The title of USC professor Steven Ross‘ upcoming book is hard to ignore – Hollywood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics.

The concept is equally intriguing. He chooses to examine the topic by focusing on ten individuals: Charlie Chaplin, Edward G. Robinson, George Murphy, Ronald Reagan, Harry Belafonte, Jane Fonda, Charlton Heston, Warren Beatty, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Ahead of the book’s publication in September via Oxford University Press, the Australian caught up with Ross in Sydney, where he was recently a visiting professor:

Ross found two things that defied conventional wisdom. First, conservatives had a longer history in Hollywood than liberals, beginning with MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer, who developed a relationship with the Republican party in the late 1920s, effectively turning MGM studios into a publicity wing.

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The trailer for the final Harry Potter movie has hit the internet, and we can hear the teenage screams from here. In fact, a few of those screams may be mine.

It is always interesting to see how a beloved book manifests on the screen, what makes it into the film, and what gets left out. The Warner Bros. franchise has done well so far, but this is the final chapter, the story’s climax, and our expectations are especially high.

More than a year into a joint partnership deal with Spartz Inc., the Northern California 17-year-old who founded Twitter feed @OMGFACTS says he has reaped a measly $100 from the arrangement. As a result, per an exclusive report by Hollywood Reporter legal eagle Eriq Gardner, the teen’s mom is now suing on his-their behalf.

The account @OMGFACTS is a classic Twitter success story. By re-purposing funky trivia tidbits about pop culture, Adorian Deck has accumulated more than 1,750,000 followers. But it sounds like the family gave business partner Emerson Spartz some foolish fine print leeway:

The deal is said to have entitled Deck to profits for merchandising and a share of YouTube revenue, but allegedly didn’t require Spartz to disclose those revenues. The contract is also said to have assigned Spartz Inc. “any copyright in any existing or future works” for OMGFACTS…

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A couple of weeks ago, it was announced that former LA radio mainstay Warren Duffy (pictured) was launching a SoCal satellite arm of his wife’s D.C. based organization CFACT (Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow). Today, he offers up an inaugural podcast that amounts to An Inconvenient Rebuttal.

Duffy sounds a bit like the late, legendary Paul Harvey. He starts off his 26-minute broadcast with some statistical ammunition:

“Some bad news from the federal government for Al Gore and his crowd of environmental exaggerators… The Environmental Protection Agency handed out a new report this week, and guess what? Greenhouse gas emissions are down, and down dramatically, and we didn’t need California cap-and-trade to do it.

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At Tuesday’s L.A. City Council meeting, members voted against installing porn-filtering software on library computers.

City librarian Martin Gomez came out against porn filters, telling the City Council that “there’s a potential to begin a path to being on a slippery slope. We think it’s the responsibility of the parent to monitor the children’s use of the library, including the collection, as well as their computer use.”

Gomez also pointed out that the software is flawed, and could block useful information, such as searches for breast cancer.

The library system is currently working on alternative solutions, such installing new privacy screens, and positioning the computers so other patrons will not be able to see what is being viewed.

Hat tip Fox LA

Interesting bit of synchronicity for trailblazing media watchdog GossipCop.com. The same week that TV Guide Network announced it is developing a new show based on the outlet, Star magazine has been forced to issue a major apology (and charity donation) to actress Katie Holmes, for a story first debunked by the website. On the cover of the January 20th issue, Star equated her fondness for Church of Scientology e-meter treatments to a serious drug addiction.

Certainly, Star and its glossy ilk get stuff wrong all the time. But it’s not every newsstand-day that a $50 million (now settled) lawsuit forces one of these mags to eat celebrity crow by teasing a subsequent apology on the very same cover. In bold white letters across the top of this week’s issue, the American Media publication declares: “Star Apologizes to Katie Holmes – Inside”

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Despite calls from 21 attorney generals across the nation and child sex trafficking advocates like the Rebecca Project, Village Voice Media (parent company of the LA Weekly) and its online classified site Backpage.com is steamrolling ahead with its decision to keep accepting escort ads–months after the government forced Craigslist to shutter its popular “erotic services” section. That decision, though ethically questionable, is reaping huge financial dividends according to the New York Observer.

Backpage, which is a fraction of the size of Craigslist, is the only popular classifieds site left willing to host the paid escort and body-rub ads that are often thinly veiled fronts for prostitution. In the month after Craigslist closed its erotic services sections under pressure from Congress and state attorneys general, Backpage enjoyed a half-million-visitor bump in traffic, according to Quantcast, and became the No. 1 publisher of escort ads on the Internet. The Aim Group, a media consulting firm, estimated that in January, Backpage brought in $2.1 million in revenue from erotic services ads alone.

That’s big cash for a company that just settled its presumably multi-million dollar lawsuit (the terms of the deal were never disclosed) with the San Francisco Bay Guardian. And VVM is more than a bit touchy about holding on to that revenue. Last month this article ran in print or on the websites of all VVM papers, criticizing a Women’s Funding Network study which shows child prostitution is a booming business–aided by online ads.

Conflict of interest much VVM?

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After five years of lampooning the local TV news business in a five-minute format, web series Goodnight Burbank has expanded to a half-hour. Episode #1 debuted Monday on Hulu.com, which is on board to host at least six expanded installments:

Among the characters on the program is Daily Show-like field reporter Paul Lynch, played by Dominic Monaghan. Lynch is a purveyor of monstrously bad puns; for example, after reporting on “East Korea and West Korea”, he mused that he never thought such coverage would be a part of his “journalism Korea.”

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LA Times (among other places) cartoonist Ted Rall is apparently fed up with the pay grade in the media world. So he’s taking a new tact–auctioning his services to the highest bidder online.

Writes Rall: “You can be an individual or the editor of a huge newspaper. Either way, I’m auctioning off the right to commission a cartoon about any topic. You get the right to print or post the art AND you get the original artwork. I’ve just posted it to eBay.”

Rall started the bidding at 99 cents. He’s up to $202.50. “Still a bargain” as he puts it. Place your bid here.

H/T Altweeklies.com

FCC commissioner Michael Copps, who has come out as an unapologetic voice against media consolidation, spoke at USC’s Walter Cronkite Award ceremony for broadcast journalism this week–where he basically said that while the award recipients present were doing solid work, they were in the minority. According to Copps, media consolidation has put good broadcast journalists out of work, and switched the emphasis from hard-hitting local reporting to eyeball-catching fluff.

Broadcasting and Cable was at the event to catch Copps’ speech:

[Copps] laid some of the blame on past and present FCCs. The past, Republican-led commissions for “blessing just about every media merger transaction that came their way, but wiping the slate virtually clean of the public interest guidelines and responsibilities of licensees.” As he has before, he also took aim at the current Democratic-led FCC for not converting the Obama victory into progressive change.

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