Last month, Illinois prosecutors made news for subpoenaing the grades, emails and other records of a group of journalism students who claimed they had uncovered evidence that a man convicted of a 1978 murder was innocent. Basically, the prosecutors don't agree with the journalism students, who are working with the Medill Innocence Project at Northwestern University, and during a subpoena hearing today they accused the students of "flirting" with sources, and paying one of them $60 (which he allegedly used to buy crack cocaine). They also reiterated their claim that the students may have scandalously been motivated by something other than a noble search for the Truth, with a capital T, underscored thrice and written in fancy cursive.

Reports Reuters:

In Tuesday's submission in support of the subpoena of students' e-mails and grades, which the school is fighting, prosecutors argued that the students' investigation was flawed and may have included pay-offs to witnesses.

Prosecutors said they want to know if the students' motivation to find exculpatory evidence was driven by a quest for better grades.

Oh crap, these students were driven by "a quest for better grades" and not for the absolute, objective, Platonic truth of the Universe!? Somebody go check on H. L. Mencken to see if he's pulling 360s in his grave. Come on, prosecutors: The idea that journalists are objective truth-seekers died out with, like, Walter Cronkite's "And that's the way it is." We've all got an angle these days. Sometimes it's coming up with incomprehensible metaphors to explain globalization in order to sell a million books; sometimes it's not flunking out of journalism school by proving murderers innocent. (Incidentally, does one really undertake a "quest" for grades? Makes journalism school seem way more fun than it probably is!)

Maybe it's because I only write stupid articles about public restrooms and cemeteries, but of the many things that have motivated me as a journalist, not one is any less impure than these students wanting to get an A- in Exculpating Murderers 101. My motivations include: Not having any money and wanting to have some, fear of an impending deadline, fear of my editor's wrath, fear of failure, fear of being yelled at by people who didn't like my article. Fear, basically. A lot of fear.

And regarding prosecutors' claim that students aren't practicing proper "journalism" because they paid a source, I have just ten simple words: "Gawker" "bought" "the" "Balloon" "Boy" "scoop" "from" "that" "one" "guy." (Although there's a pretty strong argument to be made that Gawker's status as practicing journalism would not hold up in any U.S. court.)

We've been waiting a long time for Rohde's first-person account of his ordeal—we found it very strange that he declined to comment to his own newspaper immediately after his release—and we're glad he's writing it. Yesterday he recounted his kidnapping, and today he tells of his transfer into Pakistan's tribal region. (He also answers reader questions—many of them quite hostile—here.)

Rohde was mostly treated well by his captors—at least thus far in the narrative—with some spoiled food and psychological torment being the worst of it. His kidnappers played cruel tricks on him, telling him at one point, for instance, that they were going to kill his driver Asad in a week. Rohde—who felt a heavy responsibility for the fates of Asad and Tahir, his translator—panicked. A couple days later they claimed it was all a misunderstanding, "there was no deadline" for Asad.

The cruelest trick of all was played by the Taliban commander that Rohde latched onto as the most reasonable of his kidnappers, Atiqullah. He was friendly, and assured Rohde that he would be released in due time. But he also lied: He assured Rohde at one point that he was being moved within Afghanistan, when in fact he was being transported to the Pakistani tribal regions, a much more dangerous place for an American. Atiqullah would disappear for days at a time, and every time he returned, Rohde's hopes would brighten a bit. At the end of today's installment, we learn the truth:

In conversations when our guards left the room, Tahir and Asad each separately whispered to me that Atiqullah was, in fact, Abu Tayyeb. They had known since the day we were kidnapped, they said, but dared not tell me. They asked me to stay silent as well. Abu Tayyeb had vowed to behead them if they revealed his true identity.

Abu Tayyeb had invited us to an interview, betrayed us and then pretended that he was a commander named Atiqullah.

I was despondent and left with only one certainty: We had no savior among the Taliban.

We also learn that Rohde's captors were quite eager to get the news out of his kidnapping. They wanted to make a video of him to release to the media, but relented only after Rohde convinced them that they'd be able to get a better bargain in exchanging prisoners if the deal was secret. Rohde's main motivation was to spare his family the stress of seeing him in a video. Later, they make a video of him for release only to his family, but Rohde suspects that they'll send it to the media anyway.

All of this flatly contradicts what we were told in March by Catherine Mathis, then the Times' senior vice president for communications. At the time, Rohde's kidnapping was still an open secret, the subject of a press blackout enforced by the Times. Since the news of Rohde's captivity was freely available on the internet, we were preparing an item on it, and on the blackout. When we contacted the Times, Mathis asked us not to publish, saying in no uncertain terms that Rohde's captors had told the Times specifically that his life would be endangered if news of his situation became widely reported. We pressed this point: How does Mathis know that further coverage would actually increase the risk to Rohde? "His captors told us that it would," she said. "You can't get a better source than that."

We agreed not to write about it, and Rohde reached freedom several months later. We've noticed before that, since his release, Rohde has made comments suggesting that Mathis' line to us wasn't true: In June, Times editor Bill Keller quoted Rohde as saying the press blackout was a good thing because his captors seemed intensely interested in his ransom value, something that seems to contradict Mathis' that they didn't want any coverage. At the time, we asked Mathis to resolve the apparent inconsistency, and she declined. She has since left the Times, and is chief of communications for Standard & Poor's.

There were many good arguments for and against breaking the press blackout. Mathis decided to press one against it that relied on factual claims about the Taliban's wishes. It went like this: "If you publish, David Rohde will be at greater risk. My evidence for this is that the people who have control of Rohde told me that it is so." It seems clear to us, based on Rohde's account thus far, that those claims were false. It may be the case that, by the time we put the question to the Times in March, the Taliban's wishes had changed. And it may be the case that, when dealing with the Taliban, no one knows anything and fragmented information ricocheted around the Times and people got confused. We've called Mathis for explanation, and asked the Times for a reason not to think that we were deliberately lied to. We haven't heard back yet.

All's well that ends well. We remain conflicted about the merits of the Rohde press blackout, but we obviously went along with it, and that says something about our feelings on the matter. It's hard to fault the Times for finding any argument that worked in keeping people from writing about it. But a lie is a lie. And newspapers have certain self-imposed obligations with respect to honesty. If it took dishonesty to keep Rohde as safe as possible under the circumstances, then that's what it took. But we think the Times should explain itself. Maybe we're wrong, and misreading the record. If so, we've given the Times plenty of opportunities to set us straight, and they've refused.

UPDATE: The Times' Diane McNulty responds, "Initially we were told by the kidnappers that we needed to keep it quiet for David's safety. But at some point later we started to receive mixed messages. Some faction of the Taliban seemed to want media attention but we were unable to get clarification of whether they spoke for those in charge of David."

In today's story, Rohde recounts his initial conversation with his wife, conducted roughly eight or ten days after the kidnapping, thusly:

"Make a deal now or they will make it public," I said. "They want to put a video out to the media."

Kristen repeated my words back to me.

"It will make it a big political problem," I said.

So if it is the case that, initially, the Times was hearing from the kidnappers that they "needed to keep it quiet for David's safety," that information contradicted what Rohde himself was telling his wife at the time about his kidnappers' desires. It may very well be true that the best way to keep Rohde safe was to keep it quiet. They did keep it quiet, and he did stay safe. But it does not seem, by our reading of Rohde's account, that during the early days of his captivity his captors intended to harm him if news of the kidnapping got out. They wanted it out, and Rohde told his wife that they wanted it out.

• "We made this movie for the same reason that we create all of our art; because we love it"
• "There is no number or level of success that would make me think, 'Wow, I didn't think that was possible.'"
• "My writing is authentic and whatever happens in my life is what I write about."
• "Now, I'm more like a smart missile."
• "We also wanted to make it feel realistic."
• "everyone just assumes it's going to be a success."

Read them all! It's fucking Friday afternoon.
[via Agency Spy]

While the White House maybe would not have chosen to leak this audio (or would they?), the only people who'll be able to hate on Obama for this tape will be Glenn Beck, and...Glenn Beck. Obama's agreeing with the Republican position here! As he has in the past! Rappers need to stop acting like jerks! The rest of the tape is just him shooting the shit with the press corps, which also serves him well by fostering the common man's daydream of maybe hanging out with the prez one day. Chilling.

And does anybody actually care that ABC's Terry Moran tweeted this crap, then deleted it, because maybe this HOT story was off the record? No, it is just a talking point. Using off-camera footage is a fine tradition in the media. Look at any Michael Moore movie. And as you hear Obama on this clip, jokingly asking for things to be off the record after he already called the world's most famous hip hop artist a 'jackass,' in a room full of reporters, it's clear that he doesn't really give a shit. Neither should anyone else.

It is kinda funny though.

From the (North) Korean Central News Agency, your only unbiased counterimperialist source of official DPRK propaganda:

3/21: "Two Americans were detained on March 17 while illegally intruding into the territory of the DPRK by crossing the DPRK-China border." Was apparently true!

6/16: KCNA Detailed Report on Truth about Crimes Committed by American Journalists: "at dawn of March 17 unidentified two men and two women covertly crossed the River Tuman to intrude into its bank of the DPRK side in Kangan-ri, Onsong County, North Hamgyong Province. The two women were arrested on the spot." Also maybe true, who knows? Fast forward to...

8/5: "Clinton expressed words of sincere apology to Kim Jong Il for the hostile acts committed by the two American journalists against the DPRK after illegally intruding into it...The measure taken to release the American journalists is a manifestation of the DPRK's humanitarian and peaceloving policy."

Kim Jong-Il cannot tell a lie.
[Pic: Getty]

In a study that confirms what you totally already knew, it turns out that the active ingredient in ganja kills off brain cancer cells:

In the study, THC was found to induce the death of various human brain cancer cell lines and primary cultured human brain cancer cells by a process known as autophagy...

As analysis of tumors from two patients with recurrent glioblastoma multiforme (a highly aggressive brain tumor) receiving intracranial THC administration showed signs of autophagy, the authors suggest that cannabinoid administration may provide a new approach to targeting human cancers.

It's like you can just feel it working, like the smoke is little soldiers going in and like grabbing the brain cancer and throwing it down a deep black hole and you exhale it out with the smoke and inhale purification and like, cleanse. Dude.
[Journal of Clinical Investigation via Science Daily]

Just because you digitally insert little asterisks over the heads of the shoppers you just totally pissed off does not mean that they're really on your side, smoke Nazis. Messing with people's Gummi Bears like that is just dangerous.

[Adfreak]

Lorillard doesn't have to market disproportionately to African-Americans, because the market share of menthols in the black community is already massive. Look at Orlowsky's own math:

The truth is that there are twice as many Caucasian menthol cigarette smokers as there are African-American menthol cigarette smokers.

African-Americans are about 13% of the US population. Whites are about 74%. There are roughly six times more whites than blacks in the US, but only two times more white menthol smokers. Disparity? Duh.

Targeting the youth?

Heavily-advertised Marlboro, Camel and Newport cigarettes dominated the teen smoking market between 1989 and 1996, according to a new study, which found that the percentage of teen Newport smokers doubled during those years.

Newport made its most significant inroads with the white and Hispanic teen market, say Karen Gerlach, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and colleagues. Their study appears in the American Journal of Health Behavior.

Newport cigarettes contain menthol, which may make them less harsh-tasting and easier for experimenting teens to smoke, Gerlach and colleagues say. They also suggest that expanded advertising campaigns may have helped increase the brand’s popularity.

Nobody has to target underage smokers. Target 18-year-old smokers! Their kid brothers will totally pick it up.

[CAOH; letter via Multicult Classics]

Let's examine three fitness programs profiled in the last two days:

1. Crossfit, via the NYT—CrossFit is an internet-based cult of fitness for psychos, itinerant preachers, ex-killers, and crazy people of all stripes. I have met some people who do CrossFit, and they are scarily in shape and also not at all fun to be around. All you have to do is complete the psycho workout routine posted online every day. Sample, from Friday:

For time:
15 Handstand push-ups
1 L Pull-up
13 Handstand push-ups
3 L Pull-ups
11 Handstand push-ups
5 L Pull-ups
9 Handstand push-ups
7 L Pull-ups
7 Handstand push-ups
9 L Pull-ups
5 Handstand push-ups
11 L Pull-ups
3 Handstand push-ups
13 L Pull-ups
1 Handstand push-up
15 L Pull-ups

Post time to comments.

Seriously, just forget CrossFit. It will make you insane.

2. Gyrotonics, via the NY Sun—Gyrotonics is based on a huge, complicated machine that is specially designed to extract money from the wallets of idly rich women. It looks like this:

The hustle is that you have to go to some particular specialist on this particular machine to help you unlock its magical potential, while you pay them handsomely for their secret knowledge. Here's another idea: grab a towel, pull it till your shoulders feel stretched out, then go run stairs until you're in shape. Fuck gyrotonics.

3. "Hollywood's Dirty Diet Secrets," via the NYDN—finally, something real. Also, sick. Did you know Hollywood starlets go on crazy crash diets which consist mostly of smoking, drinking coffee, and doing coke, supplemented only by lettuce or boiled eggs or lemonade or something equally ridiculous? Yes, you probably did know that. Combining laxative tea with fasting and five-hour daily workouts reportedly produces some real results. The downside is that you will be totally dead pretty quick. But yes, you will leave a pretty corpse.

What does it really take to get fit? Nothing more than an iron will, the Eye of the Tiger, buckets of sweat, hours of pain, days of hope, years of conquest, and THIS: