Cursor's Media Patrol - 12/30/05

After Knight Ridder's Tom Lasseter reported that 'Kurds in Iraqi army proclaim loyalty to militia,' an Iraqi army office said quotes in the story "are false and created by followers of the ex-regime." Lasseter writes that "It wasn't clear whether the ministry was accusing Kurdish soldiers - almost all staunch opponents of the former regime of Saddam Hussein - or the Knight Ridder reporter of ties to the former regime."

A recently-passed House bill, introduced by Rep. James Sensenbrenner and praised by President Bush, would subject priests, nurses and social workers who render aid to illegal immigrants to five years in prison and seizure of assets.

The Los Angeles Times marks the passing of a pioneer media analyst whose research convinced him that "heavy television viewers (more than four hours daily) came to consider the world as rightly belonging to 'the power and money elite' depicted on the small screen."

Now that "reporters are ... paid by whose stories get the most clicks," a Seattle Times columnist ponders "the most widely read material this paper has published in its 109-year history" -- 'But Here's Why.'