Dustin Hurst, one of the more active tweeters when the Idaho Legislature is in session, is no longer with the Idaho Reporter. He has moved on to Montana Watchdog, a nonprofit web-based media organization. But it's not where Hurst is working, but his journalistic methods that are making news this morning.

The Idaho Statesman's Dan Popkey reports this morning that Hurst called the Seattle office of Strategies 360 earlier this week in regards to the firm's hiring of Brian Cronin as its new senior vice president for its Boise office. But Popkey reports that Hurst didn't identify himself to Strategies 360, let alone say that he was a reporter. Instead, according to Popkey's report, Hurst identified himself as Joe Turner, someone "interested in having you help with some business." Hurst's ruse was to confirm that Cronin had recently been hired by Strategies 360.

But by then, Cronin had spoken to Popkey, as well as Boise Weekly's Andrew Crisp, about his new position and his intentions.

“I’m going to continue what I’ve done for the past 15 years, which is work in the field of marketing and communications,” Cronin said. “I’m now working for a larger company with larger clients.”

Now, Hurst is saying that he regrets the error and was planning to call Cronin and Strategies 360 to apologize.

"This was a one-time incident and not a habitual practice for me," Hurst told Popkey.

The Los Angeles Times has joined the pay wall parade.

After a one-month trial at 99-cents per week, e-readers will have to pay either $1.99 per week (along with paying for a print subscription) or $3.99 weekly.

Two years ago, the Wall Street Journal was the nation’s first major publication to introduce a pay model. A year ago, The New York Times began charging its online readers for access, and a week ago, limited the number of free articles to 10 per month.

The Boston Globe now also charges for its online content and the Gannett newspaper chain recently announced that it will put 80 of its community newspapers behind a pay wall by the end of the year.

“[Newspapers] need to be more adaptable as they try to make this transition, and stop trying to recover the glory days back when they were cash cows with upward of 20 percent profit margins,” said Chris Tolles, chief executive officer of Topix told the Christian Science Monitor.

Legendary football coach Joe Paterno died early today, but not before a string of false reports that he had died on Saturday - set off by a student-run website and repeated by Pennsylvania radio stations, and eventually CBS Sports and CNN. The flurry of inaccurate information was still being debated today, even after Paterno's passing was officially announced Sunday morning. The ex-Penn State coach died of lung cancer, according to his family.

The false reports began Saturday evening when Onward State, a Penn State student-operated website wrote that Paterno, 85, had died. The website based its report on an email that it said had been sent to the school's football players. The report was then repeated by a State College Station, Penn., radio station. Within minutes, the false report was repeated on CBS Sports' website. The Huffington Post and Deadspin also ran the false report. Journalists, including CNN's Anderson Cooper and Howard Kurtz, re-tweeted the report, though both reporters later corrected themselves.

Paterno's family tweeted statements on Saturday evening, denying all of the media accounts, writing the ex-coach "is continuing to fight," and was "alive but in serious condition."

The episode came almost a year since another series of erroneous reports that Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords had died after being shot in Tucson, Ariz. Giffords was severely wounded in the shooting, but survived.

Two former political rivals, but now colleagues, have topped the lists of the nation's most-admired men and women. President Barack Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sit atop the annual USA Today/Gallup poll, each with 17 percent of votes cast for men and women from the worlds of politics, religion, entertainment and culture.

Obama was followed by former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, 93-year-old evangelist Billy Graham (who has been on the list since 1946), Warren Buffett, Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump, Pope Benedict XVI, Bill Gates and Thomas Monson, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The Secretary of State was followed on the women's list by Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, Sarah Palin, former secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Laura Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Ellen DeGeneres, Queen Elizabeth II and Rep. Michele Bachmann.

As Citydesk reported Monday, investigative news organization ProPublica won the Pulitzer Prize for “The Wall Street Money Machine,” its investigation into into the financial crisis, which was featured on This American Life’s “Inside Job.”

To go with the radio version of the story, ProPublica summed the story up in a showtune.

Enjoy.

Boise Weekly's recent coverage of the Egyptian revolution came via GlobalPost, our international news provider.

This week, Fresh Air's Terry Gross chatted with GlobalPost's executive editor and co-founder Charles Sennott just as he returned from Egypt, where he covered the revolution for GlobalPost, as well as for PBS in a co-production between GlobalPost and Frontline called "Revolution in Cairo," which airs Tuesday, Feb. 22.

Sennott, a 25-year news veteran who has spent 15 years reporting in the Middle East, spoke to Gross about the Muslim Brotherhood and what Sennott described as the most exciting story he has ever covered.

Listen to the story here or download it at npr.org.

• Steve Fainaru

But citydesk is planning on hitting up 2008 Pulitzer winner Steve Fainaru next week when he comes to Boise State to ponder the idea: "What would happen if there was a war and nobody covered it."

Fainaru won the top journo prize for his Washington Post series on private contractors in Iraq.

Of course, that is not such a far-fetched idea. There are plenty of wars, including our unmanned drone-fought war in Pakistan and wars across Africa that barely get covered. And then there are the secret wars in which private companies do our nation's bidding and we provide them with tax-payer supported prostitutes and strippers.

Fainaru, who has been writing about violence along the Mexican border, will speak at 7 p.m. on Feb. 16 in the Morrison Center. His lecture is free and open to the public.

Just ran into Craig Newmark, of craigslist.org, outside of the Big Tent, the indy blogger conclave for Convention '08. He was interviewing Joe Trippi, Howard Dean's former campaign manager, on a new-fangled little video "device". At the end of the "interview" Newmark remarked that he's just pretending to be a journalist but that he's keeping his day job.

Newmark, whom we chatted up for a minute, was on his way to Arianna Huffington's suite for a little foot massage. He posted the massage video on his blog before the Trippi video, showing that Newmark has his craigslist priorities in order, at least. We won't scoop him on the interview... perhaps it will show up later, or maybe he decided it was not really news.

We like Newmark and think he is sincerely trying to utilize technology in novel and helpful ways, but we agree he should keep his day job. Here's a few tips for Newmark and all the indy bloggers out there:

1) An interview does not mean recording a guy saying whatever the hell he wants. Ask some damn questions.
2) Everything is not news. You are drowning us with mere documentation. Know when something is really happening, man.
3) Don't assume people know what you are talking about. Either give us some context or at least a wikipedia link or something. What is networked governance, Craig... we need a little more information!
4) Don't diss the old media if you use it. Huffington has a very valid critique of traditional journalism and its elevation of equity over truth. But half the stuff on her site is AP wire copy. If you can do it better, then do it. If not, then don't whine about it.
5) Figure out a way to organize yourselves better. Perhaps this is a good project for Craig, because I am totally overwhelmed trying to separate the blog wheat from the blog chaff. Help a brother out.

The is a real debate going on in terms of credentialing at this DNCC. The Democratic Party has given bloggers nearly free reign, but the gatekeepers, the U.S. Senate Press Galleries, have been overwhelmed with newbie issues, according to one inside source, who spoke to BW over rum and cokes and thus will not be named. "Journalists" credentialed by the DNC have been spotted working the floor with Obama stickers and buttons on, wearing shorts and hats, and acting like amateurs. Some of them have been kicked out.

While we are completely in favor of throwing open the doors and changing the rules of journalism, every avocation needs some rules and some standard operating procedures. Who is going to figure that out?

I nominate Newmark.