Entertainment executives are fond of saying that no matter what happens with technology, what will always matter most is good storytelling. What they don't say -- but what they've begun to wonder -- is whether those stories may be on the way to becoming loss leaders, and if the content...

"Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?"

That was the headline last week on a blog posted by New York Times public editor Arthur Brisbane.

Brisbane is the Times' ombudsman; his job is to hold the paper accountable to journalistic standards and to act as its readers'...

What did I miss?

For seven days I didn't have salt, meat or CNN. My mornings began without Morning Joe or Morning Edition; I saw sunrise on a mountain hike, not with a clicker in my hand. My daily hour devoted to the New York Times was given over to...

The only thing the Chinese could have done worse with Christian Bale would have been to pepper spray him.

China has a lot riding on "The Flowers of War." At $100 million, not only is it the biggest-budget Chinese movie ever, and its entrant for the foreign film Academy...

Did you see how Newt Gingrich kept winking during Saturday night's Republican debate? I'll bet you $10,000 I'm the one he was winking at.

Maybe you thought it was just a "there he goes again" wink to his Iowa audience, like the Reagan twinkle that made Jimmy...

This is the disclaimer that Britain's Public Interest Research Centre recently proposed for inclusion on billboards:

"This advertisement may influence you in ways of which you are not consciously aware. Buying consumer goods is unlikely to improve your wellbeing, and borrowing to buy consumer goods may be unwise;...

Over the years, in some places I've lived, I've sometimes found myself totally freaked out by a cockroach invasion. As soon after that as I could manage, I'd be holding a can of roach spray in my hand, blasting those buggers mercilessly. Sometimes the environmentalist in me might feel a...

"Are you not entertained?"

That was Jon Stewart's response to Rick Perry's brain freeze. He said it twice, maniacally. "Are you not entertained?" Stewart's right about what's happening. America is on track for the most amusing apocalypse ever. Things may be going to hell, but the campaign...

No one knows what difference Occupy Wall Street will turn out to make.

This could be the start of something big. Maybe the burgeoning sense that something is not right in America will reach a critical mass. It's already showing up in the polls. Maybe more and more ordinary...

Forget the fantasy of Hillary Clinton taking Joe Biden's place on the 2012 ballot. Not only because it is not going to happen. The theory that having Hillary on the ticket would galvanize the base and that coveted independent voters, especially women, would break toward Democrats, has no deeper roots...

It's premature to give the Nobel Peace Prize to those Occupy Wall Street kids. But it also may be too soon to blow them off as clueless hipsters "with nowhere to go," as New York Times columnist Charles Blow did, calling the two weeks "a festival of frustrations,...

You look terrific. Have you lost weight? Are you working out? You've got this glow about you. I bet you're in love. Wait -- you were promoted. That's it, isn't it? They finally recognized how talented you are. By the way, did you know that the average global surface temperature...

Drug users and dealers on TV shows are mostly white, too. Racial profiling isn't used to spot terrorists, and with the exception of Jack Bauer, the government doesn't use harsh interrogation techniques or torture suspects.

If you're curious about what the War on Terror looks like on top-rated TV...

It was while I was explaining to an Australian student that Rupert Murdoch was the reason America had gone batty that I realized how inadequate my answer to his question was.

"How did this happen to America?" I was in Australia just after the debt-ceiling debacle, and by "this" the...

Following several days of coaching by lawyers and PR experts, it must have been really rattling for Rupert and James Murdoch when showtime arrived to learn that the parliamentary committee questioning them would not permit opening statements. Framing, after all, is the name of the game. To control the package...

If you voted for Obama, here's what you're not supposed to be thinking:

He turns out to be a lousy poker player. He negotiates with himself. He thinks compromise takes only one to tango. He imputes good will to lethal adversaries. He allows them define the turf he fights on....

It gets worse.

If you pay attention to the news, the prospects for the future look grim. The new normal of high unemployment and stagnant wages will likely not turn out to be just a phase. The next generations may indeed do worse than the ones before them. Thanks...

I wonder how much airtime Michele Bachmann would get if she didn't look the way she does. I wonder how much of Sarah Palin's political appeal arises from her physical appeal.

I have a feeling that wondering this will get me in hot water, but what the hell.

I...

Please don't run a countdown clock on the debt ceiling.

For weeks, that's what Jack Lew, the Obama Administration's director of the Office of Management and Budget, has been urging the television networks not to do.

You know the kind of clock he means. It's...

On the same day that Americans are test-driving the idea that Osama bin Laden lived on the outskirts of Pakistan's West Point, undetected, for six years, Orly Taitz goes to the 9th Circuit Appeals Court to prove that President Obama's long-form birth certificate is a forgery.

As they...