Our President, you may have noticed at some point or another, tends to stammer a bit when he speaks. Not during his speeches, really, but when he’s speaking off the cuff. We don’t, personally, find it too distracting or glaring, but, you know. It’s a thing he does from time to time. Well, the LA Times, in an opinion column, has decided to defend Barack Obama‘s tendency to pause by chalking it all up to a phenomenon the writer has decided to call “The Intellectual Stammer.”

She’s got a bus covered in over-the-top patriotic images (Liberty Bell, Constitution, American flag, Sarah Palin’s signature) and she’s ready to roll. Sarah Palin sets off on the “One Nation” bus tour Sunday, and we’re getting a preview of the bus itself today. In case you forget the second half of the pledge of allegiance, fear not: it’s on the side of the bus. There’s also an invitation to “join the fundamental restoration of America!” Yep, it’s big and bold, but don’t be confused. It’s not the launch of a presidential campaign. It just looks that way.

The abrupt end of Dick Ebersol‘s decades-long career at NBC may have been a signal to NBCUniversal executives, suggests Joe Flint in the Los Angeles Times‘ Company Town blog: “get with the program, or hit the road.”

Technically, Katie Couric‘s out of work this morning. But don’t worry, she’s going to be just fine. The now former anchor of the CBS Evening News, who wrapped up five years in that role Thursday night, is reportedly close to inking a new contract that with ABC as host of an afternoon talk show. According to a report this morning in the Los Angeles Times, citing “people familiar with the negotiations,” Couric’s syndicated show would launch in the fall of 2012.

Couric’s contract with CBS ends June 6, and the Times notes CBS has the right to match any offer Couric receives before the contract expires:

As Donald Trump again travels to New Hampshire and continues his flirtation with a run for President, a new report from the Los Angeles Times chronicles how “he built his empire in part through government largesse and connections.” The article documents Trump’s efforts throughout the country to continually fight for the lowest taxes possible and, according to a former auditor in New York City, to use “government’s incompetence as a wedge to increase his private fortune.”

In the wake of last week’s Wonkette/Trig Palin controversy, people keep sending me updates, related stories, and new slights against the special needs population, the latest of these being a Los Angeles Times editorial that calls Sarah Palin a “special-needs case.”

This is as good a time as any to clarify a few things about the issue of special needs-bashing.

As 13-year-old singer Rebecca Black‘s “Friday” video racks up YouTube clicks – and Black reportedly earns loads of cash for her surprising hit song – we’re left to wonder about what Black’s story says about the music industry, the Internet, and us. Ark Music Factory, the company behind Black and other young stars, should be thrilled with all the attention, says Rhodri Marsden in The Independent, since their “whole business model is about reaction, not content.” But they have virtually “disappeared” from the spotlight faced with the inevitable backlash, which is “baffling – like pretty much everything connected to the ‘Friday’ phenomenon.”

America’s longest-running reality TV show, The Real World, returns tonight on MTV, with the latest group of seven strangers picked to live in a house, this time in Las Vegas. The selection of Sin City as home to the show’s 25th season is timed to help draw the nation’s Spring-Breaking college students to Vegas as a vacation spot. It’s left to be seen whether the MTV staple program still has much influence left on its young audience. No matter, the show has made an indelible mark on TV culture. “The Real World helped birth a genre that has eaten television whole,” says the Los Angeles Times‘ Yvonne Villarreal. But does the show still reside on the same pedestal? Critics debate:

Surveying the media landscape in the aftermath of yesterday’s $315 million deal bringing the Huffington Post to Aol, the Los Angeles Times‘ Tim Rutten has concluded journalism is “the loser.” Using plenty of colorful images (“To grasp the Huffington Post’s business model, picture a galley rowed by slaves and commanded by pirates.”), Rutten describes the merger as a means to “push more journalists more deeply into the tragically expanding low-wage sector of our increasingly brutal economy.”

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark has taken its share of criticism and ridicule as its suffered from several setbacks and pushed back its opening several times. The play got some good news this week with some high-profile endorsements as the show continues its previews, and word of a new finale. All of these delays have left reporters, who are seeing the show between now and the scheduled March 15 opening, in a strange spot. What can they reveal about the much-anticipated, extremely expensive production? Here, a rundown of how some writers are handling the long wait for opening night, and how delays are making them part of the story:

At the top of the Oscar list are two movies – True Grit and The Social Network – that have attracted and delighted audience that are now vying for supremacy in the eyes of the Academy Awards voters. Last week, Grit pulled ahead in box office totals, but Social Network has been the favorite thus far among major critics’ awards. Because of the late momentum Grit has generated at the box office, Social Network will be re-released in theaters.

The Los Angeles Times‘ Company Town blog has, as it does at the start of every new year, turned to its various sources to come up with a few predictions about what the near future might have in store for several big names in media. Let’s take a look at a few of their predictions before weighing in with our own thoughts, shall we?

In light of the recent disclosure of memos from Bill Sammon, Fox News‘ Washington managing editor, The Los Angeles Times took Fox News to task over its “Fair and Balanced” slogan specifically and its journalistic credibility more generally. Without making overblown claims of past bias by the entire network, as many Fox News critics enjoy doing, the editorial simply states two recent facts and objectively asks those in charge of Fox News to respond.

Dude, do you want to see what it looks like when 134 tons of marijuana is destroyed? It’s not cool, bro, not cool.

The enormous bust earlier this week likely cost the Sinaloa drug cartel $200 million. So what do we get out of all this? Amazing pictures from the Los Angeles Times of the ceremonial burning of the weed.

Living in New York, it is sometimes easy to forget that people elsewhere in the country have to drive themselves places instead of just whistling for a cab or dipping into the subway. In Los Angeles, however, driving is an integral part of the Angeleno identity, a fact that was reaffirmed this week when President Obama caused a massive traffic jam and enraged some L.A. commuters.

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.

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.

Andrés Duque–known to his Twitter and blog followers as Blabbeando–knew he was probably tweeting too much about the gay marriage vote in Argentina when Twitter cut him after only about three hours of translating the debate in the Argentina Senate.

The world of traditional media has overturned in the past decade – and few have ridden the crest of this wave more savvily than Michael Kinsley. As a pundit on CNN’s “Crossfire,” editing Slate, experimenting with the editorial page of the Los Angeles Times, and now at The Atlantic, Kinsley’s philosophy has been an open desire to speak truth to power, and to bend the boundaries of where and how the media engages with its audience. Philip Bump examines the arc of Kinsley’s career, and just how ahead of the curve that arc has been.

Get your “Hollyweird” insults locked and loaded, fans of immigration laws, because the latest opponents of the Arizona Immigration Bill appears to be the entire city of Los Angeles. Well, not the entire city, of course, but the council elected to represent them. The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that the L.A. City Council voted 13-1 to “ban most city travel to Arizona and future contracts with companies” in the state of Arizona.

One of the first anchors from another network to join the young Fox Business Network in 2007 was Liz Claman, who came over from CNBC. This week the Los Angeles Times profiled the star at FBN, who revealed a bit about her “tree-hugging, West Coast, free-market, liberal Jew from L.A.” background.

Is Bill O’Reilly softening as others on Fox News go more partisan or attack stronger?

It’s a case made today by the Los Angeles Times‘ Matea Gold, who talked to the longtime cable news ratings leader about his role at the network – and Glenn Beck.

3D is old news. Yeah, it’s coming to TV in real-time, and James Cameron seems to have an affinity for it.* Great. But the technology has been around forever. As in, since the 1890s. The classic image of people wearing 3D glasses at the movies is from the 1950s, after all – half a century [...]

When Jack Donaghy looked at Liz Lemon as she rambled on Thursday night on 30 Rock and quipped, “This is like watching Hemingway write—Mark Hemingway,” was Jack referring to C-list conservative pundit Mark Hemingway at the Washington Examiner (and formerly at National Review Online)?

The complicated story of the death of Los Angeles Times sports writer Mike Penner–who famously transitioned to Christine Daniels in 2007 and then apparently detransitioned back to Penner in 2008–raises complicated questions as the media is grappling with telling the story of one of its own, but also the complexity of talking about transgender people.