A few weeks ago Newsweek's piece on the Dominique Strauss-Kahn rape case offered a welcome break from some of the sloppy, offensive coverage of the case we've seen elsewhere in the media. The magazine even cast doubt on some of the reporting coming from the New York Times.

This week, though,  is another matter. John Solomon has a piece outlining the Strauss-Kahn defense, and he includes this:

Now sources familiar with Strauss-Kahn’s case, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, say the defense could speculate that the encounter went bad when housekeeper Nafissatou Diallo discovered she would not receive any money after oral sex with the powerful Frenchman. Strauss-Kahn’s team may also try to portray Diallo, 32, as an “earner” who tried to pick up cash and gifts to supplement her $40,000 housekeeper’s salary, creating a financial motive to interpret some of the evidence in a new light.

So "sources familiar" with Strauss-Kahn's case-- anonymous, of course-- think that his lawyers "could speculate" that Diallo thought she was trading sex for money. Does Newsweek generally allow reporters to grant sources anonymity to float nasty rumors about things other people might say?

I was wondering if anything written about this case could be more offensive than Stuart Taylor's vile screed about the need to drop the charges against Strauss-Kahn because some rape cases have fallen apart ("Some seem to unlearn the lessons of such cases every time a poor (or not so poor) woman of color accuses a rich (or not so rich) white male of doing something horrible," he explained).

As we pointed out a few weeks ago, defense attorneys leaking information to discredit an accuser in a case like this is a fairly common practice. One would hope journalists would know better than to print them.

Washington Times, the paper of Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, has announced it will be going to free distribution and laying off at least 40 percent of its staff. Which positions won't make the cut? Well, one that's been mentioned is that of editor.

That's right; former editor John Solomon resigned last month after less than a year at the Times, and the company's new president and publisher, Jonathan Slevin, told the Washington Post that "there is no search for a Solomon successor and that his job may not be filled under a reorganization." Who, exactly, will be in charge of news content in the absence of an editor is unclear.

Over at the Dallas Morning News, meanwhile, who will be in charge of news content was made painfully clear to several section editors on Wednesday: the sales department. In a memo to staff at the News and A.H. Belo's other papers, editor Bob Mong and senior vice president of sales Cyndy Carr told editors of departments ranging from sports and entertainment to health and education that they would be reporting to sales managers instead of the editor, as part of the paper's "bold new strategies" of "business/news integration."

As Robert Wilonsky of the Dallas Observer commented (Unfair Park, 12/3/09), "In short, those who sell ads for A.H. Belo's products will now dictate content within A.H. Belo's products, which is a radical departure from the way newspapers have been run since, oh, forever."

It's not entirely radical, given that the vaunted wall between the news and business ends of newspapers have been steadily eroding over the years. (See Extra!'s annual Fear & Favor reports.) But at a certain point, it seems like you have to stop calling yourself a news outlet and admit you're just an advertising supplement.