Photos taken on Wednesday of Justin Bieber in Venice Beach were big news across the Web, because they exposed his latest tattoo. It’s another image of Jesus Christ, this time on the back of his left calf.

However, according to Mollie Ziegler of GetReligion.org, the Daily Mail got it wrong when they reported that the image was inspired by a 1610 Rubens fresco. She jokes that this topic may not be the most pressing issue to cover, but that she is doing so because her item earlier in the week about Christians in Nigeria got almost no hits:

I think the inspiration [for the Bieber tattoo] is the image I picture above (which I guess is a computer generated image of much more recent vintage, also done in the Ecce Homo style). This isn’t a science, but… I think it looks closer to the Ecce Homo I embedded at the top of the post. It even looks closer to Guido Rene’s Ecce Homo than Rubens, doesn’t it?

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It apparently wasn’t enough for HollywoodLife.com to pass on a bogus MSN.com story yesterday about Justin Bieber spending lots of time at the Playboy Mansion (and get called on it about five hours later). Today, the Penske Media outlet plows forward with EXCLUSIVE details about some of the reasons why this 17-year-old loves to hang in Holmby Hills.

But according to GossipCop.com, this slant is about as real as most Playmate bosoms. The celebrity media watchdog restates today that a rep for the singer confirmed Bieber has never been to the Playboy Mansion.

The only thing funnier than the fact that there are two bylined reporters (Russ Weakland, William Earl) for the December 20 HollywoodLife.com item is this part of the quote from an anonymous source: “Also, when he [Bieber] is there, it’s one of the few times that he really feels like a celebrity, so it is a major ego-booster.”

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Charlie Sheen accidentally tweeted his phone number to the internet.

“310-954-7277 Call me bro. C.” was supposed to be a direct message to Justin Bieber, but Twitter is hard for The Olds. According to the NY Post, Sheen was promptly besieged by countless phone calls and texts. His number has since been shut down.

It’s no surprise that the drug-addled Sheen had a Twitter blunder, but why the heck is he DMing Justin Bieber in the first place? No one over the age of 17 has any business sending their phone # to the Beebs. You stay away from that kid, Charlie. You got nothing he needs.

In this week’s episode of 5 Things You Need to Know This Week, Herman Cain sings about sexual harassment, Justin Bieber has a baby with Kate Middleton (I think I have that right), and nobody seems to know the whereabouts of Matt Lauer. Plus, we debut the 1st annual “Where in the World is Five Things You Need to Know This Week?”

For more videos, check out Mediabistro.tv, and be sure to follow us on Twitter: @mediabistroTV

Just how does a 17-year-old kid from Stratford, Ontario get this big, this fast? That’s the still worthwhile industry-side question underpinning Billboard‘s candy-striped cover story by Kerri Mason. The publication calls “Under the Mistletoe,” a Christmas-themed album arriving November 1 that is already responsible for a Facebook app and Bieber’s first-ever number one iTunes single, the singer’s most musically mature work to date.

The first cited explanation comes from Teen Vogue entertainment editor Danielle Nussbaum, and it’s a pretty good, albeit obvious, one. Her take:

“Justin Bieber is a pop culture phenomenon, and he got that way through social media. His fans made him famous, and he’s responded in kind by giving them every single piece of himself that he can. He’s created a brand, but also granted his fans a level of access that a lot of musicians just don’t.”

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A year ago, the first Patch located within LA’s city boundaries flipped the switch in Studio City with veteran journalist Mike Szymanski (pictured) at the helm. Today, in his one-year anniversary essay, he shares an intriguing metric:

I’m not supposed to give our monthly hits in specific numbers, but suffice it to say we reach more than the population of Studio City (and when our local homeboy Justin Bieber does something like bump his car, a whole lot more people stop in to see what’s going on.)

If Arianna Huffington has not yet picked up on this clever way of rating Patch traffic, FishbowlLA thinks she should. Moving forward, each and every Patch local editor should be able to at least hit a monthly mark equal to the latest local U.S. Census stats. Think of it as readership by representation.

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This must have made for some interesting dinner table conversation.

Cathleen Falsani, until recently a religion writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, has written a book about Justin Bieber. She also happens to share a marital household in Laguna Beach with Maurice Possley, a much lauded Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist. FishbowlLA would have loved to have been a fly on the OC wall when the topic turned to the Biebs.

Perhaps Possley had a hand in shaping the tone of the book. Due in stores September 27, Belieber! Faith, Fame and the Heart of Justin Bieber focuses on the teen sensation’s apparently unshakable spiritual beliefs. Insists Falsani: “Justin has a message beyond what many critics quickly dismiss as ‘puppy love.’ It is above love, God’s love for everyone. And his fans are listening.”

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Forget about all those “Gleeks” raking over the poor weekend box office performance of Glee: The 3D Concert Movie. What really threw FishbowlLA for a loop was the fact that today’s analysis at LATimes.com comes from Joshua Weinstein of TheWrap.

It’s an outgrowth of TheWrap’s recent expansion of a syndication deal with Reuters America. Still, it speaks volumes about the changing dynamics of today’s newspaper business that this Glee post-mortem came alive via TheWrap-to-Reuters-to-the-LA-Times.

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San Francisco headquartered  Twitter rankings firm Klout.com has come a long way since co-founder Joe Fernandez gravitated to social media after getting his jaw wired shut in 2007. These days, the firm’s individual power score rating system is an increasingly frequent conversation topic.

The latest noteworthy media piece about Klout comes from Amber MacArthur, a technology writer with Canada’s national newspaper, the Globe & Mail. She was sparked to look more seriously at Klout after a mention from ICM’s head of new media:

A friend of mine, a well-known talent agent in Los Angeles named George Ruiz (@georgeruiz), tweeted this: “Started to have conversations with brands and buyers about clients’ Klout scores. It begins.”

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It’s summertime. Which means Bieber-time here at FishbowlLA. Because, as we all know, real news doesn’t happen until after Labor Day. And thus we present you with this revolting little nugget from the LA Times about Justin Bieber‘s burgeoning perfume empire.

Miranda Santiago has chosen to spend part of her vacation from Argentina camped outside the store, near a life-sized cardboard cutout of singer Justin Bieber promoting his just-released fragrance for women, Someday. Never mind that most of the “women” here today are in middle school.

“I love him! I love him!” wails Santiago. “When I use the perfume, I feel him!” She and the others are vying to be among the first 325 to buy Bieber’s $135 VIP gift set the following morning, which comes with a chance to meet Bieber at Macy’s later in the week.

Bieber made over $3 million in perfume sales in three weeks from Macy’s alone. You hear that journos? Hundreds of thousands of people, from as far as Argentina, are willing to shell out 135 bucks for Justin Bieber perfume. But somehow newspapers can’t seem to stay in business.