These are some of the things that have caught my attention lately. It’s a more eclectic mix than just the news business, but then so’s life:

• A Tycoon Tweaks Putin, and Gets Away With It | NYTimes.com – Mr. Lebedev, 48, has always seemed to operate from his own playbook. A former lieutenant colonel in the K.G.B., he was posted in Britain when the Soviet Union fell, and returned to Russia as an expert in emerging market debt, to become president of the National Reserve Bank. He speaks fluent, London-accented English and, though his white hair and slightly cherubic face recall an economics professor rather than a corporate predator, favors stovepipe pants, leather jackets and dark glasses, sometimes when he is indoors.

  Several times in recent years Mr. Lebedev has found himself in hot water with Russia’s leaders. This occurred most notably in April, when a newspaper that Mr. Lebedev owned, Moscovsky Korrespondent, reported that Mr. Putin planned to divorce his wife and marry Alina Kabayeva, a 24-year-old champion in rhythmic gymnastics. The article set off a flurry of speculation in Moscow, but Mr. Lebedev said he was not behind it: He published an article saying that he had been fishi

• China spends 45 billion to extend media’s global reach | zhongnanhaiblog – China could open a hundred news organizations and blanket the world with China's point of view, but it would be greeted with just as much suspicion as it is now because China, despite all of its advancements, remains a one-party state with absolute control over all domestic media.  This investment in more coverage may help to a degree: sure, we all know that China Daily is a government mouthpiece, but we read it because we get to know what the government thinks and it provides a decent (I'm being generous) roundup of what's going on in the country. A new Xinhua TV Channel or Global Times newspaper may provide the same.  But at the end of the day, it's a lot of money being thrown at the symptom. China can't buy itself credibility.  Not even for 45 billion.
• Chinese Media Giants Look to Expand Overseas | NYTimes.com – The country’s increasingly wealthy media giants, all of which operate under government censorship rules and propaganda motives, are looking to acquire international media assets, to open more overseas news bureaus and to publish and broadcast more broadly in English and other languages. Many of them have already announced plans to hire English-speaking Chinese and also foreign-media specialists.
• Paul Offit’s Book "Autism’s False Prophets" Is Rallying Resistance to the Antivaccine Crusade | NYTimes.com – A new book defending vaccines, written by a doctor infuriated at the claim that they cause autism, is galvanizing a backlash against the antivaccine movement in the United States.

  Ryan Collerd for The New York Times
  Paul A. Offit, pediatrician.
  Related
  Global Update: Eradication Goal for Measles Is Unlikely, Report Says (January 13, 2009)
  Health Guide: Autism | Vaccination
  Web Link
  Read an Excerpt of "Autism's False Prophets

  Mike Cassese/Reuters
  Amanda Peet, actress.
  But there will be no book tour for the doctor, Paul A. Offit, author of “Autism’s False Prophets.” He has had too many death threats.

• Secret inquest plans brought back | BBC NEWS – Plans to exclude relatives, juries and the press from some inquests – on national security grounds – are being brought back by ministers.
  They come in a new bill covering coroners, murder laws, witness protection and sentencing. Just months ago, similar plans were shelved.
  The government says secret inquests, which many oppose, would prevent intelligence details from leaking out.
• Tobacco Industry Efforts to Undermine Policy-Relevant Research — Landman and Glantz 99 (1): 45 | American Journal of Public Health – The tobacco industry, working through third parties to prevent policy-relevant research that adversely affected it between 1988 and 1998, used coordinated, well-funded strategies in repeated attempts to silence tobacco researcher Stanton A. Glantz. Tactics included advertising, litigation, and attempts to have the US Congress cut off the researcher's National Cancer Institute funding. Efforts like these can influence the policymaking process by silencing opposing voices and discouraging other scientists from doing work that may expose them to tobacco industry attacks. The support of highly credible public health organizations and of researchers’ employers is crucial to the continued advancement of public health.