Today we decided to defend sleazy journalism and suggest an important scoop can justify questionable behavior. Or not? One commenter elucidated the conundrum.

As journalism jobs dry up across the country, one man seems to have found a pretty decent beat. "William Breathes" somehow convinced Denver alt-weekly newspaper Westword to let him cover the medical marijuana industry in Colorado, which boasts over 300 dispensaries. That means he more or less gets baked and writes about it. But, as he explained NPR, "When I'm reviewing marijuana, I'm looking for how clean it's grown, how well it's grown." And besides sampling the product, he also reviews the facilities:

It hasn't hit newsstands yet, but journalists have taken a couple photos of the last copy of News of the World, which is shutting down following revelations that private investigators in its employ had hacked the voicemail of murder and abduction victims and their families.

James Murdoch, son of Rupert, Lord of Casterly Rock, Warden of the West and overseer of News Corp's properties in Europe and Asia, could face criminal charges over his role in the phone hacking scandal at News Corp tabloid News of the World. In the U.S. and the U.K.!

Andy Coulson, the former editor of Rupert Murdoch's News of the World and British PM David Cameron's former director of communications, turned himself in to police in London today over the growing phone-hacking scandal. A statement from the Metropolitan Police reads, in part:

Here's a real infographic that ran in USA Today last Friday, July 1st. (Nobody noticed it until now because the only people who read USA Today are 74-year-old retirees.) Apparently the way the sun heats the Earth is that it gives it a hand job while whistling? In the annals of weather penises, this is a true classic.

Four photojournalists in Georgia, including the personal photographer for that country's hyper-paranoid joke of a president, Mikheil Saakashvili, were arrested overnight for allegedly spying for Russia. Irakli and Natia Gedenidze, Zurab Kurtsikidze, and Giorgi Abdaladze are being held by the Interior Ministry for giving information "to an organization acting under cover of the special service of a foreign country, to the detriment of the interests of Georgia." Hmm. Is he wearing Russian camo?!

The media job market is the pits right now, there's no doubt about that, but there are jobs out there — you just have to know where to look! For example, JournalismJobs.com is currently listing this plum magazine assignment for any seasoned reporter:

Murdered teenager Milly Dowler wasn't the only person whose voicemail was hacked by the unscrupulous folks at News Corp paper News of the World—it now appears that the families of victims of the 7/7 terrorist bombings in London were "targets" as well.

Upon finding out that the woman accusing former IMF chief Dominique Strauss Kahn of rape lied to a grand jury about the events following her alleged assault, the New York Post surely realized that such a complicated case required cautious, nuanced coverage. Like, say, today's front-page article: "DSK MAID A HOOKER."

Nick Charles, one of the first sports journalists on cable news, died at age 64 on Saturday following a battle with bladder cancer. Charles anchored Sports Tonight on CNN for 17 years before moving to Showtime in 2001. [CNN]

Here are the covers of New York's three biggest dailies. Notice anything? That's right: Only the News Corp-owned Post had the guts to cover the shocking story of a "hero cop" saving a "suicidal gal." What do the Times and the Daily News lead with? Some obscure bit of legalism passed by the bums in Albany. [Yawns] Looks like we all know which paper covers the real New York!

Daily Show host Jon Stewart entered the Fox News lion's den for the third time today, appearing on Fox News Sunday opposite Chris Wallace and having the exact same argument about the media that he had with... well, that he tried to have with Tucker Carlson back in 2004. It was infuriating! Not because of Stewart, who is an able if at times frustratingly conciliatory interlocutor, but because of Chris Wallace, who is a huge, silly boob. Above, Stewart tries to make a point, using big words; Wallace responds by showing a clip from Comedy Central's roast of Pamela Anderson. If you have the desire, or the patience, to wach the whole thing, you can find it here.

It was the call those of us working night shifts at Detroit's Associated Press bureau in the mid-1990s dreaded. A body in a seedy motel or dropped at a hospital's ER meant one thing: Dr. Death at work. [Jalopnik]

The Musalman is the world's oldest Urdu-language daily newspaper. It is also thought to be the world's last handwritten daily newspaper. Every day, four katibs—practitioners of the ancient art of Urdu calligraphy—write The Musalman's four broadsheet pages from right to left, by hand. Mistakes sometimes require rewriting the entire page. They then send it to a printer for reproduction, and sell it on the streets of Chennai, in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The 10-minute documentary above depicts the process.

Three journalists who were captured and detained by Qaddafi loyalists in early April — James Foley, Clare Morgana Gillis, and Manu Brabo — were released yesterday. The fate of a fourth journalist who was with them, 41-year-old South African photojournalist Anton Hammerl, had been unclear for
the past six weeks. Hammerl was shot on April 5 outside of the Libyan town of Brega after the group came under fire from Qaddafi troops in armored vehicles. GlobalPost spoke with Foley and Gillis after their release in Tunisia:

After disappearing 19 days ago in Syria and being sent to Iran, missing Al Jazeera journalist Dorothy Parvaz was released and flown to Qatar today, where she is "safe and well" with her colleagues at the network.

As intelligence analysts pore over the stash of documents recovered in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, a picture of a "micro-manager" is beginning to emerge. For instance, he thought Joe Biden wasn't worth the time or effort to target, but authorized targeting the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other top military brass. But there's more!

CNN is really going for it with this whole "Osama took little kids' balls" thing. As it turns out, thanks to an investigation, we now know that the people who lived in the terrorist mastermind's compound not only kept neighborhood kids' soccer balls, but they kept cricket balls that came over the walls, too. And, by speaking with a 12-year-old neighbor, CNN learned that a "fat guy with a goatee and moustache" lived there. Does this mean Osama bin Laden liked to play cricket? Perhaps he was behind the match fixing scandal that rocked the cricket world last year? Hopefully CNN will get to the bottom of this. We need to know.

Yesterday two photojournalists, Chris Hondros and Tim Hetherington, were killed in the besieged Libyan city of Misrata, while covering the intense fighting there that has claimed so many lives. Their accomplishments as journalists are matched by few. They also cared deeply for the people whose stories they told.