Media rumblings: Pleas, posters and professors

Here's the media rumblings around the country today:

<a href=http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003635002>;Paper won't pay for Larry Craig phone message</a>

Larry Craig, the "embattled" senator from Idaho who recently pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct for shady happenings in a Minneapolis airport men's bathroom, apparently left a message for his lawyer on a stranger's phone.

Seeing green, the stranger tried to sell the recording to the Idaho Statesman, which didn't bite, and Roll Call, a Washington D.C. newspaper which published the voice mail apparently without paying.

Most papers' ethics policies forbid paying for any information.

In other Craig news, the senator is also apparently reconsidering his resignation from the Senate, though he probably has a snowball's chance of getting re-elected this year or ever for that matter.

<a href=http://gawker.com/news/futile-gestures/wsj-rank-and-file-protest-murdochs-visit-with-neat-posters-296070.php>;Posters make clear that Wall Street Journal reporters don't like Murdoch</a>

Reporters and other staffers at the Wall Street Journal are protesting Rupert Murdoch's takeover of the Journal with posters. The staffers tried to plaster posters all over their office decrying the takeover before Murdoch came to visit yesterday. It's unknown if Murdoch saw the posters or if he cared much.

My guess? He didn't. Why doesn't he buy all the staffers out and replace them with Brit Hume clones?

<a href=http://www.nypost.com/seven/09052007/news/nationalnews/jerry_rues_telethon_gay_slur.htm>;Jerry Lewis drops the other "f-bomb"</a>

Jerry Lewis, who's portrayal of The Nutty Professor literally made me sick to my stomach, dropped the second most infamous "f" word during his annual telethon Monday. The obscenity, which refers to gay men in a derogatory way, was made as part of a joke by a very obviously fatigued Lewis in the 18th hour of the telethon.

The irony? The telethon raised a record $63.7 million that day.