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Justice Dept. Defends Seizure of AP Phone Records (NYT)
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Tuesday defended the Justice Department’s sweeping seizure of telephone records of Associated Press journalists, describing the article by the AP that prompted a criminal investigation as among “the top two or three most serious leaks that I’ve ever seen” in a 35-year career. “It put the American people at risk, and that is not hyperbole,” he said in an apparent reference to an article on May 7, 2012, that disclosed the foiling of a terrorist plot by Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen to bomb an airliner. The Washington Post / Opinions The usual reason for keeping a subpoena secret is that the target would otherwise try to destroy documents. In this case, the AP could not have done so even if it wanted to, since the relevant records were in the possession of its phone service providers. Without even giving AP a chance to weigh in, we don’t see how the department could intelligently weigh its prosecutorial needs against this broad subpoena’s chilling effect on reporters and their sources. HuffPost / The Backstory Associated Press Washington bureau chief Sally Buzbee was among the journalists targeted in the Justice Department’s sweeping seizure of phone records that has drawn widespread condemnation from members of the media and free speech advocates, an AP spokeswoman confirmed to The Huffington Post. FishbowlNY The Department of Justice is trying to brush off the secret accessing of AP editors’ and reporters’ phone records. The agency already sent one bland letter to the AP about the incident, and Tuesday, it sent another. According to AP CEO and president Gary Pruitt, both letters from the DOJ basically said “Meh,” and not much else about the scary over-extension of the government. B&C Society of Professional Journalists president Sonny Albarado has condemned the Justice Department’s alleged secret collection of AP reporter and editor phone records and said it highlights the need for a federal shield law. Politico / Dylan Byers on Media The Associated Press Media Editors Association has joined other journalists in condemning the Justice Department’s seizure of Associated Press phone records, calling it part of the Obama administration’s “continuing witch hunt for leaks and whistleblowers.” TVNewser Fox News host Bill O’Reilly said this may be the least of President Obama’s worries. “I don’t think that’s going to amount to much,” O’Reilly said of the phone taps. “It looks like they went through the warrant process and they had authorization to look at these records — the Justice Department did. But President Obama, he’s got some problems now. He better start to get control of the situation because there’s a lot of stuff going on.”

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The Twitter profile for LA Times DC bureau reporter Matea Gold resolutely states: “I still believe in newspapers.” But perhaps not those being coveted by Rupert Murdoch and a pair of Koch brothers.

In what could be interpreted as hedging her bets, maintaining control of her professional fortunes or a little bit of both, Gold is staying in DC but moving up in terms of the daily Beltway newspaper she writes for, as money and politics reporter for the Washington Post.

Warm wishes are flowing across Twitter to Gold, proof of how well-liked a journalist she is. That’s how we first caught up to the news. Kevin Roderick has the Post announcement memo. He also spoke to Gold, who seems to confirm ever so slightly that the transitional aspect of Tribune Co. had something to do with this.

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Kris Kristofferson has been friends with singer-songwriter John Flynn for a long time. But when the two step on stage together next month in Malibu, it will mark the first time the pair has officially performed together.

The June 23 7:30 p.m. concert at Pepperdine University’s Smothers Theater will benefit Homeboy Industries. Tickets are priced at $45, $75 and a VIP package of $250. That last option, for those able to afford it, includes a post-concert reception with the artists and Homeboy guiding spirit Father Greg Boyle. Flynn’s discovery of Homeboy’s mission connects to another Kristofferson family member:

Flynn first heard about Homeboy Industries when he and Kristofferson’s daughter Kelly swapped their favorite books and he received Father Boyle’s book Tattoos on the Heart. The Pennsylvania singer-songwriter is a longtime leader of New Beginnings, a support group at the state prison in his area, and the “real stories” in Tattoos were a poignant reminder for Flynn of his experiences working with men in the prison system.

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The event beginning this afternoon at 4 p.m. on Maple Drive is private. In attendance alongside the late honoree’s children and grandchildren will be those who knew Ruth Kraft mainly as an avid tennis player who in recent years courageously battled cancer.

Before all those matches at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club and successful real estate investments made with late husband Gilman Kraft, who passed away in 1999, Ruth was a long-time LA publisher. From the obituary in Playbill:

In 1966, she moved to Los Angeles with her husband, a former owner of Playbill. Together, they began Performing Arts magazine, a publication similar to Playbill that served California theaters.

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First, you find a bureau chief. Then – if you’re lucky and work for a media outlet that still has money in the bank – you go beyond the freelance-stringer frontier and give that bureau chief some full-time local assistance.

Such is the case with Ad Age’s San Francisco operation. After installing Cotton Delo as Bay Area bureau chief, the media publication will add, post-Memorial Day weekend, Tim Peterson (pictured), a journalist plucked from competitor Adweek. Via this morning’s announcement:

It’s been a while since Ad Age has had more than one edit staffer in the Bay Area and we think now’s a good time to crank up our coverage there…

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Sometimes, being a sportswriter is no fun at all. The assignments, especially in this blog-tastic digital age, occasionally barely pass the jock-strap smell test.

So… you try to make the best of it. Here for example is LAT sportswriter Chuck Schilken dutifully catching up to a weekend meeting of reality TV show minds Dennis Rodman, Kendall Jenner and Kylie Jenner at the Brea Mall:

Maybe the so-called basketball diplomat was seeking their advice on how to handle the sticky Kim Jong-un/Kenneth Bae situation…

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Earlier this year, actress Angelina Jolie underwent a preventative double mastectomy after genetic testing revealed she had a high probability of developing breast cancer.

The actress candidly discussed the elective procedure in a column for today’s New York Times titled “My Medical Choice.” Jolie’s mother, Marcheline Bertrand, died of breast cancer in 2007 at the age of 56 after battling the disease for nearly a decade. The loss of her mother strongly influenced her decision to have the procedure.

Husband Brad Pitt was there “for every minute of the surgeries,” Jolie notes, and said the experience has brought the couple closer together.

Jolie’s role as a sex symbol lends the narrative a special resonance, given how devastating the procedure can be for women’s self-image. “I do not feel any less of a woman,” she writes. “I feel empowered that I made a strong choice that in no way diminishes my femininity.”

Jolie opted for reconstructive surgeries and implants following the mastectomies. “There have been many advances in this procedure in the last few years, and the results can be beautiful.”

Jolie says she was able to carry on with her work during the three months of medical procedures. She’ll next be appearing on the big screen as the title character in Disney’s Maleficent. The film is set for a summer release in 2014.

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Gov’t Obtains Wide AP Phone Records in Probe (The Associated Press / The Big Story)
The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how news organizations gather the news. The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, for general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. The Guardian The AP’s president and chief executive officer, Gary Pruitt, sent a letter of protest to the attorney-general, Eric Holder. “These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know,” Pruitt said. HuffPost / The Backstory Though the DOJ did not give the AP a specific reason for the seizure, the dates of the phone calls it targeted offered a clear tell. On May 7, 2012, AP reporters Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo, citing anonymous sources, reported that the CIA had thwarted a plot by an al-Qaeda affiliate to “destroy a U.S.-bound airliner using a bomb with a sophisticated new design around the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden.” Politico Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren told Politico in an email that the DOJ’s seizure “sounds like a dragnet to intimidate the media,” not a criminal investigation. “What is stunning is the breadth of the seizure!” Van Susteren said. EFF While the government has not confirmed, the subpoenas appear to stem from an investigation into a government leak of information to the AP. This is not a sufficient excuse. Imagine if “Deep Throat,” the informant critical to Woodward and Bernstein’s investigation of the 1972 Watergate burglary, knew that his identity could be obtained through legal process. His career, and perhaps his life, would have been in serious jeopardy, and a cautious individual would have kept silent. TVNewser Former CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier, now an intelligence and counterterrorism reporter for the AP, was one of the journalists who had their phone logs seized. Dozier was seriously injured in Iraq in 2006. She left CBS for the AP in 2010. FishbowlNY Sadly, the saying “If you’re not worried, you’re not paying attention” never seems more relevant than now.

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Here’s how Los Angeles Daily News columnist Richard Waggoner put it earlier this spring when rumors of program director Jhani Kaye’s departure from K-Earth 101 and The Wave 94.7 FM were confirmed:

Considered by many, including myself, as one of the true geniuses of radio, Kaye refined the idea of flow as it pertains to the sound of a radio station. Bob Moore, who was managing adult-contemporary KHTZ (now KAMP, 97.1 FM) when Kaye was named to the programming position at new competitor KOST in the 1980s, said that Kaye likened the soft-rock station to a wave, moving up and down gently.

He says that Kaye is the reason KHTZ changed to classic rock in 1986 – he just couldn’t compete against Kaye’s programming prowess.

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Tomorrow night’s Live Talks Los Angeles event featuring Burt Bacharach in conversation with Mitch Albom is notable for a couple of additional reasons. It will mark the three-year anniversary of the popular local series and is the first of several Live Talks events planned for Glendale’s Alex Theatre.

It all began May 14, 2010 with author Jane Smiley interviewing Dave Barry. Since then, series founder-producer Ted Habte-Gabr has staged more than 100 events, bringing together everyone from Steve Martin and Tina Fey to Fred Willard and Darrell Hammond to Sharon Waxman and Sir Michael Caine. In addition to the evening series, which focuses for the most part on arts and culture, Habte-Gabr curates a downtown daytime business-themed bracket, Live Talks Business.

“We have three events booked at the Alex,” Habte-Gabr tells FishbowlLA via telephone. “The first one is Burt Bacharach; the second one is Phil Jackson in conversation with John Salley on June 12; and the third one is Neil Gaiman in conversation with Geoff Boucher, June 27. Then the Alex shuts down for some major renovations and they open back up in November, at which point we’ll probably have one or two more events there before the end of the year.”

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