.’s Jason McCabe Calacanis says of PayPerPost: “No one with any level of ethics would get involved with these clowns.”

MIT to offer its courses free online by year end
BOSTON (Reuters) - The Massachusetts Institute of Technology will become by year’s end the first U.S. university to offer all of its roughly 1,800 courses free on the Internet, a school official said on Friday.