According to an exclusive Media Matters report, former White House Correspondents Association President Ed Chen is speaking out over the WHCA’s decision to move Fox News to the front row of the Brady Briefing Room, calling it “a travesty.”

However, there are several mis-characterizations in Media Matters’ report, and the WHCA is standing by its decision.

In a recent interview, Michael Hastings, author of the Rolling Stone article that led to the ousting of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, denied claims he broke any pre-arranged ground rules for his story, and added that he had another military embed in Afghanistan. The Pentagon, however, is denying him an embed assignment, citing trust problems.

Seventy-nine days later, though the BP Oil Disaster is still raging, the energy giant’s new July 27 timeline has given some a cause for optimism. But a new Associated Press investigation shows we might have more problems to worry about: 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells in the Gulf of Mexico run the risk of “leaking even more crude into water already tainted by the massive BP spill.”

The latest interesting installment in the reality show world comes not from the U.S. or Britain, but all the way from Malaysia. The show, “Imam Muda” (or “Young Leader”), seeks to find a young, male, Muslim “leader for these times.”

MTV has reportedly begun the search for the network’s first Twitter Jockey, an internet savvy individual who will act as a liaison between MTV viewers and executives via the eponymous social networking site. Duties include reporting on MTV events, interacting with the audience through tweets, and sporadically crawling away from the computer to appear on screen.

Rod Blagojevich‘s former chief of staff and one-time law school roommate Alonzo Monk took the stand at Blago’s corruption trial yesterday as one of the first witnesses to testify. But this isn’t a student court case between bunk mates about a stolen sweater. This is the real deal, and Monk has a lot to say. [...]

Some people lay face-down in shark infested water with a tube strapped to their head and call it snorkeling. AP reporter Rich Matthews does essentially the same thing, but instead of sharks in the water there’s oil, and instead of snorkeling, he calls it investigative reporting.

Joe Biden just handed the media an easy comic relief story (and a gaffe), but with the great power to entertain also comes the great responsibility not to offend. So how did the mainstream media chose to report the story without using Biden’s off-color adjective for the health care bill law? We went with the euphemistic “f-bomb;” for all you psycho- linguistics majors out there, here’s what the rest of the media did:

Ink-stained wretches, it’s not just you! The social media and Twitter elite fret about the future of journalism too — and wonder how it will survive the digital revolution. At SXSWi, there was no shortage of panels obsessively deconstructing this topic (and tweeting about it, natch).

The Washington Post is running an article this weekend about Barack Obama‘s favorite locution “Let me be clear.” If this story seems somehow how familiar to you, its because you might recall reading a very same story, as told by the Associated Press in October. Or, maybe it was the the Politico version that ran in August. Turns out that the only concept more hackneyed than Obama’s use of “let me be clear” are news reports about Obama’s use of “let me be clear.”

Is Simon Cowell, seen by many knowledgeable observers as “the only reason to watch American Idol,” about to depart from said American Idol at the end of this season? Simon Cowell’s brother Tony (Cowell) said as much on his podcast, “The Cowell Factor.” After a bit of hesitation on the media’s part, the story has traversed the gossip blogs and been picked up by the Associated Press, ABC News, and other outlets. So: is Simon Cowell actually leaving American Idol? And if so, does the show have a chance?

Um, this is some of the weirdest audio I’ve ever heard: Dude calls the operator to — politely! — report that he’s just been stabbed. Operator: 911 Man: Uh, yes ma’am – would it be possible to send an ambulance here? Operator: What’s going on? Man: Uh, there’s a knife stuck in my chest.

Attention readers of the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune or any of the Tribune Co.’s dozen other publications: something is missing from your paper this week. The Tribune Co. is struggling. Struggling to keep readership up, costs down, and its news empire afloat. So this week, as an experiment, they taking a week-long break [...]

On the heels of what might be the beginning of a truce between Fox News and the Obama administration, the White House is now calling out another major news organization. Late last night, the White House’s Recovery Implementation Office released a detailed rebuttal of what it called a “misleading” report by the Associated Press. While the AP hasn’t been stripped of its legitimacy, the reaction does seem a little bit harsh.

In light of the news that Sarah Palin‘s almost-son-in-law Levi Johnston will make an appearance in Playgirl, we went on a little trip back through the archives. “Research,” you could call it, of the illustrious company Johnston will join when he stars in an issue of the now-online magazine. We found John Travolta, Sly Stallone, and some, um, less notable stars. See them in all of their glory inside.

Following the brutal beating and death of Derrion Albert, 16, in front of his Chicago High School last Thursday, a three minute video shot by a fellow student on her cell phone was released yesterday, ultimately providing the evidence which led to the arrests and charges of three teenagers. After warning viewers of the graphic footage, CNN aired the clip unedited.

This morning the Associated Press joined Talking Points Memo and Gawker as practitioners of the ‘open notebook’ method of reporting — well, inadvertently. One reporter’s notes about the developing news of Roman Polanski‘s arrest were sent out on the wire instead of the text of his article and published online by the New York Times and Forbes.

The sky is falling! Oprah‘s ratings are down 7% last season, and as is the case with all things, this must have something to do with Barack Obama, somehow. In an article about the ratings decline, the AP quotes an author who says that Oprah’s endorsement of Obama has hurt her in the heartland.

But does this theory pass the sniff test?

Last week, the Associated Press’s decision to run a photograph of Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard moments before his death in Afghanistan gave rise to enormous controversy. The Bernard photo controversy had the side effect of showing just how unimportant newspapers have become as a means of distribution.