Apparently Bieber has some sort of hold over Obama, believes CNN

Remember CNN? It's still going, apparently, but doesn't appear to be doing news any more. Right now, it's suggesting that Barack Obama is somehow doing favours for Justin Bieber:

Is Justin Bieber getting special treatment?
By Leigh Ann Caldwell, CNN

Apparently, Obama's allowed Bieber to turn Air Force One into a party plane, and launch his own drone raids on suspected clusters of One Direction fans.

No, hang on; that's not it:

The White House won't comment on a petition signed by more than 270,000 asking for the pop star to be deported for his repeated starring role in famous-people-behaving-badly.
You might not care about the Canadian and his "beliebers," but the 20-year-old's misbehavior and run-ins with the law raise some serious questions about immigration law enforcement. Like, is Bieber getting some serious special treatment?

The White House has better things to do than comment on a prank petition? Why, that's really special treatment.

Leigh Ann Caldwell then spends a long time churning through unrelated statistics about deportation before admitting that, possibly, rather than doing favours for Bieber, Obama probably hasn't deported him because Bieber is legally in the country, has yet to be convicted of any crime and - even if he was - those crimes wouldn't automatically be deportable offences, either:

But fortunately for Bieber -- and possibly the President who would upset millions of teen fans -- is that his DUI is not a deportable offense. His vandalism charge probably isn't either. His assault charge might be, experts say.

Matthew Kolodziej, legislative fellow at the Immigration Policy Center, said Bieber could potentially be charged with a crime of moral turpitude, which he described as "an abstract concept whose definition has expanded over the years."

So, CNN raises a question:

Is Justin Bieber getting special treatment?

... to which is already knew the answer.

Who knew you could can Piers Morgan and still go downhill?

CNN thinks you might be having difficult conversations this weekend

Good old CNN. It's trying to help you. More "trying" than "help", though:

"Mummy... can I ask you something?"
"I see you've read the newspaper. It's time to talk about Justin Bieber..."
"Jesus, mummy, I'm six; I like grew out of Bieber four years ago. Guy's a shit-hawk, I get that. You think we don't have cock-bundles like Bieber at school? I was going to ask about Syria..."

Still, given that CNN's Kelly Wallace has taken the time to prep this, we should at least pretend we don't think this article manages to pull of the strange feat of making an ever-expandable internet seem like a page has been wasted.

Parents should try to do more listening than talking, and ask kids what they think about Bieber's troubles, said Rachel Vail, a New York City mom of two and author of numerous books for kids and teens including her latest "Kiss Me Again."

The kids, of course, won't think anything, given that the only people who really have any thoughts about this are those struggling to fill celebrity columns.

"Scaffold their growing ability to think through complex issues like celebrity, entitlement, fame, substance abuse -- and really listen to their thoughts," said Vail, also on Facebook.

Oh, yeah. Kelly hasn't actually had an awkward conversation with Vail, she's just read something on Facebook.

"So often we think we have to have the correct answers and serve them up like so many inoculations to our kids. Being present and asking questions is sometimes the wiser, more respectful, and ultimately more empowering route."

"Being present". Well, yes, I guess that'd be better than standing at the end of the garden and shouting 'what do you think about Bieber?' through a loudhailer.
There's a lot more of this stuff, calling in several people for their views.

As for Bieber's teenage fans, Dean Schmidt, the Denver radio personality, believes they shouldn't stop liking him.

"And I'll go one step further and say they shouldn't judge him," she said. "Every person needs love, so I'm not going to tell a child to stop loving a person (celebrity or not) just because they've made some bad decisions."'

Hang about... isn't judging someone and stopping loving someone two different things? Isn't it wrong to suggest to kids that they shouldn't have an opinion on whether Bieber was in the right? That seems a bit strange.

Still: if you're parent, read up. That way you'll be fully prepared for the conversation your kids won't be wanting to have anyway.

Newsround, by the way, are running 'How to wind up your parents and make them ever more embarrassed by pretending you're upset about Justin Bieber'. Step three is to ask 'and why did Miley Cyrus rub her lady innards on the big ball?'

Heart turn down Seaworld

Following Blackfish - the movie which said the things a lot of people have been saying about Seaworld for years - bands are starting to pull gigs at the whale-torture fun park.

Heart have just said no:

"Heart has chosen to decline their forthcoming performance at SeaWorld on 2/9/14 due to the controversial documentary film 'Black Fish.'" the band said Sunday on its verified Twitter account.

Sisters Nancy and Ann Wilson did not elaborate.

But the duo isn't the first to cancel a concert at the Florida theme park because of the film.
Country singer Willie Nelson and Canadian rock act Barenaked Ladies also pulled the plug on their shows.

It's a slightly oddly worded tweet - kind of suggesting that they're avoiding the place because of the controversey than because of the practices at the park - but anything that helps hasten the end of captive orcas helps, I guess.

Bookmarks: Luscious Jackson

Luscious Jackson have given an interview about their comeback to CNN. (Yes, CNN):

CNN: It's been an exciting couple of years for fans of '90s music with a bunch of those band reuniting. Was that a factor in putting out new Luscious Jackson music?

Jill Cunniff: I hope there's nostalgia, that's great, but it has nothing to do with what we're doing. It's just because the time is exactly right to do it. Five years ago, there wasn't this type of social network connection, connectivity. I think now people really miss that spirit of another time. People were really sad to hear we broke up and I guess now those people realizing that we're reuniting and they're writing about how happy they are. It's great.

Whitney's dead? Party on

During the BBC News coverage of Whitney's death, I turned to Shawndra and said "the way this report is written, it makes it sounds like Clive Davis continued with his party after Whitney's body had been discovered".

Turns out that wasn't sloppy reporting. He actually did carry on munching canapes and slurping champagne four floors before where Houston had been found. Chaka Khan finds that a little ghoulish, too:

Appearing on Cnn show Piers Morgan Tonight on Monday (13Feb12), she said, "I thought that was complete insanity. Knowing Whitney, I don't believe she would have said, 'The show must go on'. She was the kind of woman that would have said, 'Stop everything... I'm not gonna be there.'

"I don't know what could motivate a person to have a party in a building where the person whose life he had influenced so enormously (had died)... I don't understand how that party went on.

"It would have been alright if it really was a true tribute... Call everybody together, let's say a prayer and eat dinner and go home."

Presumably Davis was worried that he wouldn't get his room rental fee back if he cancelled so late.

Elsewhere on CNN, Nancy Grace was desperate to talk-up the death into a murder:

The HLN host was speaking to CNN's Brooke Baldwin [...]
Grace appeared before the police's press conference. But she seemed to sense that some kind of foul play was afoot. Speaking about the prescription drugs found in Houston's hotel room, she wondered "who if anyone put it in her system or gave it to her?" Then, she went further.

"I'd like to know who was around her, who, if anyone gave her drugs...and who let her slip, or pushed her, underneath that water?" she said. "Apparently, no signs of force or trauma to the body. Who let Whitney Houston go under her water?"

"Might it have been one person, might it have been multiple people, all excellent questions," Baldwin said. "Again, we don't know the cause of her death."

Yes, it's an "excellent question" and in no way morbid-corpse-wanking to decide on absolutely no evidence that there must have been a circle of people surrounding the bath, murdering Houston by the well-known criminal method of "letting someone go under the water without touching them".

Apparently there are no signs that Nancy Grace uses force to get on air on a once-proud station that used to cover actually news rather than making shit up. Who lets Nancy Grace go out on the air? Might be one person, might be multiple people. All excellent questions.

Very rich man says 'something must be done'

If I'm reading this story from CNN correctly, it looks like 50 Cent is using the starving of Kenya and Somalia to boost his businesses:

Jackson has pledged to provide one billion meals for the hungry, and is donating a meal from every sale of a new energy drink, Street King, according to the World Food Programme.

Using people in need of food to flog cans of pointless "energy drink"? Perhaps it's an art statement.

Gordon in the morning: Power station

According to Gordon Smart, Beyonce had been planning to play Battersea Power Station but... well, was thwarted?

BEYONCE'S secret gig suffered a bit of a setback when Health and Safety gimps banned her from doing a special show at Battersea Power Station in London.

Gimps?

It seems that saying 'you know what, that would be an unsafe place to do a gig' isn't actually a useful intervention, but somehow 'lame'. If only Gordon were in charge; if someone wanted Beyonce to play in a barrel going over the edge of the Falls Of Glomach, he'd just smile and nod.

Actually, scrub that - he's suddenly realised they have a point:

I would call them killjoys but I saw Beyonce's backing singers, THE MAMAS, at Glastonbury.

Their bras alone would need scaffolding.

Ha ha ha, because they're BIG, do you see? Ha ha ha.

Beyonce went to Harrods instead:

Bosses at Harrods must have been delighted that Beyonce and co turned up.

They are among the few people on the planet who can afford to shop there.

What? Is this Smart trying to reach out to a credit-crunched readership by going "tschaw, those rich people with their rich ways, eh?"

He also finds time to kick one of his predecessors:

She also had the misfortune of being pestered by a chubby old showbiz reporter clinging on to his youth, PIERS MORGAN, who was interviewing her for news channel CNN.

By the time Morgan was Smart's age, he'd already moved on from editing Bizarre and was just about to start his second editorship of a national newspaper.

(Note: being fair to Piers Morgan has led me to sicking up both my kidneys.)

All those businessmen in hotels around the world will be looking forward to seeing an interview with one of the hit parade's finest.

No they won't, Gordon. They have channels which keep them better company, without having half the screen taken up by Piers' face.

Piers Morgan has "banned" Madonna

In other words, Madonna has turned down the Piers Morgan show, but Piers is taking it badly:

"She is too vegan for TV," Morgan was quoted saying by the U.K. media. "We have Lady Gaga now so Madonna is banned from my show."

Morgan said he'd prefer to interview President Barack Obama, Mel Gibson, Lindsay Lohan or "whoever is in the news who is relevant and current."

Tonight, Piers Morgan is interviewing Howard Stern, and later this week will be talking to Condoleeza Rice, so you can see how committed he is to ensuring only the most up-to-the-minute names on his programme.

Morgan has just taken over Larry King's CNN slot. King had drifted into becoming a fawning interviewer struggling to grasp any line worth pursuing. Piers was the obvious choice as a replacement.

We're all the winners, aren't we?

Interestingly, the US CNN ticker is still reporting "Susan Boyle loses Britain's Got Talent" - a talent show in another country. Is it any wonder that the circus has screwed her up badly?

It's even more depressing that the Prime Minister - who, you would have thought, might have better things to spend his time on - is driving forward the circus, even when it's clear it's time to leave her be:

Prime Minister Gordon Brown wished the star well. "I hope Susan Boyle is okay because she is a really, really nice person," he told GMTV.

He had added that he had spoken to Simon Cowell and Piers Morgan to check on Boyle's progress.

Downing Street said Mr Brown had been concerned about her welfare - although he did not vote for her after watching Saturday's final.

Given that Morgan and Cowell turned her into a global sideshow (a global freakshow, if we're being honest), is asking them if Boyle is okay a bit like asking Bernard Matthews how comfortable the turkeys are?

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: CNN on line two

Surely, with CNN's website calling on Gennaro Castaldo's knowledge-synapse, it can now only be a matter of days until he is fully deployed as Wolf Blitzer's Situation Room's very own Global Tune Expert.

It's the phenomenon of a washed-out old corpse booking a big London tent for fifty nights that has brought CNN to Castaldo's door. What does all this Jackson activity mean?

Gennaro Castaldo, spokesman for UK music retailer HMV, said Jackson was already reaping the benefits of hosting the concerts.

"Sales of Michael's albums are starting to show a discernible increase, albeit from a relatively low sales base at this early stage. However, if demand is picking up now, imagine what it will be like in July, when Michael actually kicks off his live performances."

Castaldo said sales of his "King Of Pop" album released in August had increased four-fold, while sales of "Thriller" had nearly doubled.

To be fair to Castaldo, he did attempt to point out that "four-fold increase" could mean "sixteen copies compared to four last week", but his excitement at the prospect of possibly selling even more records in July seems to have swept CNN along.

Sadly, Castaldo doesn't explain who he thinks will be buying the records in large quantities this summer - anyone who wasn't excited enough by the coverage of the launch who somehow is excited enough by the actual gig, presumably? "The blanketing of Jackson's ungodly face-hole in March wasn't enough to remind me of his existence, but the dull thud of someone playing Say Say Say quite near the Thames somehow did, and so I shall now buy a record"

King, Crue

The mighty long way down rock and roll, it seems, no longer has any bottom. Motley Crue hang out with Larry King.

Britney Spears has a small bump

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Britney Spears' minor traffic accident - she was in stop-and-go traffic, and was going when she should have been stopping - is not just that CNN thought it worth reporting but that Spears is apparently still in possession of a driving licence.

CNN runs knock-down of Gordon

As is always the way, whenever anyone runs a story about trouble in the Madonna-Ritchie wedding, the couple issue some sort of denial. And, to be fair, after a solid couple of years of gossip sites saying "it's only a matter of time", they are still together.

Today, though, the denial has made CNN:

The news media and blogosphere have been speculating on the couple's status; on Monday, the British newspaper The Sun published a gossipy article on its Web site with the headline: "Madge's marriage `hangs by a thread."'

Rosenberg explained that, until recently, Madonna, 49, and Ritchie were living in separate countries: The Material Girl toured the U.S. to promote her upcoming album "Hard Candy," while the director was stationed in England putting the finishing touches on his new film "RocknRolla," filming a Nike commercial and "working on several scripts."

Today, the Ritchies are "joyfully back together at home in London. All is well and wonderful in the Ritchie household," Rosenberg said.

"Working on several scripts". The blood runs cold.

All this must be annoying Rav Singh, who actually started the story in Sunday's News of the World. We wonder if he's screeching "hey... I made the story up, not Gordon" down a phone to Atlanta.

Donda doc bails on King

Jan Adams, the doctor whose cosmetic surgery has been linked to the death of Donda West, walked off a live Larry King interview yesterday, claiming the West family had asked him not to take part.

Which might be true, but there's something a little showy about starting up a live TV interview before "remembering" the family of a woman who died shortly after you operated on her had asked you not to appear, isn't there?

MediaBistro has trouble adding up

American democracy has more than enough problems without people joining in to suggest the P Diddy is more interesting than politics by massaging the figures:

Diddy Got More Responses For Personal Assistant On YouTube Than CNN Debate Questions

But let's put the numbers in perspective (i.e. help CNN safely come down from its post-debate high) with a fun, if tangentially relevant, YouTube fact:

# No. of questions submitted for CNN's YouTube Debate: 2,989
# No. of responses to Diddy's YouTube call for an assistant: 10,000

Despressing stuff. Although, not strictly true stuff. There were, indeed, 2,989 questions posted for the CNN Democrat debate, but the vague "10,000 responses" seems to be an estimate of the total number of videos posted in response to the Diddy competition - and something of an overestimate. Since Mediabistro haven't mbothered to count the numerous additional videos that responded to the CNN debates which weren't direct questions, it seems only fair to exclude responses to Diddy that weren't actual entries. The outcome, then, is slightly different:

Number of questions submitted for CNN's YouTube debate: 2,989
Number of entries for Diddy's YouTube call for an assistant: 627, many of which were multiple posts by the same entrants.

Not, of course, that this means anything anyway - it's like those articles which count up the relative number of words in Wikipedia articles on, say, Star Wars action figures and Abraham Lincoln and conclude that Wikipedia users are stunted thought-wasters rather than that there are many, many thousands of more authoritative articles on mainstream subjects already published online and all those topics really need is a few links.

But let's not feed Diddy's myth that he's bigger than democracy, eh?

King doubts heir's conviction on the King of Kings

He might not know which Beatles are the live ones, but when it comes to piety, there's no pulling the wool over Larry King's eyes. He didn't fall for Paris Hilton's claims to have found God while in prison:

He also called the heiress' answer to his query about her favorite Bible passage "weak." (Hilton said she didn't have one, despite claiming to have studied the Good Book every day she was incarcerated.) "She was weak in the Bible part," King said, acknowledging he thought "in that moment, that she didn’t read the Bible."

We can't help but wonder why, if that was what he was thinking, he didn't push Hilton on it during the interview rather than sharing his doubts with the media later - I suppose we're just lucky he went into TV rather than the law.

At least when he interviews Henry Kissinger, there's only one to keep track of

Larry King, flagship presenter on CNN, had a bit of trouble last night interviewing The Beatles.

He forgot which ones were alive, and which were dead:

KING: Where were you when — when John passed?
MCCARTNEY: When John passed I was in Sussex, at my home in Sussex. That’s where I was.
KING: Did somebody call you?
MCCARTNEY: Yes, my manager at the time called me. And it was just the shock of all shocks, you know?
KING: George, where were you?
MCCARTNEY: George!
KING: Ringo.
MCCARTNEY: No, this is Ringo here.
KING: Ringo, where were you?
STARR: I was in the Bahamas.
KING: I was getting to (INAUDIBLE) George.
STARR: I was…
MCCARTNEY: No, you weren’t, Larry. You said his name wrong.
STARR: Shut up, it’s my turn.
MCCARTNEY: I know, but he got your name wrong, Ringo, on national television.
STARR: I know. Give him a break.
MCCARTNEY: We can’t cut it. It’s live.

I suppose we should at least be grateful that he knew two of them had died.