Everybody knew, when the Supreme Court decided earlier this year to lift the cap on corporate and union political campaign contributions, that we would see some heavy action from the big-money boys as Election Day loomed closer.

The way you feel about the mosque planned for a space near Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan says more about your knowledge of the country's history than your capacity for tolerance.

Alcoa has requested more than 200 hours of raw video footage shot by UNC-TV senior legislative correspondent Eszter Vajda and her producer, Martin Sansone, for a documentary about the aluminum giant's operations on the Yadkin River.

Wikileaks' release of classified military documents chronicling six years of the war in Afghanistan is a development as significant as the release of the "Pentagon Papers" by whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg almost 30 years ago. This is not a sequence of breaking but incomplete stories about casualties and new offensives.

News and views from inside the media bubble.

Occasionally, I venture into the internet ether to peruse a national celebrity culture story, usually at the prodding of my editor, Brian Clarey.

Here's a book worth talking about, in light of perennial advocacy in the NC GOP for lifting the cap on charter schools and the recent civil disobedience led by state NAACP president William Barber II to protest what critics call the 're-segregation" of Wake County Schools.

Thank God for South Carolina. Our own punched Tea Party members and ornery congressmen are small change compared to the accusations of affairs, mysterious candidates and casual racism that permeate the Palmetto State's political scene this election cycle.

Race is a sensitive topic in the Piedmont Triad, as Greensboro blogger Ed Cone tried to explain in a column in Sunday's News Record about the now notorious Tabor-Spencer affray: "Race also plays a role in this story.

Etheridge has since apologized to "all involved," despite the fact that he still doesn't know who they are. Regardless of the "students" identities, Etheridge's handling of the situation was contemptible.

Count News Record Editorial Page Editor Allen Johnson as being among those sanctioning and censuring syndicated newspaper columnist Helen Thomas over her remarks that Israeli Jews should go back to Poland and Germany.

That is the question that the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism sought to answer with a study that tracked the top stories in traditional media, the blogosphere, YouTube and Twitter. They found that each platform rarely agrees on the big story of the day.

Everybody wants to be a rock journalist, to cover the big band on a huge international tour, to nail the incisive interview with a reclusive and complicated star, to cut through the nonsense of the industry and get to the heart of the music

Has anyone else noticed the surge of comely young ladies claiming association with the Tea Party actively seeking out friends on Facebook? I've had a few propositions in the past month or so, but I noticed a pattern with Victoria Arterton, who I'm...

"Lucky," was how Martin described his feelings after the verdict, "because I screwed up. I shouldn't have sent the e-mails. The consensus, among the folks I respect, was that it did not rise to a level of a crime.

It all began when Apple software engineer Gray Powell – a 2006 NC State grad, incidentally – took the prototype of his company's new iPhone to a bar in Redwood City, Calif. on the night before his birthday.

An April 16 entry on the Conservatives for Guilford County Facebook page urging early voting, and pledging "voter cheat shee" to help process the candidates, elicited dozens of comments. The discussion quickly turned to a squabble over which candidates in North Carolina's 6 th Congressional District deserved the Tea Party movement's support.

So I've been out of town for a week or so, pretty much cut off from all the media happenings, so it wasn't until Saturday night that I tuned in to a monster thread on Ed Cone's Word Up blog (www.edcone.com) emanating from an initial post that cracked on Va.

Three months ago, a host of Greensboro media outlets, including this publication, The Business Journal, the News Record and the local blogosphere, were buzzing with controversy over a proposed downtown luxury hotel and its use of locally approved federal Recovery Zone Facility Bonds.

News and views from inside the media bubble.