A little more than a month ago, Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine made a political statement. Well, sort of: he called Fox News “evil” and demanded his music never be played on the network again. Predictably, it took less than 24 hours for Maroon 5 to be blasting from the speakers at Red Eye, and host Greg Gutfeld hasn’t forgotten the incident, as evidenced by his comments on the singer in his new interview with the LA Times.

Fundraising master of disaster Ron Paul has just discovered a new, old wrinkle on his famed “money bombs,” Investor’s Business Daily‘s Andrew Malcolm reports that a group of bodacious Paul supporters has unveiled a charmingly anachronistic fundraising gimmick: a pin-up calendar. For just $24.95 (plus shipping), Ronulans can take home a year’s worth of kitschy, politically-themed tableaux that hearken back to a simpler time.

The media has been reporting for the past few weeks on Southern California beach-goers, rattled in fear after several great white shark sightings. Yesterday the first photographic evidence of the creature surfaced, thanks to accidental citizen journalist Gary Elliot, and oddly, his image of a shark, swimming in close proximity to a bunch of surfers, seems to be tempering the fear of anxious beach goers.

Rupert Murdoch doesn’t have many friends left. After, in his words, the most humble day of his life, the testimony he gave before Parliament about the scandal that brought down News of the World seems to have done little to ingratiate him with an outraged public. The backlash has tempted many to go after all of News Corp and the press in general, with the rage perhaps most succinctly captured by this outrageous title in the L.A. Times today: “Tabloids Don’t Deserve the First Amendment.”

Actress Zooey Deschanel recently published an open letter to the Los Angeles‘ Patt Morrison on her personal Tumblr (It features old-timey illustrations of sea monsters!) and on her new ladysite HelloGiggles (It features a cartoon version of Zooey!), chastising the columnist for an article that described Deschanel as sounding like “a snobby cow” at the recent BAFTA dinner (attended by Prince William and Duchess Kate and their outfits), based solely on a partial quote taken from an earlier USA Today article

Last week news broke that Maria Shriver and former Califorina Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had announced they were splitting up after 25 years of marriage. The LA Times is reporting a new development that explains why the two are now ending their relationship: it seems that Schwarznegger has acknowledged that he had fathered a child with a staff member that worked for the family for 20 years.

The Egyptian revolts have brought out the passion in many of America’s journalists, but arguably in Anderson Cooper more than any other. The CNN star, who was physically attacked while on duty in Cairo by pro-Mubarak thugs, has been fast and loose with disparaging the regime in quite the deviation from his usual style. The LA Times counted up the amount of times Cooper used only one insult– “liars”– in one episode: 14.

After tensions came to a boiling point last year when a speaker was booed off stage for preaching against gays in his speech, several conservative groups are planning to boycott this years Conservative Political Action Committee over the inclusion of gay conservative groups at the conference, including the Family Research Council and the Heritage Foundation. But not all conservatives are upset with the move– Andrew Breitbart, for one, is throwing a party.

Americans know very little about religion, though perhaps you’d already surmised this based on this summer’s much talked about poll that revealed much of the country was unsure whether President Obama was a Muslim. A new survey Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life reveals actually Americans don’t know much about most religions, including the ones they may practice.

Universal Studios and the Los Angeles Times have butted heads, according TheWrap. Over what? The movie Despicable Me. The newspaper published a negative review of the movie the same day the ran a massive ad for the movie — much to the studio’s discontent.

David Klinghoffer’s recent column in the LA Times has garnered a significant amount of attention from the blogosphere and even cable news. As a staunch conservative, Klinghoffer is turning heads for critiquing the state of conservatism in today’s society, namely the degree to which radical pundits have become the face of the conservative movement. But while some are (rightly) praising his bold critique, most are overlooking the problematic meat of his argument: he refutes one form of radical conservatism by appealing to another.

Walter Cronkite is widely regarded as an icon — and, to many aspiring journalists, a role model. He and his coverage of the Vietnam War are often referred to as a highpoint in journalism even today. Jonah Goldberg of the Los Angeles Times has a vastly different opinion. In today’s column, he writes that Cronkite is “truly one of the most overrated national icons of the 20th century” who misreported aspects of the Vietnam War.

The LA Times is reporting that the Jim Carrey starring film I Love You Phillip Morris has been shelved “indefinitively” by Consolidated Pictures Group, the company that was handling the American release of the movie that premiered at Sundance in 2009. While a movie getting shelved is no big news these days (even one starring the likes of Carrey and Ewan McGregor), some Hollywood insiders are speculating that the movie’s lack or release may have stemmed from its gay themes.

Hmm. Notice something missing? A close look reveals most major media outlets have neglected to mention that today is the 7th anniversary of the Iraq War. Not a single major op-ed to be found. Nor a trending Twitter hashtag. It’s almost as though where the media is concerned the Iraq War didn’t happen.

Apparently newspapers of the world should be considering seriously adding bikini slide shows to their online offerings. The Huffington Post has recently passed the Washington Post, the LA Times and the Wall Street Journal in number of readers.

New technology invariably brings, along with change, a torrent of anxiety about what that change will lookl ike. This anxiety can be more or less poetic. “Twitter is crack for media addicts,” wrote George Packer in a recent blogpost. The new anxiety – induced, primarily, by the new media – is the prosiest prose.

Somebody call Gossip Cop. As theories about the fate of NBC Universal rages on, one eyebrow-raising potential bidder has popped up in press accounts: Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corporation. Two questions worth asking: how likely is this? More importantly, what’s in it for both parties to keep this speculation alive?

Like Sean Hannity? Want to date someone who also likes Sean Hannity? Hannidate may be for you!

The dating website sounds, and looks, like a spoof, but it really is Hannity’s — Hannity.com, his official website, links to the service. What makes it special, aside from the fact that its users presumably like Sean Hannity?

Seven years after its founding, Gawker Media is getting more online traffic than the LA Times and nearly as much as the New York Times — and with a staff a fraction of their sizes. Need evidence of their influence? They are now effectively running the state department. A look at their growth and impact after the jump.

Feel like you might have picked up an old edition of the New York Times this morning by mistake? It would seem every major paper, both local and national, managed to get the news of Senator Ted Kennedy‘s death on their front pages before going to press except the Times. A gallery of newspaper covers from today after the jump.

As part of his recurring Culture Warriors segment, O’Reilly calls on Gretchen Carlson and Margaret Hoover to express their concern over a woman in Oregon who likes to spend time naked outside (“I called the police and they said it was OK, so I just stopped wearing clothes.”). Apparently Gretchen saw a man expose himself on a bus once when she was a child; imagine what this loon is doing to the children of Oregon. Video Inside.

Gawker stepped over the line with their Bloodcopy campaign, where they were not only guilty of blurring the line between advertisements and editorial but of nearly erasing it altogether. And yet, the entire controversy made Bloodcopy one of the most successful ad campaigns Gawker ever ran.

It took what? A hundred years for papers to get their ethical issues worked out? Blogs will do it faster, but they’re nowhere near it yet. For now, we readers should stay wary, and blogs should be aware of the impact of their business model on their ethics. One TMZ scoop does not a revolution make. And in the meantime, forgive us for waiting for theLA Times to confirm your scoop.