But wait....

“Hall of Fame running back Marshall Faulk was among three NFL Network analysts suspended Monday night in response to a new filing in a lawsuit brought by former wardrobe stylist,” writes USA Today. The others are Ike Taylor and Heath Evans.

And from The Financial Times

Susan Fowler, the software engineer “who lifted the lid on sexual harassment at Uber and inspired women to speak out,” is the Financial Times Person of the Year.

Comcast out of 21st Century Fox bidding

As the Los Angeles Times notes, “Walt Disney Co.’s potential deal to acquire much of Rupert Murdoch’s entertainment empire appears to be in the home stretch as the only other serious bidder, Comcast Corp., confirmed that it was no longer in the running.”

Uncovering “Mosul Eye”

For more than three years, he documented atrocities by ISIS without letting the world know his true identity. Then he fled to Europe and finally decided to go public via two AP reporters: Paris-based Lori Hinnant and Cairo-based Maggie Michael. It’s a story of their persistence but also of some trick professional issues.

Notably, as heroic as Omar Mohammed was, how could one verify his claims? What about his clearly risking his life by smoking a cigarette in an ISIS controlled area on the Tigris?

“Omar gave us databases from his hard drive tracking the dead, noting daily events in Mosul. Each one was a separate file — totaling hundreds of files. The origin dates on each matched the date of the file, or at most was one or two days away from it. For his account of the day on the Tigris, he gave us multiple photos and a video from the day, each with an origin date in March 2015, which was when he said the events had happened. On Google Maps, he showed us the curve in the river where he picnicked, and zoomed on the marshy areas to show how it matched up with his account. As for himself blogging inside a dark room in his house in Mosul, he provided a video that AP used. He used maps to show his escape route. He showed on Google a list of the top students from his high school in Mosul, and his name was among the top five.”

There’s more in this email chat I had with the duo.

The Post hammers Fusion GPS

The Washington Post disclosed new details about the work of Fusion GPS, the investigative firm whose founders include ex-Wall Street Journal journalists Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch. The firm has largely come to light due to its involvement on the dubious Trump “dossier” but there’s much more here about its methods, secrecy and tactics that go beyond traditional opposition research for a wide array of clients.

One depressing parenthetical to its story is the dubious labor of famous attorney David Boies. The New York Times has already ditched his law firm for a “grave betrayal of trust” in both representing the firm and seeking to sidetrack a Times investigation of the disgusting actions of former longtime client Harvey Weinstein. And it’s also chronicled his involvement in seemingly slimy litigation representing a former boyfriend against novelist Emma Cline, author of The Girls.

But this details how Boies (and GPS) did the bidding of Theranos, the once hot, now-belittled health technology firm, in trying to stymie Wall Street Journal reporting on the company not linked to knowingly dubious blood tests. But great Journal works and many awards for the paper came despite his heavy-handed threats.