New York Times gives Karate Kid a whack

A two hour and twelve minute remake of The Karate Kid in which the rigorous martial arts training includes "the taking off and hanging up a jacket (rather than the car waxing in the first movie)" gave a bored headline writer at the New York Times the opportunity to sneak in a smutty double entendre and pay tribute to Lenny Bruce.

The Friesster tweets about his uncle

This Mother's Day Twitter post shows that Las Vegas blogger, New York Times stringer, Gay Vegas author, concert promoter and comp queen Steve "Friesster" Friess is having a fine old time continuing to milk the publicity and notoriety he received from his self-aggrandizing Las Vegas Weekly cover story about turning in a family member (albeit a black sheep) who was a fugitive on a kiddie porn rap.

Is that Tom Hearn in the New York Times?

The tables are turned for legendary punk rock photographer Tom Hearn, the Tabloid Baby pal who chronicled the genre's beginnings with his classic black and white pictures of The Ramones, Blondie and denizens of the Punk magazine offices, as he finds himself the subject of a photo in The New York Times.

Hearn, who turned the tables on his subjects in the past decade as he became one of the most popular and sought-after bandleaders in Connecticut, is shown rocking the Creative Cooking New Orleans Restaurant in Westbrook, Connecticut, with his popular musical group, Big Fat Combo, in a picture accompanying a review of the joint.

The restaurant is credited and rated "O.K."; The tall ginger-haired King of Cheshire Rock and his Combo, purveyors of surf, punk and country music, are not credited by name, though the reviewer notes that "live music heats up the place on weekends."

Tom Hearn is still active with his camera-- among his subjects are those same punk rock pioneers, thirty years or so later. Click here to see and hear The Big Fat Combo in action.

The Man Who Would Be Martin Luther King: Antonio D. Charity opens Off Broadway, is reviewed by The New York Times

Actor Antonio D. Charity, the gifted and charismatic performer who wants a chance to portray Martin Luther King on film, gets first mention in the reviews for Black Angels Over Tuskegee, the new play about trailblazing African-American World War II fighter pilots that opened Off Broadway this week.

The New York Times leads the praise of this "uplifting, inspirational melodrama" this morning, concluding: "By the end, when the pilots overcame their obstacles and finally got up into the air to the swelling of music, tears welled up in my eyes ..."


The hosannas were echoed by the influential and world-syndicated Associated Press:

"This powerful play... is well-staged and the characters so realistic that the audience can't help but be thoroughly moved by the time the narrator reaches the end of the journal."

The Times notes that "the folksy narrator (Antonio D. Charity)... provides historical context and dictionary definitions of racism and segregation. 'You see, I believe in the principle that all men are created equal,' he says at the start."


That portion of Charity's performance could show scouts for the MLK biopic now being developed by Steve Spielberg and DreamWorks that the actor wants to star in. His quest to have his work seen by Spielberg and fellow producers Suzanne dePasse and Madison Jones has turned into a national crusade to give a deserving actor the role he has been preparing for his entire life (Charity has portrayed the Rev. Dr. King onstage off-Broadway and as far back as high school!).


Hundreds of friends and colleagues and fans have joined the Facebook group, "Antonio D. Charity should play Martin Luther King in DreamWorks' biopic," and many more have added their support.

As Antonio tells his supporters on the Facebook page:

"Thanks again everybody! I'm just looking for an opportunity to audition for the role, to compete for it. That's all I need."

“Black Angels Over Tuskegee” is playing at St. Luke’s Theater, 308 West 46th Street, Clinton; (212) 239-6200, www.telecharge.com.

So what about the Masturbating Bear?

So NBC is finally wrapping up the Conan O'Brien debacle and, after a break for the Olympics, will head into another three months of critical headlines about the mediocrity of Jay Leno when he gets the timeslot back. Conan and his people played it well-- a lot better than he played as host of The Tonight Show, which we all stopped watching after the first week (he never should have brought back Andy Richter-- it was a retreat to the infantile comedy he did in the early days of The Late Show, not even Letterman does the hip "irony" thing anymore, and Conan didn't click as a full-fledged talent until after he dumped the playacting sidekick and went solo). The only question that matters is whether NBC gets to keep the "intellectual property rights" to his sketches which would mean it's the last anyone will ever see of The Masturbating Bear.

One thing the saga did demonstrate was how the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com is consistently wrong in its reporting and how dangerous it is for lazy paid mainstream journos to use it as a source. From its ever-shifting details of the contents and timing of the settlement, the site and its shaved bronzed midget frontman made it clear that, as when they rolled the dice in reporting the death of Michael Jackson prematurely, they make shit up, and as long as they have supporters like Brian Stelter at the New York Times to give them attribution and feature stories whenever they happen to be correct, they're golden.

NY Times to charge for its website

The New York Times made it official this morning with the announcement that it will begin charging for access to its website in 2011. It will be their second try. For the record, TabloidBaby.com plans to remain free of charge!

Press Release

The New York Times Announces Plans for a Metered Model for NYTimes.com in 2011

NEW YORK, Jan 20, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- The New York Times announced today that it will be introducing a paid model for NYTimes.com at the beginning of 2011.

The new approach, referred to as the metered model, will offer users free access to a set number of articles per month and then charge users once they exceed that number. This will enable NYTimes.com to create a second revenue stream and preserve its robust advertising business. It will also provide the necessary flexibility to keep an appropriate ratio between free and paid content and stay connected to a search-driven Web.

Through 2010, NYTimes.com will be building a new online infrastructure designed to provide consumers with a frictionless experience across multiple platforms. Once the metered model is implemented, New York Times home delivery print subscribers will continue to have free access to NYTimes.com.

"Our new business model is designed to provide additional support for The New York Times' extraordinary, professional journalism," said Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., chairman of The New York Times Company and publisher of The New York Times. "Our audiences are very loyal and we believe that our readers will pay for our award-winning digital content and services."

"This process of rethinking our business model has also been driven by our desire to achieve additional revenue diversity that will make us less susceptible to the inevitable economic cycles," said Janet L. Robinson, president and CEO, The New York Times Company. "We were also guided by the fact that our news and information are being featured in an increasingly broad range of end-user devices and services, and our pricing plans and policies must reflect this vision."

More details regarding the metered model will be available in the coming months.

NYTimes.com is the No. 1 newspaper-owned Web site and a top five current events and global news site according to Nielsen Online.

The New York Times Company, a leading media company with 2008 revenues of $2.9 billion, includes The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, 15 other daily newspapers and more than 50 Web sites, including NYTimes.com, Boston.com and About.com. The Company's core purpose is to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment.

Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in this press release are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include national and local conditions, as well as competition and the development of our digital businesses. They also include other risks detailed from time to time in the Company's publicly filed documents, including the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 28, 2008. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

This press release can be downloaded from www.nytco.com.

SOURCE: The New York Times Company
The New York Times Company

Everybody hates Roger (Ailes)

The New York Times reports in a front page profile that Fox News boss Roger Ailes is "at the pinnacle of power in three corridors of American life: business, media and politics... the best-paid person in the News Corporation last year..." and "the most successful news executive of the last 10 years."

That doesn't sit well with the new wife and adult children of Ailes' boss, Rupert Murdoch, as is stated clearly by Rupert's son-in law, the British pubic relations man Matthew Freud in paragraph 14 of the piece:

“I am by no means alone within the family or the company in being ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes’s horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalistic standards that News Corporation, its founder and every other global media business aspires to."

And that says a lot!

(We remember Roger's when corporate machinations and needling led Rupert's son Lachlan to bolt the company in 2005, leaving Roger to take his job in charge of Fox stations and cancel the competitive revival of A Current Affair. Sounds like the Time article is notice of the war ahead as Rupert nears his eighties.)

Video: Las Vegas courthouse shooting

A civilian who'd been summoned for jury duty captured the sound of the shooting spree at the Federal Courthouse in Las Vegas that left a guard and the gunman dead. Although it's accompanied by the cameraholder's wiseass commentary, the sound is chilling to say the least.

And meanwhile, look who's contributing to the New York Times coverage of the tragic violence: our own 2009 Journalist of The Year, Steve Friess:

UPDATE:

NY Times: A Current Affair at the Berlin Wall

The New York Times solicited readers' photos and recollections of the fall of The Berlin Wall. Among them was the encapsulation of the groundbreaking and singular tabloid television coverage by the producers and host of A Current Affair, as recounted in the book Tabloid Baby:

"Brandenburg Gate, East Berlin — On the night of Thursday, Nov. 9, a contingent of producers and correspondents from A Current Affair boarded a rented jet at Teterboro Airport bound for Berlin, where we crashed the network party. Maury Povich borrowed Peter Jennings' perch to report live from the Brandenbeug Gate while Dan Rather flew around in a cherrypicker above him. The next day, Maury reported from the Eastern side of the Brandenburg Gate. Then we commandeered a Mercedes and drove into the forests of East Germany to reunite two brothers, one who owned a small sugar plant there, and the other we had 'kidnapped' the night before from a tavern on the Upper East Side. As told in the chapter "Achtung, Baby!" from the book, Tabloid Baby."

EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT! "ACHTUNG, BABY!" TABLOID TELEVISION AT THE BERLIN WALL ... READ THE ENTIRE CHAPTER HERE

The Los Angeles Times also ignores theatre legend John Kenley's pioneering, cross-dressing, hermaphroditic glory... but Brett Hudson remembers

Add the Los Angeles Times to the mainstream media outlets that leave the most colorful part of a great person’s life out of the story. The LA Times is a couple of days behind the New York Times in reporting the death at 103 of John Kenley, the Ohio summer stock theatre impresario known for casting television and movie stars including Burt Reynolds, Mae West, William Shatner and Joe Namath in popular plays and musicals.

We were doing a bit of quick research Sunday morning to see if he’d brought The Hudson Brothers to Ohio, when we discovered that the famously-closeted Merv Griffin had outed the beloved Mr. Kenley as an alleged "registered" hermaphrodite, and that the producer lived half the year in Florida as “Joan.”

Neither Times found that information fit to print. We did. His determination to live his life in the Midwest on his own uncompromising terms surely makes him a trendsetter of the 20th Century.

And just a few minutes ago, Brett Hudson phoned our office to sto say he’d read our post about “Mr. Kenley”—who indeed had produced a Hudson Brothers in Godspell in 1977.

Said Brett:

“I couldn’t believe you did an item on Mr. Kenley. We did Godspell in Columbus, Ohio. It was the summertime and it was sold out. And after we finished the performance, my brothers and I would sit in the lobby and sign autographs.

“On the second night after the show, we’re signing autographs and there’s a long line, and John Kenley is in the autograph line, and he hands us a photo and says, ‘Will you sign this picture?’ And we see that the photo is already signed— to ‘Joan.’ We asked him, ‘Who’s Joan?’ and he says, ‘Didn’t you notice? I was in line on Opening Night!’

“He was in line-- in full-blown drag! It was unbelievable! You know how you can usually tell? You couldn’t. He was a complete— he was a woman!”

“He was the strangest person. And he was the nicest guy. He loved great theatre. He had such passion for the theatre. And when I found out that he’d died, I teared up a little. With his passing, you lose that passion, that Old School passion.

“Working for John Kenley was a pleasure. He loved what he did. He was a wonderful person. A great guy. And yeah, a great gal!"

Performers were known as The Kenley Players. Paul Lynde is said to have been the most popular. There's a website seeking out surviving Players.

NY Times obituary neglects to mention that theatre producer was alleged hermaphrodite who lived as John... and Joan

If Wikipedia and other sources are to be believed, the New York Times left some very colorful-- and essential facts out of its obituary for Midwest theatre impresario John Kenley.

The Times notes that Kenley, who died October 23rd at an astonishing 103, made his name "taking large-scale productions to small towns and cities and festooning the shows with headliners like Mae West, Gloria Swanson and (Cloud 9) star Burt Reynolds...

"Mr. Kenley was known to book stars, even unlikely ones, for their box office potential. He cast the television host Hugh Downs, for example, in 'Under the Yum Yum Tree' and the talk show star Merv Griffin in 'Come Blow Your Horn.' He hired Jayne Mansfield, the actress who had been promoted as the next Marilyn Monroe, to star in 'Bus Stop.' (Ms. Monroe starred in the film version.) And he recruited Joe Namath to play the drifter in a 1971 production of 'Picnic,' when he was still near the height of his career as quarterback of the New York Jets..."

Now why would The Times fail to report several colorful facts about Kenley that show him to have been even more of a pioneer in the past century? From Wikipedia:

"Griffin fondly recalls his 1963 appearance and remembers being taken aback by what he did not know was an opening night tradition. At the cast party, the first dance was reserved for Mr. Kenley, and the play’s leading man.

"Indeed, in his 1980 autobiography, Griffin puts in print what had frequently been rumored by many and known as fact by few, 'John Kenley is a registered hermaphrodite.' For his part, Kenley’s retort was, 'I’m not even a registered voter,' but there are many now who state that Kenley spent many a theatrical off-season in Florida as a woman, Joan.

"In his unpublished memoirs, Kenley writes, 'People have often wondered if I am gay. Sometimes I wished I was. Life would have been simpler. Androgyny is overrated.'"

Conflict of Interest: Steve Friess is covering the Michael Jackson criminal case for The New York Times

Remember this next time you consider The New York Times to be "the newspaper of record":

The Times' coverage of the Michael Jackson criminal investigation in Las Vegas is being handled by Steve Freiss, the Las Vegas writer and comp queen who led the campaign to stop news coverage of the secret life and overdose death of local headliner Danny Gans, who later wrote that Michael Jackson's death was "the best thing that could ever have happened to Michael Jackson's music," and is now producing and promoting a Michael Jackson "tribute" show (with ticket packages at $504) at the Palms casino.


If ever a reporter would recuse himself from a story-- or an editor would take a second look at whom he assigns-- this would seem to be the case.

But it is not.


Times readers: Caveat emptor.

(Well aware that he has been the subject of Tabloid Baby investigation since he [but not because he] made an attempt to shut down our site early in the Gans case, Friess, mentions his Times assignment in his blog today. Unfortunately, he also reveals the closeknit, corrupt Las Vegas news culture when he writes from the scene of a raid at a medical office:

"Happily, I have some connections. The fine folks at Miles' TV station, KVBC, let me chill inside their news van." ("Miles" is Miles Smith, executive producer at KVBC TV News, the local NBC affiliate, and Friess' unofficial second husband.)

Developing...

Mainstream media begins to realize TMZ's Jacko death scoop was not what it seemed

It's taken them a few days to catch up, but the established mainstream media is beginning to clear the stardust out of their eyes and realize there was something fishy about corporate, porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com scooping the world on the death of Michael Jackson.


We laid out the evidence on Friday that under the leadership of shaved bronzed midget frontman Harvey Levin, TMZ took the same information that everyone else had and gambled that it spelled out that Jacko was dead-- that they ran the "Michael Jackson is dead" story before getting official confirmation, before knowing for sure. The upside? Well, look at how the mainstream media, from Brian Stelter in the New York Times to beaten beat writers in the Los Angeles Times, have responded with awestruck wonder at the supposed technological and journalistic brilliance of the jealous, corrupt mutts at TMZ for going with the story a good forty minutes before anyone else (see Dan Rather at Parkland Hospital). The downside? There's not much of a downside. There was enough confusion in which smarmy sleazy Harvey could have slimed his way out of it, and gotten the attention just the same (see The Hitler Diaries).


This afternoon, the Los Angeles Times website runs -- and Drudge headlines as a "whine"-- a "comment" piece entitled, "How would we have reacted if TMZ had been wrong about Michael Jackson's death?"

Alexandra Le Tellier writes:

"TMZ would become the first outlet to announce the singer’s death. What came next was a surprise. Before the RIPs and the 'he touched us all' jokes, many users began posting jabs aimed at CNN -- more specifically, its irrelevance as a news source...

"Has technology’s ability to deliver information at such a rapid pace corrupted us? ...Have our standards for accountability dissolved?

"...And who was TMZ’s source anyway? The site’s managing editor, Harvey Levin, said he and his staff made hundreds of calls, but he didn't divulge whom they spoke to, which begs the question of whether they confirmed the news with a reliable, accountable source -- as is required by the Los Angeles Times -- or if they spoke to someone who was violating patient confidentiality.

"When 19 employees at this same hospital, UCLA Medical Center, were busted in 2008 for snooping through Britney Spears’ confidential medical records, it was hard not to wonder why they’d have risked their jobs. Were they looking for a story to sell just as their colleague, Lawanda Jackson, had done? She was indicted in 2008 for selling information about Farrah Fawcett and accessing hundreds of other files. If that’s the case here, are we seriously going to trust people who’re willing to break the law for some fast cash?

“'A curious thing is at play here,' (NY Times syndicate ethics columnist Jeffrey) Seglin continues. 'Few people expect TMZ or Drudge or the National Enquirer to get things right or to report on issues of substance. When they do, at least so far, it’s a bit of an anomaly. So the consequences for getting it wrong among such sites do not seem terribly high. If CNN, Fox … got such things wrong, the consequences would likely be higher...'

"Would TMZ take the same approach to a political figure, which in turn could pose a threat to national security? Let’s hope we never find out."

Though the article is deep in the Times' little-read Blog section and its writer is under the impression that TMZ got a legitimate scoop through illegal, paid sources, it's significant for a few reasons. The writer quotes an ethicist from the national competitor in New York, whose kid TV writer led the TMZ cheerleading over the weekend-- a sign that after their initial starry-eyed reaction to being beaten on the story, the old world news media is gathering the forces to get back at the sleazy TV lawyer who broke the rules. Drudge may call it a "whine", but obviously unhappy being lumped in with TMZ, he posted the link on his influential page, which means talk radio producers and other news organizations too lazy to come up with their own ideas will pick up the TMZ story.


And even though the TMZ gamble paid off in the end, the Jackson death stunt does not bode well for TMZ's plans to encroach further into Washington, D.C. politics and matters of national importance. Its corporate overlords Time Warner and AOL may have found it cute when Harvey and his boys began comparing the pectoral muscles of congressmen or playing their curbside ambush games in Georgetown, but they wouldn't be happy at all if their bastard child jumped the gun on an assassination and caused panic and riots in the streets.

Developing...

Private funeral for Farrah tomorrow

Yeah, the maesltrom around the death of Michael Jackson has overshadowed what was, at least until about 2 pm that day, the biggest and saddest story to come out of Hollywood on Thursday, June 25th. Farrah Fawcett's passing after a valiant battle against cancer put aside for the moment the unsavoury activities of her longtime beau Ryan O'Neal, includng his intentions to marry her and seal her estate on her deathbed. ABC News and NBC News, taken by surprise by Jacko's drop, went ahead with their planned dueling Farrah soap operas, and in the end ABC's Barbara Walters' "get" of Ryan O'Neal and his compatriot Alana Stewart guaranteed that the show would stick to the official party line and play the Ryan-Farrah "Love Story" script to the fullest. No need for reality to seep into a network mewsmagazine piece. We didn't see Meredith Vieira's revenge hour, slapped up against Walters by NBC in a rage that ABC was stealing the thurnder they'd paid more than a million dolalrs for when they bought (and had their way with) Farrah's documentary.

The only other real outrage in the story comes from the stately New York Times and their addled television writer Alessandra Stanley. An idiot with a reputation for getting details wrong, Stanley, in a backhanded "appreciation" of Farrah's lifework, blew off Farrah's talent as an actress and stuck in a nasty barb while mistakenly (details!) blaming her for the hatchet job NBC did on the documentary that was originally a journal about her treatment in Germany, not a sequel to O'Neal's weepy flick:

"NBC, never shy about exploiting a celebrity tragedy, overproduced and overpromoted her film in 'Farrah’s Story,' but never made the public service point that, besides abstinence, the HPV vaccine is the most promising form of prevention against this type of cancer, which in most cases is sexually acquired."

Sexually Acquired?

For the record, Tabloid Baby can report exclusively that Farrah made it clear to several Tabloid Baby sources that there was no chance she could have contracted her cancer through anal sex.

Tabloid Baby pal Ray Richmond, recently freed from the shackles of The Hollywood Reporter, writes on his indispensable, informative and entertaining website, Man Bites Tinseltown (bookmark it!), that Farrah's funeral will take place tomorrow, Tuesday at 4 pm at the Cathedral of Our Lady of The Angels in downtown Los Angeles.

It's private, invitation only.

TMZ & Jacko: Who you gonna believe? The New York Times or Hollywood's Rumor Rat? Think twice before you answer.

In the world of journalism, reporters and columnists look to the rung above them-- or even beneath them-- for what's already been published or posted, and accept the word as fact. So it goes with the spreading story that the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com scooped the world on the death of Michael Jackson because of its superior sources and technology. Though we proved on Friday that TMZ's early word of Jackson's untimely yet not entirely unsurprising bucket kick was based on a gamble-- shaved bronzed midget frontman Harvey Levin and his boy squad took the information everyone else had and ran with it before it was confirmed (an old, dangerous tabloid trick-- see the Bible, Tabloid Baby), the awestruck praise of the despised Hollywood sewer site is comin from "the top"-- in the form of a New York Times article that's been copied and commented upon by print columnists around the nation and world.


We should mention that the Times story is written by Brian Stelter, a boy blogger turned news man who, coming from the Internet and helping his musty print bosses understand its importance, has made a cottage industry of elevating TMZ.com in the eyes of the mainstream media.

Back in March, Stelter pushed the story that during the brouhaha over givernment bailouts, TMZ "drove mainstream coverage and Congressional outrage."

Our own criticism of Stelter's fawning TMZ coverage under the authority of the New York Times goes back to 2007, when he wrote more than one fawning article about the successful debut of TMZ's whitewashed syndicated television sister, which had actually opened to middling ratings, especially in comparison to entrenched infotainment shows.

It's an interesting situation we have here: The established, "mainstream" media doesn't trust Harvey Levin and TMZ enough to use it as a source on a major story like the death of Michael Jackson, yet it sources TMZ on other gossip items on a daily basis, praising the gutter operation and laying out the foundation for using it as a valid source in the future. Of course, the fact that TMZ is a division of Time Warner has little to do with that.


Meanwhile, we find that the unfiltered truth is coming from the independent sites run by real journalists, not TV lawywers like Levin. For example, Rumor Rat, the mysterious celebrity news site whose Big Cheese is obviously a veteran with perscpective and experience and whose team has swarmed across Hollywood and nibbled away at TMZ and Perez Hilton, recognizes who the real rats are.

Fit to print? New York Times report on Danny Gans' death by Dilaudid is penned by compromised comp queen and cover-up conspirator Steve Friess

Eerie: Danny Gans with Elvis on his shoulder (and a monkey on his back?)

Despite the current taste for full disclosure of journalistic conflicts of interest, readers of the New York Times received no such disclaimer on page A22 of yesterday's paper when the report on the Clark County Nevada Coroner's controversial findings in the death of Las Vegas superstar Danny Gans came with the byline of Steve Friess.

Friess (right) is the Las Vegas freelance writer, author of the Gay Vegas guide and comp queen whose sexual relationship with a local television news producer led him to dangerous conflict of interest and clear ethical lapses in his attempts to derail the investigative reporting into Gans' unexplained death on May 1st, an untimely passing at age 52 that was revealed this week to be the result of an overdose of Dilaudid, also known as "drug store heroin."

Friess' cover-up attempt began after we wrote him a private email on May 6, asking why Las Vegas journalists were not covering the Gans story, and he responded with a public Internet posting, calling us "a**hole," "Perez Hilton wanna be" and "vermin," and accusing us of "Danny Gans hate," among other things.

Within days, in a post titled "The Danny Gans Daisy Chain: Steve and Chip and Alicia and Norm and Miles and--," we reported on a tangled web of interpersonal dealings among Las Vegas media figures, including the revelation that Friess shares a bed with Miles Smith, executive producer of KVBC TV news, colleague of beauty queen-turned-local TV entertainment reporter Alicia Jacobs. Jacobs had gained notoriety as Danny Gans' close and personal friend for more than a dozen years.

She not only broke the story of Gans' death, but worked with Gans' manager to spin and obfsucate the facts in such an obvious manner that the Las Vegas Review-Journal TV columnist lambasted her for her "reverse bias." Steve Bornfeld wrote "there's a difference between professional relationships and personal friendships, especially one as strongly and publicly evident as Jacobs and Gans... it creates an appearance of potential bias -- viewers/readers wondering if a reporter-friend would conceal unflattering or damaging information."

"A.J.'s boundary-breaching closeness"


Today, in his Medialogy column titled "Except for Jacobs, TV stations play Gans news straight," Bornfeld again singles out Jacobs' career-damaging conflict of interest in reporting the coroner's slippery Dilaudid announcement:

"Efficient, yet elusive.

"Such was the level of coverage and nature of the story as the cause of Danny Gans' death was disclosed Tuesday, leaving local media to present question-riddled reports of a 'drug toxicity' reaction from the painkiller Dilaudid, the coroner refraining from terming it 'drug abuse.'

"And -- except for an Alicia Jacobs commentary with an Alice-through-the-looking-glass effect of seeming completely right while being thoroughly wrong -- coverage was responsible...

"Then there was A.J.

"Her statement on the 4 p.m. news, in part: 'I'm sure there will be much focus on the drugs in Danny's system, but it's important to remember that since his baseball days, Danny dealt with endless injuries. ... On a personal note, I hope we can go back to remembering the great man and the amazing entertainer and the wonderful friend that was Danny Gans.'

"That's the response of a personal confidant who should have been a detached observer, the modest leeway of familiarity she's granted as an entertainment reporter abused long ago.

"In case news reporters, unsatisfied with ending the story with this toxicology finding, investigate further, Jacobs nudges us toward Gans' injuries as justification for his use of Dilaudid. While that's a legit element of the story as stated by neutral reporters, from Jacobs it's clearly a request for compassion from a protective pal.

"Then she plants a big wet smooch on his memory that out-Mary Harts Mary Hart. Her 11 p.m. 'Stage 3' was essentially an encore...

"Jacobs' boundary-breaching closeness to Gans oddly inoculates her -- she's so known as his buddy that withholding a heartfelt tribute would flummox fans conditioned to consider the relationship acceptable, seeming like a friend's betrayal when it's actually a professional requirement.

"...Yes, she's on the showbiz beat where sympathy might seem harmless. But when soft features turn into hard news, credibility counts in every corner of this craft."

Jacobs' conflict of interest is taken into account by local viewers.

Tried to shut us down

Friess (left), who writes for a national audience who may not be up on the local towel-snapping scandals of which he's part, should have recused himself from the story as soon as he admitted on May 15th that he was involved in sending us false information about Gans' death in effort to discredit our news team and throw us off the scent. (He also took action to shut down TabloidBaby.com after we posted his photo. We have since been forced to rely on reasonable facsimiles.)

Instead, it's the Steve Friess byline that appears on a story that is given the full authority of the New York Times. The story, of course, does not mention that the coroner refused to address what other drugs Danny Gans may have had in his system, pointedly refused to answer our question of possible steroid abuse, and arranges the words in a way that, like Alicia Jacobs, excuses the use of the powerful opiate in the name of sports injury:

The New York Times
Nevada: Entertainer's Death Is Ruled Accidental

"The Clark County coroner, Mike Murphy, ruled that the death of the popular impressionist Danny Gans, left, on May 1 was an accident brought on by a toxic level of the pain killer hydromorphone, which led to heart failure. Mr. Murphy refused to characterize the death as a drug overdose or disclose the level of hydromorphone, marketed as Dilaudid, in Mr. Gans’s system. Mr. Gans’s manager, Chip Lightman, said that he was unaware Mr. Gans, 52, was taking Dilaudid, but that Mr. Gans had shoulder surgery early this year before opening at the Encore Las Vegas resort and had follow-up surgery in March to remove scar tissue. Mr. Lightman previously told reporters that Mr. Gans had a family history of heart disease and for many years had been on medication for high blood pressure. Mr. Gans became a widely celebrated mimic known for his George Burns impression after his minor-league baseball career was cut short by a foot injury. He was prone to other injuries as well, canceling hundreds of performances over the course of his 13-year headlining career on the Strip because of shoulder, back and knee surgeries."

There have been many reasons suggested for Friess' involvement in the Danny Gans death, from the mundane-- Alicia Jacobs is supporter of same sex marriage and was the "celebrity" guest at his unofficial second marriage to Miles Smith at the Palms Hotel-- to his allegiance to Gans' employer, casino magnate Steve Wynn.

Friess picked up the Gans story on his own Vegas-boosting website on Tuesday and spoke as an authority on at least one radio station without mentioning his embarrassing missteps.

He did not post again until late this afternoon when he wrote about Englebert Humperdinck.

That Darn Norm

Then there's Norm Clarke, the colorful, nationally-known Las Vegas Review-Journal gossip columnist who has printed much of Jacobs' and Friess' planted stories that led the public farther from the truth about the life and death of Danny Gans.


In the days leading up to the coroner's hastily-called and carefully-worded news conference, Norm had been in Washington D.C, merrily Twittering his every move, from meals to exhibits at the Smithsonian.

His pure joy at reporting gossip and his evident innocence in the cover-up planning was exhibited in his Wednesday column about Danny Gans, when, hours after we drew the comparison, he guilelessly put a most sunny, even excited spin on the news that Gans had overdosed on drug store heroin:

NORM: Presley and gans linked by Dilaudid

"Danny Gans and Elvis Presley had something else in common, besides dying young.

"Both entertainers were linked after their deaths with Dilaudid, a highly addictive opiate nicknamed 'drug store heroin.'

"...According to numerous published reports, Dilaudid, said to be two to eight times more potent than morphine, was Elvis' favorite drug.

"Gans, a vocal impressionist, included a karate-kicking overweight Elvis among his spoofs of musical greats.

"Gans, a Las Vegas headliner since 1996, was 52.

"Elvis was 42 when he died Aug. 16, 1977, in Memphis, Tenn."

Viva Las Vegas...

Danny Gans photo: Ralph Fountain/Las Vegas Review-Journal

Question for the New York Times: What "bloggers are swapping dark speculations about depression" in Danny Gans case?

"Mr. Gans was 52 when he died in his sleep on May 1. Although the Clark County Coroner's Office has yet to reveal the cause of death, bloggers are swapping dark speculations about depression. Mr. Lightman, Mr. Gans' manager, cringes at the gossip. 'This was a very happy time in Danny's life,' he said."

-- The New York Times

As far as we know, the only journalist who intimated that Danny Gans was "down in the dumps" on the day he died was Mike Weatherford of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Selected photos from the New York Times slideshow.