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A Los Angeles sportswriter who stunned readers with the announcement that he was a transsexual - and then later abandoned his sex change plans - has committed suicide. Los Angeles Times veteran Mike Penner, 52, was found dead at his home, the paper reported Saturday. In 2007, Penner made headlines around the world by announcing in a column for the paper that he planned to live life as a woman named Christine Daniels. "Today I leave for a few weeks' vacation, and when I return, I will come back in yet another incarnation. As Christine," he wrote.

MEXICO CITY – A news reporter who wrote about violent drug crimes has been strangled in the northern Mexican state of Durango, authorities said Tuesday. El Tiempo de Durango journalist Jose Bladimir Antuna was kidnapped Monday morning, said Ruben Lopez, spokesman for the state Attorney General's Office. Authorities found his body that night in a vacant lot in the state capital, about 400 miles southwest of Laredo, Texas. State authorities are investigating the murder. Lopez would not specify whether they suspected connections with organized crime. But Antuna had told his colleagues at the newspaper that he had received multiple telephone...

I STOOD in the bathroom of the Taliban compound and waited for my colleague to appear in the courtyard so we could make our escape. My heart pounded. A three-foot-tall swamp cooler — an antiquated version of an air-conditioner — roared in the yard a few feet in front of me. I feared that the guards who were holding us hostage might wake up and stop us. I feared even more that our captivity would drag on for years.

Iran's state-run media says the government has released an Iranian-Canadian journalist on bail almost four months after he was arrested following the country's disputed presidential election. The Islamic Republic News Agency says Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari was freed from Tehran's Evin Prison on Saturday evening after posting bail of 3 billion rials ($300,000), citing the Tehran prosecutor's office. Newsweek confirmed the release in a statement posted on its Web site.

Stephen Farrell, a New York Times reporter held captive by militants in northern Afghanistan, was freed in a military commando raid early Wednesday, but his Afghan interpreter was killed during the rescue effort.

NBC's Today Show has hired someone with White House experience as a new correspondent---former First Daugher, Jenna Hager... The daughter of former President George W. Bush will contribute stories about once a month on issues like education to television's top-rated morning news show, said Jim Bell, its executive producer...

Obama too hands-off on health care?

Since 2003, Bangladeshi journalist and peace activist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury has been investigated by Bangladeshi authorities on charges of sedition, treason and insulting religious belief. Choudhury, 44, has spent years opposing Muslim extremism through his writings, especially the Weekly Blitz which he started in 2003. He has called for interfaith dialogue and for normalizing relations between Muslim countries and Israel. On Wednesday, Choudhury returns to court. He is accused of insulting Islam and harming the state's reputation abroad, charges which, when couched as "sedition," carry a possible death penalty.

FORT BELVOIR, Va. , June 23, 2009 – Beth Reece always dreamed of seeing her name in print. But as a young girl growing up in the sleepy town of Beckley, W.Va., she couldn’t have known how much the military would help her achieve that goal. Reece loved to write and had a passion for words. By the time she graduated high school, she was determined to make a career of writing, but wasn’t sure how she would pay for the college degree that would be her springboard into the world of journalism. So she decided to go to work...

A New York Times reporter known for making investigative trips deep inside dangerous conflict zones escaped from militant captors after more than seven months in captivity by climbing over a wall, the newspaper said Saturday. David S. Rohde was abducted Nov. 10 along with an Afghan reporter colleague and a driver south of the Afghan capital, Kabul. He had been traveling through Logar province to interview a Taliban commander, but was apparently intercepted and taken by other militants on the way. The Times reported that Rohde and Afghan reporter Tahi Ludin on Friday climbed over the wall of a compound...

The Hollywood private eye, who is serving a 15-year sentence for wiretapping and racketeering, and an accomplice allegedly left a dead fish and a rose on an ex-L.A. Times reporter's broken windshield.

<p>Airport security officers carried the woman away by the feet and arms as she protested her removal.</p> <p>She later identified herself as Brenda Lee, a writer for the Georgia Informer in Macon and said she has White House press credentials. The newspaper's Web site says it is a monthly publication, and a Brenda Lee column is posted on it.</p>

A reporter for a small newspaper was forcibly removed from a press area near Air Force One shortly before President Barack Obama arrived at Los Angeles International Airport to depart California early Thursday. Enlarge Photo Secret Service personnel remove Brenda Lee from near Air Force One after Lee attempted to give President Obama a letter, Thursday May 28, 2009, at LAX. Top News Photos View SlideshowSee amazing photos from around the globe... The Obama Presidency in Photos View SlideshowTake a look at the best photos of President Obama and his family captured during the first few months in office. Airport...

A reporter for a small newspaper was forcibly removed from a press area near Air Force One shortly before President Barack Obama arrived at Los Angeles International Airport to depart California early Thursday. Airport security officers carried the woman away by the feet and arms as she protested her removal. She later identified herself as Brenda Lee, a writer for the Georgia Informer in Macon and said she has White House press credentials. The newspaper's Web site says it is monthly publication a Brenda Lee column is posted on it. Calls to the newspaper and the White House press office...

The US-Iranian journalist jailed in Iran, Roxana Saberi, has been freed from prison after having her sentence for spying reduced. Lawyers for Ms Saberi, 31, whose imprisoning sparked a global outcry, said she left Tehran's Evin jail hours after her eight-year term was cut. She will be able to leave the country but has been banned from working as a journalist in Iran for five years. The White House welcomed the release as a "humanitarian gesture". Ms Saberi was convicted of spying for the US in April but denied the charge.

The United States Department of Veterans Affairs has not released a memory card containing audio interviews conducted by a local radio reporter four days after federal employees and security officers detained the reporter and seized his equipment.

[video] You’re the press secretary for the most powerful man on the planet. You’re in the middle of the greatest financial crisis in generations. Terrorists threaten the future of the world. Under the circumstances, people hang on your every word. Unless you’re Robert Gibbs, the president’s press secretary. He smirks, he snarls, he smears, but even that isn’t enough to keep reporters from falling into deathlike trances during his daily press briefings. One member of the White House press corps actually fell asleep yesterday. You can see her over the left shoulder of the reporter asking the question in this...

Video at link. http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=295683

During the daily White House press briefing today one reporter seemed to be having a hard time staying awake.

[video] Yes, we hate the media, so we love mistakes on the news. C’mon, admit it. You love those live TV screw-ups as much as we do. We have to give this Barbie credit – she kept her composure better than we would have.

Following Leon Panetta’s confirmation hearing Thursday, several reporters approached the CIA director-designate in the hallway outside room G-50 in the Dirksen Building. There, CongressDaily reporter Chris Strohm — upon asking a question — was physically restrained by a man who accompanied Panetta at hearings both days. Strohm, when reached by phone Friday, said he was unsure of the man’s role. “I felt this hand grab my right arm and push me aside,” Strohm said. By his account, Strohm told the man, “Please don’t touch me” more than once. Eventually, the man let him go. Tim Starks, a reporter for Congressional...

Impartial reporter jumps rope barrier to get Obama autograph, busted by Secret Service February 6, 2009[edit] OMG!!!! It's Barack Obama! OMG!!!! It's Barack Obama! A completely impartial reporter was arrested yesterday after jumping over a rope barrier, squealing like a teenage girl watching the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, and trying to get President Obama’s autograph. Luckily, the president’s Secret Service detail grabbed the impartial reporter, and took him away for a little good, old fashioned interrogation. Reports say the man was later seen boxing up his impartial personal items in the White House press room and being impartially led away....

Following Leon Panetta’s confirmation hearing Thursday, several reporters approached the CIA director-designate in the hallway outside room G-50 in the Dirksen Building. There, CongressDaily reporter Chris Strohm — upon asking a question — was physically restrained by a man who accompanied Panetta at hearings both days. Strohm, when reached by phone Friday, said he was unsure of the man’s role. “I felt this hand grab my right arm and push me aside,” Strohm said. By his account, Strohm told the man, “Please don’t touch me” more than once. Eventually, the man let him go. Tim Starks, a reporter for Congressional...

NEW YORK (AP) - News organizations that cover the White House sparred with the Obama administration on Thursday over access issues for photographers and rules for briefings. Representatives from Obama's press office held a conference call with photo editors, who are concerned that the administration prefers distributing photos taken by a White House photographer in cases where photojournalists have been permitted access in the past. It was unclear whether the two sides had reached any accommodation. The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse refused to distribute photos taken by the White House of the new president on his first day...

Reporter Helen Thomas is often described as "venerable." That's because she's 1) Older than dirt; and 2) as liberal as the federal deficit is huge. We receive an important lesson from her on what it means to be a "reporter" in today's world: Helen Thomas: I'm a liberal, I was born a liberal, I'll be one 'til I die, what else should a reporter be when you see so much and when we have such great privilege and access to the truth? CBC Interviewer: Well, you know, it's interesting because I'm sure that if somebody from the right was sitting...

A female journalist who reported on women's rights and spoke out against the dowry system in southern Nepal was killed by a group of attackers, an official said Monday.

A Chinese newspaper reporter investigating a suspicious real estate deal has not been seen since hotel security tapes showed five men pushing him into a car two weeks ago,his son and a newspaper said on Monday. The case appears to be the second in recent weeks involving journalists who colleagues said were targeted for probing graft in a part of north China rich in both coal and corruption claims. Guan Jian,reporter for the small Network News (Wangluo Bao) paper, was seized from a hotel lobby in north China's Shanxi province on Dec. 1 and forced into a waiting four-wheel drive....

Thought ya'll might get a kick out of this, as the reality of Democrat Party economic policy hits home for this kook. "So, I became another casualty of this devastating economic climate. I lost my job today. It was not totally unexpected. About a month ago, there was a big meeting at the company. We were told that at least 35 people would be laid off. Nobody’s job was safe. The announcement of layoffs would come, they said, in the middle of November. November came and passed without a word. Then today, around noon, I got a call to come...

Hi Bill, In your recent Townhall piece you posit that there are Republicans who feel that Governor Palin is too unqualified to lead, so it's better for them if they maginalize her now so they won't have to deal with her again in 2012. You couldn't be more wrong. Her assailants, from the Right and the Left (and the media..., ahem) have seen what she has done in Alaska as Governor. Huge Oil Company lobbies shut down. Oil revenues going into the hands of the voters. Powerful, entrenched "old boy network" mavens gone, castrated, or in jail... Democrats and Republicans....

Republicans have been breathlessly waiting for a prominent Republican official to finally go after the corrupt and biased media propaganda machine, and throughout this election campaign, there has been little promise that we would ever see it. Better late than never. At long, long last, one of our own drew some blood: Barney, the first dog, finally decided to bite a reporter. Apparently, he was as sick of the disgusting media jackals as I have become. Mind you, that Reuters journalist is fortunate that Barney did not bite him where I would have bitten him were I in Barney's place....

The credit card of a television anchor woman left in critical condition after a brutal beating in her home was used in the minutes following the attack. Anne Pressly's credit card was used at a Shell gas station near her Little Rock, Ark., home between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. on Monday morning, an attendant told America's Most Wanted. Shell station clerk Shiva Reddy told FOX16.com that police did visit the station at Interstate 30 and 9th Street on Tuesday to request surveillance video from early Monday morning, in the hours around the time Pressly was brutally beaten.

The credit card of a television anchor woman left in critical condition after a brutal beating in her home was used in the minutes following the attack. Anne Pressly's credit card was used at a Shell gas station near her Little Rock, Ark., home between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. on Monday morning, an attendant told America's Most Wanted. Shell station clerk Shiva Reddy told FOX16.com that police did visit the station at Interstate 30 and 9th Street on Tuesday to request surveillance video from early Monday morning, in the hours around the time Pressly was brutally beaten.

Former USA Today reporter Toni Locy urged the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington on Thursday not to throw out her case seeking a reporter’s privilege to keep her sources confidential. Locy became embroiled in the legal battle after reporting about Steven Hatfill, the former Army scientist who was investigated in the 2001 anthrax attacks but whose name has since been cleared. When Locy refused to give up her confidential sources in Hatfill's ensuing Privacy Act suit against the government, the U.S. District Court in D.C. held her in contempt. She appealed that decision to the Court of Appeals.

Newsweek reporter says, if Obama doesn't win it proves America is racist. I was waiting for that ... . Look at "Reality Check" video on the right. It's the Foc News Videos - "Top Video" right now. http://www.foxnews.com/

SANTA ANA – A Washington Times reporter has been subpoenaed by a federal judge who wants him to reveal the sources for a story he wrote about an engineer convicted of conspiracy to export U.S. defense technology to China. National security reporter Bill Gertz was ordered to appear before U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney in June, the newspaper reported Saturday. The judge has also requested e-mail messages, files and correspondences. Gertz cited U.S. government sources in a 2006 story saying that Justice Department officials approved an indictment against Tai Mak and that four of Mak's relatives would also be charged....

KUSI reporter Rod Luck has been placed on an extended leave of absence after his recent arrest. He was arrested Friday in San Francisco on misdemeanor domestic violence and battery charges. Luck is accused of punching his girlfriend in the mouth while staying at a hotel. KUSI News Director Steve Cohen says there's no timeline for the leave of absence. Luck is a live reporter for Good Morning San Diego and Inside San Diego. He's been at KUSI since 1990.

Africa's leading thug, Zimbabwe's Mugabe, gives every sign of resorting to whatever it takes to hold on to power in that tortured country.

Newschannel 7 reporter Charmayne Brown and photographer Ti Barnes are doing ok, after being attacked while covering a story in Union Tuesday.

Rebecca Aguilar's 14-year career as a Fox4 reporter has officially ended via a letter from an attorney representing the station. In a telephone interview Wednesday night, Aguilar, 49, said she was checking her mail at mid-afternoon that day when she noticed an envelope under her front door mat. It informed her that Fox4 was exercising an option to drop her at the halfway point of a two-year contract that began on March 6, 2007. "No doorbell, no knock on the door," said Aguilar, who had been on paid suspension since Oct. 16th following her controversial interview with an elderly West...

<p>NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Republican Sen. John McCain, showing a flash of the temper he is known for, repeatedly cut off a reporter Friday when asked whether he had spoken to Democratic Sen. John Kerry about being his vice president in 2004.</p>

Senator John McCain and his Mideast policy inclinations are being challenged over an interview that he granted two years ago to Amir Oren, a journalist from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, on May 1, 2006, in which McCain declared that his administration "would send "the smartest guy I know" to the Middle East: "Brent Scowcroft, or Jim Baker though I know that you in Israel don't like Baker." McCain reportedly added: "I would expect concessions and sacrifices by both sides." When Oren asked McCain if that meant a "movement toward the June 4, 1967 armistice lines, with minor modifications," the reporter...

Bravo By Day, Bravo By Night January 17, 2008 It’s hard to remember when the day went from routine, almost boring, to unpredictable, even exciting. It’s hard to remember when we went from chatting up the locals in town to staring at piles of dirt in the desert. I know we got back to the base at about 11:00 pm. I know I hadn’t peed since 8:30 am. I had eaten an Otis Spunkmeyer muffin around lunchtime, figuring that would hold me until dinner. But then dinner turned out to be goldfish crackers and the hard candy that is kept...

OAKLAND, Calif. - A heated exchange between former President Clinton and a television news reporter circulated on the Internet Thursday. During a campaign stop for his wife in Oakland a day earlier, Clinton became visibly annoyed when KGO-TV reporter Mark Mathews asked him whether Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign should take a stronger stand against a union's lawsuit to keep casino workers from caucusing at special precincts in Nevada. "I had nothing to do with that lawsuit and you know it," said Bill Clinton, who had been in the Bay Area talking to residents and real estate professionals about home...

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan - Dozens of Afghan journalists and activists on Saturday sought the release of a journalist detained by security officials for allegedly making blasphemous comments. The 23-year-old Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh, reporter of Jahan-e Naw daily paper and a journalism student at Balkh University in northern Afghanistan, was detained three months ago. Kambakhsh was accused of mocking Islam and the holy book, the Koran, and for distributing an article which said Prophet Mohammad had ignored the rights of women. Activists gathered outside at the Human Rights Commission’s office in Mazar-i-Sharif, the provincial capital of Balkh, demanding the journalist’s release. Habibullah...

Guardian journalist expelled from Iran Guardian Unlimited January 4 2008 The Guardian's Tehran correspondent, Robert Tait, has been expelled from Iran without explanation after nearly three years of reporting from the country. Tait was forced to leave the country after the Iranian authorities declined to renew his visa and residence permit, despite an appeal on his behalf from the Guardian's editor, -excerpt- He is now back in the UK, along with his Iranian wife. The ministry gave no reason for its decision but said the newspaper was free to put forward another journalist as its correspondent in Iran. Tait, 43,...

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - A former "Dateline NBC" correspondent claims that in the aftermath of September 11, the network diverted him from reporting on al Qaeda and instead wanted him to ride along with the country's "forgotten heroes," firefighters. John Hockenberry, who was laid off from "Dateline" in early 2005, wrote in this month's Technology Review that on the Sunday after the September 2001 attacks he was pitching stories on the origins of al Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalism. He claimed that then-NBC programming chief Jeff Zucker, who came into a meeting Hockenberry was having with "Dateline" executive producer David...

A video of the apology at the link.

NEW YORK (AP) - The U.S. military plans to seek a criminal case in an Iraqi court against an award-winning Associated Press photographer but is refusing to disclose what evidence or accusations would be presented. An AP attorney on Monday strongly protested the decision, calling the U.S. military plans a "sham of due process." The journalist, Bilal Hussein, has already been imprisoned without charges for more than 19 months. A public affairs officer notified the AP on Sunday that the military intends to submit a written complaint against Hussein that would bring the case into the Iraqi justice system as...

The ex-newspaper editor took great delight in making fun of President Bush for falling off a Segway - the two-wheeled, motorised, gyroscopically balanced scooter that, its makers promise, will never fall over. However, he was bitten by karma and suffered the same fate as Bush.

Katie Couric To Report From Iraq NEW YORK (AP) - Katie Couric plans to leave Wednesday for an ambitious reporting trip to Iraq —the CBS anchor's first time in the war zone—in anticipation of a crucial military report on progress of the American effort. Since Couric took over the anchor position at CBS Evening News, ratings have plummeted, leading to speculation she would be fired but for her long-term contract. "I'm not going anywhere, I don't care what the ratings do," the spunky Couric remarked when recently questioned about the newscast's rocket-sled ride to ratings Hell. Reportedly, CBS is sending...