Big Story

A respected group of media researchers has found that Sen. Barack Obama gets a lot more coverage than Sen. John McCain. I didn't need a think tank to tell me that. After all, Madonna gets more coverage than Mr. McCain does, too, even when she doesn't want it - although it is hard to imagine when she wouldn't. Mr. Obama gets more media attention than Mr. McCain because, as we have heard over and over again, he is the rock star of today's political scene. Mr. McCain, by contrast, is an attractive candidate and war hero who is less intriguing precisely because, in a political world where fresh and new have become the highest virtue, we know him so well.

The American League East has long been considered one of baseball's toughest divisions, and that should hold true again in 2013. But it's no longer a division dominated by a couple high-spending teams and the occasional upstart. Suddenly, the AL East is being recognized for its top-to-bottom depth. The Orioles had their best finish in the division in 15 years in 2012, taking second place and earning a wild-card berth. The Blue Jays are the unofficial champions of the off-season, going from a fourth-place club to a World Series contender.

In Rome, they call it the Big Story. The deteriorating health and inevitable earthly demise of Pope John Paul II is one of the most anticipated news events in recent history, and the world's television networks have been rehearsing for it for nearly a decade. When the moment does arrive, the pope's death will trigger a vast array of lights, cables, remote control cameras and microwave relays that have been lying dormant in and around St. Peter's Basilica for years, waiting to spring into action and carry out carefully written and repeatedly revised coverage plans.

Orioles fans are chortling this morning after the Detroit Tigers routed the New York Yankees 8-1 Thursday for a four-game sweep of the American League Championship Series. This was an unbelievably humiliating series for the Yankees, which always plays well here. It's been fun watching the notorious New York media savage the home team, too. The Yankees seemed intent in mailing this one in from the beginning. It didn't help that Yankees' ace  C.C. Sabathia, who surrendered 11 hits and six runs, appeared to be throwing batting practice to the Tigers yesterday.

From one of the most portentous elections in county history to landmark legislation aimed at preventing trees from becoming an endangered species, 1990 should prove to have left quite a mark on the people and places of Anne Arundel County.In Annapolis, lawmakers dueled over a proposed landfill expansion that city officials say is essential to the capital city's economic health. In Crofton, residents feared for their safety after a woman was murdered in the woods near the library. And in Shady Side, residents pulled together to help an Ohio town ravaged by floodwaters -- even though the only bond they shared was a similar name.

JP Morgan, BP, Walmart, and the multibillionaire Koch brothers have just launched a TV advertisement blasting President Obama for the national debt. Actually, I don't know who's behind the ad because there's no way to know. And that's a big problem. The front group for the ad is Crossroads GPS, the sister organization to the super PAC American Crossroads run by Republican political operative Karl Rove. But because Crossroads GPS is a nonprofit, tax-exempt "social welfare organization," it can spend unlimited money and doesn't have to reveal its sources.

CBS News anchor Dan Rather has always loved to be in the thick of the big story - whether that story was the Watergate scandal, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, or as recently as Labor Day, a hurricane bearing down on the United States. He finds himself at the center of a very different storm today, however, as the public face of his network's recent story questioning George W. Bush's record in the Texas Air National Guard. The report, which aired Sept. 8 on 60 Minutes, for which Rather served as the on-air correspondent, relied upon documents said to come from the personal files of Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, the squadron commander.

I hate it when they do that.The new administration at the Charles Theater has tried so mightily to provide the city with a menu of interesting cinema, something far removed from the blander product of the suburban multiplexes, and in the long months of their regime, they've not once had to stoop to conquer.Enter: "Spike & Mike's Festival of Animation '95."I hate it when they do that!For those of you not burned hopelessly out on artsy animation, here's a preview, delivered by a man with a jaundiced eye and a clothespin on his nose.

Orioles fans are chortling this morning after the Detroit Tigers routed the New York Yankees 8-1 Thursday for a four-game sweep of the American League Championship Series. This was an unbelievably humiliating series for the Yankees, which always plays well here. It's been fun watching the notorious New York media savage the home team, too. The Yankees seemed intent in mailing this one in from the beginning. It didn't help that Yankees' ace  C.C. Sabathia, who surrendered 11 hits and six runs, appeared to be throwing batting practice to the Tigers yesterday.

Live tweets from b's exclusive reader party 8 p.m. Feb. 10 at Rams Head Live with Michael Jackson tribute band Who's Bad . Going? Tweet song requests, shoutouts and pictures of you and your friends b-ing bad at b's reader party. Use hashtag #Bbad . Note: This module isn't accepting chat comments, just tweets! Welcome to our mobile site! Here's a quick tour: • Find things to do: 10 Spot picks happening soon are highlighted at the top of the site.

JP Morgan, BP, Walmart, and the multibillionaire Koch brothers have just launched a TV advertisement blasting President Obama for the national debt. Actually, I don't know who's behind the ad because there's no way to know. And that's a big problem. The front group for the ad is Crossroads GPS, the sister organization to the super PAC American Crossroads run by Republican political operative Karl Rove. But because Crossroads GPS is a nonprofit, tax-exempt "social welfare organization," it can spend unlimited money and doesn't have to reveal its sources.

Even as sets are being built in the Baltimore area for the $100 million Netflix remake of "House of Cards," a report out of Hollywood says producer-director David Fincher might not be on board. Fincher, who directed "The Social Network, and star Kevin Spacey are the big names driving the remake of a 1990 BBC production about scheming, back-stabbing and spinning in the halls of Parliament. The Netflix version sets the story in Washington and includes Robin Wright in its cast. Fincher is supposed to be directing the pilot.

Live tweets from b's exclusive reader party 8 p.m. Feb. 10 at Rams Head Live with Michael Jackson tribute band Who's Bad . Going? Tweet song requests, shoutouts and pictures of you and your friends b-ing bad at b's reader party. Use hashtag #Bbad . Note: This module isn't accepting chat comments, just tweets! Welcome to our mobile site! Here's a quick tour: • Find things to do: 10 Spot picks happening soon are highlighted at the top of the site.

It might be hard to imagine that anyone is more psyched-up for Thursday night's matchup between the Ravens and 49ers than Baltimore and San Francisco fans. But there is. The team at NFL Network, which is cablecasting the game from Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium at 8 p.m. Thanksgiving day, is sky high. Executives and announcers at the league-owned cable channel see the match-up between two division-leading teams coached by brothers as one of the biggest contests and most compelling story lines in its six seasons of telecasting games in prime time.

Anyone who's been to the movies lately knows that "RELEASE THE KRAKEN!" is probably the catchphrase of the season. As uttered in the trailer for "Clash of the Titans" by a bearded, berobed, Olympic-size Liam Neeson in reference to an 800-foot beast with bad teeth and a worse attitude, it doesn't have the romantic tingle of "You had me at hello." Or the saltiness of "I'll have what she's having." But as movie mantras go, it captures the exclamatory quality of "Clash of the Titans."

CNN anchorman Anderson Cooper is riding about as high as you can in the TV news business these days. His cable news ratings for his nightly Anderson Cooper 360 are tops in his time period for November, and he's winning them with serious, fact-based journalism. Then, there's his part-time job as a correspondent for the top-rated CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes, where he's doing first-rate newsmagazine journalism that ranges from a report on rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to a recent Michael Phelps profile that drew an audience of more than 18 million viewers.

A GUNMAN shot and killed eight people in San Francisco the other day. It was a news story, but not a big story because it seems that every week a gunman is killing eight victims somewhere in the U.S.A.For a story to qualify as big news, it has to be exceptional. Since killing people with guns is now the norm in this country, an editor is hard put to know whether to put it anywhere near the front page.Because incidents of gun violence are not big news, it follows that trying to get legislation passed to prevent gun ownership is also not newsworthy.

The man known as Clark Rockefeller slipped into Baltimore months ago with ambitions to restore historic city property, quickly passing himself off as the owner of a local real estate agency with ties to the New York City elite. "He talked a big story," said Bruce Boswell, a North Baltimore man who said he sold a 26-foot catamaran to Rockefeller for $10,000 in cash at the beginning of the summer. "He's a very engaging guy with big ideas. I trusted him completely."