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Among the last known images of Osama bin Laden is a video seized at his compound the night he was killed, which shows the al-Qaeda leader hunched before a television screen studying a video of himself. Its testimony to bin Ladens obsession with the media side of his war against the United States.

This modern face of bin Ladens jihad comes through clearly in a 21-page letter from his media adviser, an American-born jihadist named Adam Gadahn. The letter is undated, but it appears to have been written after November 2010, in the last six months of bin Ladens life.

David Ignatius

Ignatius writes a twice-a-week foreign affairs column and contributes to the PostPartisan blog.

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Gadahn wrote much as if he were a media planner corresponding with a client. He included suggestions about the timing of video appearances after the 2010 U.S. midterm elections and use of high-definition video, and made snarky evaluations of major American networks.

As I wrote last week, Gadahn hated Fox News (falls into the abyss); he liked MSNBC but complained about the firing of Keith Olbermann; he had mixed feelings about CNN (better in Arabic than in English) and made flattering comments about CBS and ABC. Basically, he wanted to play them all off to al-Qaedas best advantage. He also mentioned print journalists, most prominently Robert Fisk of The Independent of Britain. He cites three Americans (Brian Russ, Simon Hirsh and Jerry Van Dyke), though its uncertain whom he meant.

The media guidance was among the documents taken from bin Ladens compound the night of May 2. It was made available to me, along with a small sample of other documents in the cache, by a senior Obama administration official.

Gadahns memo shows an organization struggling to stay on the media offensive despite devastating American attacks. Its partly aspirational, with dreams of jihad, but theres a core of sharp self-criticism that makes clear that Gadahn, like his boss, understood that al-Qaeda was losing its war.

Gadahn even worried that al-Qaedas reversals in Iraq and elsewhere represented punishment by God on us because of our sins and injustices. Like bin Laden, he was deeply upset that al-Qaedas affiliates had killed so many Muslims and listed 13 operations that showed the tragedy of tolerating the spilling of (Muslim) blood.

Read more:
How al-Qaeda tried to control the media

Rent control seems unfair, but ending it could threaten people's homesand endanger important zoning regulations

Michael Appleton / The New York Times / Redux

The doorbell on a rent-controlled apartment that was the focus of a landlord's suit against the actress Faye Dunaway and her son, Liam Dunaway O'Neill, in New York, Aug. 2, 2011.

Cohen is the author of Nothing to Fear: FDR's Inner Circle and the Hundred Days that Created Modern America

In many congested cities New York City most of all rent control laws protect tenants who are lucky enough to have such leases from major rent increases. But the Supreme Court could be on the brink of striking down rent control. If it does, the court will hand landlords a huge victory and put many tenants in danger of losing their homes. It could also lay the groundwork for striking down a wide array of zoning laws.

The Supreme Court is considering a case filed by James Harmon, a onetime Reagan Administration lawyer who owns a brownstone on West 76th street in Manhattan. One of his tenants, an executive recruiter named Nancy Wing Lombardi, has leased a one-bedroom apartment in the building since 1976. Since the apartment is rent-controlled, she pays $1000 a month, at least half what an unregulated apartment in the same neighborhood would cost. Harmon argues that laws limiting how much rent he can charge are an unconstitutional taking of his property. The court has not yet decided to take the case, but it has asked for additional briefing taking a harder look, the Wall Street Journal reported, than anyone expected.

(MORE:Real Estate Trend: Wealthy Californians Demand Tons of Bathrooms)

Rent control has a long history. New York City adopted its law after World War I, when a shortage of housing and a glut of renters including soldiers returning from the war put extreme pressure on rents. Many other localities have rent control laws, including dozens in New York State and California. Along with New York City, some of the largest are San Francisco, Oakland, and Washington, D.C.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld rent control, going back to 1921. In 1988, in Pannell v. San Jose, it ruled 6-2 that San Joses law did not violate the constitution in an opinion written by the very conservative then-Chief Justice, William Rehnquist. In 1992, in Yee v. City of Escondido, the court unanimously rejected a claim that a rent control ordinance was an unconstitutional taking of property just the issue Harmon is raising.

These rulings should settle the question. But rent control opponents clearly think they have a chance, given how pro-corporation the Court is today. Harmons challenge is attracting strong support from real estate interests and conservative groups like the CATO Institute. They argue that rent control unconstitutionally deprives landlords of the right to charge as much rent as they want. They like to point to extreme cases of people benefiting who do not need it like the actress Faye Dunaway, who until recently had a $1,048.72 a month one-bedroom on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

See the rest here:
What if the Supreme Court Kills Rent Control?

Article recommendations from your friends on Facebook and Twitter aren't a major source of traffic for news websites, according to Pew's State of the Media 2012 report -- but they have potential to become one.

The annual release focuses on trends in the world of journalism but as news continues to be made, read and reported with technology, this year's edition is chock full of interesting data about the ways we all use the Internet.

[More from Mashable: Facebook Photos: The Key to a Successful Social Media Campaign]

According to Pew, social media use is on the rise, more people are reading the news online and advertisers are spending more money on Internet advertising than ever before. All of those factors have the potential to make social media one of the most important elements of a news outlet's business plan.

Facebook usage is up, according to Pew: 133 million users in the U.S. from 117 million last year. The social network's got 845 million active users globally -- about 54% of the world's online population.

[More from Mashable: Dont Tag Me, Bro: How to Control Facebook Photo Tags]

It's also winning the social media popularity contest in terms of time spent on the site. Facebook users scrolled through their news feed, gawked at photos of friends and played games like Farmville for an average of 423 minutes in December of last year.

Tumblr came in second (151 minutes) and Pinterest third (80 minutes). To some surprise, MySpace (13 minutes) beat out Google+ (5 minutes).

Twitter is growing as well -- 24 million active users in the U.S., according to eMarketer. That's an estimated 32% increase from last year year. The company is tight-lipped on exactly how many people use the service.

Journalists have flocked to Twitter, says Pew, giving it "outsized influence" in the media game. Its ability to disseminate breaking news before traditional wire services gives it a "critical role" in journalism, says Pew -- Whitney Houston's death announcement on Twitter 55 minutes before it was confirmed on the AP wire is just one example.

Read more here:
Pew: Social Media Not Yet Driving News Traffic

SEOUL -- A wave of protests by journalists in South Korea against alleged government interference in news coverage shows no sign of abating, despite threats of legal action from their bosses.

It started with a strike launched by journalists at Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) at the end of January, demanding the resignation of the Chief Executive Kim Jae-cheul whom they accuse of suppressing news reports critical of the administration of President Lee Myung-bak.

They claim that MBC has intentionally eliminated or reduced coverage that could cultivate negative public views towards the government, including vehement protests against the country's free trade agreement with the United States.

Some 700 reporters and producers at MBC have joined the strike, resulting in shortening of its nightly news broadcast to 15 minutes from an hour and suspension of several other news programs. Their walkouts were soon accompanied by strikes staged by colleagues at the country's largest television network, Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), and Yonhap Television News (YTN), a state-financed cable news network.

About 650 KBS staff members, including 250 reporters, took part in the strike but the broadcaster's management said its news programs were not affected. Yonhap news agency, the country's flagship newswire service, was the latest to join the intensifying calls for fair, unbiased news coverage that is free from government influence.

It has been worried that the strike at Yonhap could affect nearly all news outlets in the country by disrupting them from gathering news. Union members of Yonhap went on strike starting March 15 in protest against the reappointment of incumbent president Park Jung-chan to another three-year term.

"We have lost everything from fair reporting to public trust, office democracy, and reasonable appointment during the three-year presidency of Park. We have nothing left to lose," a union leader at Yonhap was quoted by local media as saying at a ceremony marking the beginning of the strike.

Despite differences in their respective corporate situations, the underlying cause shared by the strikers is discontent towards alleged management interference in news coverage under direct and indirect influence of the government. The companies remain defiant, even though the protests grow in strength and numbers. MBC's Kim Jae-cheul has sued union members for defamation. KBS has also vowed stern action against what they call "illegal" strike.

However, the tide shows no sign of receding, with the strikers promoting various public events to convey the justness of their protests to ordinary citizens. A public concert was held on March 16 in Yeouido, Seoul, where the country's major broadcasters are located, to support the causes of the ongoing protests by journalists. Local media reported that some 20,000 citizens attended the event.

Read the original here:
S. Korean journalists stage walkouts against alleged gov't media control

March 18, 2012 in City

OLYMPIA Im not going to negotiate in the newsmedia.

Politicians at all levels love to utter that sentence when its to theiradvantage.

But lets get real. If they think it will help their cause, their legislation or their budget, they like nothing better than to negotiate in the media. If they get angry, frustrated, boxed in or closed out, they negotiate in themedia.

Last week, Senate Republicans and their three disaffected Democratic allies didnt just negotiate, they presented, explained and defended their brand-new budget proposal in Olympia. This annoyed some other participants in ongoing closed-door budget negotiations, who were taken by surprise at getting that proposal at the same time as the news media and the rest of thepublic.

Among the most irked was Gov. Chris Gregoire, who has been the chief cat herder of the Legislatures overtime budgeting process. When she took questions from reporters a few hours later, its a wonder the video didnt show steam coming out of her ears. She didnt negotiate, mind you. She did say that one thing Senate Republicans were proposing, charter schools, is DOA and lobbyists who want to see their bills signed better be calling legislators to give them a not-so-gentle push towardcompromising.

But when it came to discussing what options shes proposed for legislative leaders to consider, her answer was emphatic: IM not going to negotiate in themedia.

Protestations about negotiating in the media are a corollary to another theorem of public officialdom: that elected officials must discuss some things behind closed doors so they can speak freely. Makes one wonder what theyre self-censoring from their normal publiccomments.

In truth, everyone negotiates in the news media when its to their advantage and complains about it when its not. Like John Kerrys stance on the war in Iraq, theyre against it until theyre forit.

Here is the original post:
Spin Control: ‘Media’ negotiations are only problem when they don’t work - Sun, 18 Mar 2012 PST