Today’s article in The Los Angeles Times about Michael Jackson contained some of the worst reporting I’ve ever seen.

It was if the reporters just refused to do any research. Instead, they muddled a bunch of disparate facts. Let’s not let this story stand as the record for anything, OK?

I don’t know how they could have screwed up so much about Colony Capital LLC’s involvement with Jackson.

For one thing, Colony Capital and its chief, Thomas Barrack, only have the note on Neverland. They never had anything to do with Jackson’s main loans against his 50% ownership in Sony/ATV Music Publishing. Those loans were sold by Fortress Investment Group to a consortium of Barclays, HSBC, and Sony Music in 2007.

I don’t know if Barrack ever called his “old friend”Philip Anschutz about Jackson. But the truth is: AEG Live’s Randy Phillips tried to get Jackson to agree to perform at the O2 Arena in London as early as December 2007, when I reported it. That was at least a year before Colony and Barrack had anything to do with Jackson.

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Jane Fonda has always been brilliant at marketing, especially when the proceeds go to one of her causes.

In the late ’70s and early ’80s, Jane created the workout videos and associated stuff to fund what she called the Campaign for Economic Democracy.

Over the last few years, Fonda has been instrumental in the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, or G-CAPP. Her involvement is a result of her relocation to Atlanta during her marriage to Ted Turner. But Fonda has always been a political activist, like it or not, on the cutting edge of humanitarian causes.

Now comes word that the two-time Oscar winner has authorized use of her famous mug shot from a false arrest in Cleveland during the 1970s. It’s going to be put on T-shirts, mugs (it’s a mug shot, after all) and other merchandise to raise money for G-CAPP.

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As I told you last week, there’s been a tug of war between Sony Music and Warner Music Group over Jay-Z.

But the tug of war is over, sources tell me: Jay-Z’s Roc Nation label, with new up-and-coming artists, will go to Sony. His new album, “The Blueprint 3,” will be released by Warner.

Jay-Z bought back “Blueprint 3” from Universal Music for $5 million. So WMG has had to advance him at least that much for the CD. And it’s a one-off deal, just for this recording. Given WMG’s track record, it’s questionable they’ll be able to break even, let alone turn a profit.

For Sony, it’s a win. Roc Nation could supply them with desperately needed new artists. With Jay-Z’s imprimatur, the new artists should have an easier time being heard, and selling music.

Why did Jay-Z go to WMG at all? My guess is that Sean “Diddy” Combs had something to do with it. The two hip-hop stars attended a Lakers game together on May 5—a rarity. But WMG spent $30 million on Combs’ Bad Boy label. They may have pressed him into the role of backchannel diplomat. And it worked.

Legendary record producer Phil Spector’s lifelong reign of terror came to an end today. He was sentenced to 19 years to life for the February 2003 murder of actress Lana Clarkson. Fifty years of waving guns in the faces of women came down to this.

Spector will now be remembered more for the murder than for creating the lush, magnificent “Wall of Sound,” and producing records that are the bedrock of rock and roll.

Clarkson is dead, but she lives on; she speaks thanks to the Internet. The Spector defense in two trials tried to paint her as depressed and suicidal. They argued that she took her own life. It’s hard to imagine this gorgeous, sunny, blonde, five foot eleven woman wanted to be alone with the rodent-like Spector even for a minute. But for some reason, she went back to his house on the night of February 3, 2003. It was the worst mistake she could have made.

I wrote about Clarkson in the hours after she was reported dead. Luckily, she left behind a website with a message board that still exists on the Internet. Her last post was on January 30, 2003. You could see she was thrilled to interact with her fans who loved her B movies like “Queen of the Barbarians.”

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Grace Rwaramba, the Neverland office assistant who worked her way up to being the nanny for Michael Jackson’s kids, has started her own charity.

Rwaramba has just put up a website named for the cause, World Accountability for Humanity. Yes, it’s a mouthful, and a little highfalutin’ considering once you get there. it’s not completely clear what’s going on.

Grace — who’s been a surrogate mother to Prince, Paris and Blanket Jackson — does reveal a little about herself. Whether or not it’s completely true is another story altogether. But she does say she was born in Uganda, not Rwanda, as previously thought. She was sent to live with older siblings in the U.S. when she was small, and attended a boarding school in Connecticut. She says she received a B.A. in Business Administration from Atlantic Union College.

She did turn up at Neverland circa 1994, where she worked in the office. In short order, she was caring for Prince, Jackson’s first child with Debbie Rowe. By the time Rowe had Paris, Grace was the full-time nanny.

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Something funny — and I don’t mean humorous — in the world of hip-hop magnate Jay-Z. Sony Music thinks they’re signing to distribute his latest album, “The Blueprint 3,” for their Epic label. But yesterday, the fun folks at Warner Music Group planted a story in a New York Daily News gossip column that they were secretly negotiating with Jay-Z to do the same thing. The story was so glowing about WMG that it was a bit hard to swallow: Why would smart Jay-Z want to go where no hits exist? WMG has even had trouble delivering on Green Day’s new album.

But there’s more: Jay-Z bought back this CD from Universal Music Group for $5 million after making an overall deal with Live Nation. With Live Nation, Jay-Z — real name Shawn Carter — is partners in everything including his Roc Nation label.

But Live Nation, which has deals with Madonna, U2, Nickelback, and Shakira, is not a record label. It’s a concert promoter. For example, with U2, Live Nation is also in business with Universal’s Interscope to release U2 albums. This means that the other acts — including Madonna — will need similar deals to put out albums. Madonna and Nickelback have each left Warner, so their deals will presumably be elsewhere or otherwise.

In Jay-Z’s case, he and Epic’s Amanda Ghost share a manager. Jay-Z’s wife, Beyonce Knowles, is a Sony star. So making the Sony-Epic deal seems right. Joining Lyor Cohen and Kevin Liles at WMG does not.

(Cohen, by the way, celebrated WMG’s lack of chart hits last week by going to the Cannes Film Festival with girlfriend Tory Burch. Cannes, he didn’t seem to know, is a FILM festival, mostly in French, and so having nothing to do with the AMERICAN RECORD business. WMG stockholders would do well to check that expense account. Hotel rooms for CEOs during the festival start at $1,000 a night.)

But the Jay-Z/WMG story had its desired effect, moving the recently miraculously and mysteriously revived WMG stock up 16 cents to close yesterday at $6.52. In February, when the company had just as few hits, the stock bottomed out at $1.74.

Have you heard of Katie Melua? Perhaps if the airwaves weren’t cluttered with junk, you would know this 24 -year-old’s clear and vibrant voice. She’s a musical descendant of Stevie Nicks and Natalie Merchant. Last night the 24 year old from Georgia (in Russia, not Atlanta), who was raised in Belfast and London, wowed a packed house at the Highline Ballroom. She’s on an acoustic tour of America, not to be missed.

Melua sang songs from her new live album, played guitar and piano (standing, hello!) and was basically very impressive. Melua’s on Mike Batt’s very cool indie label, Dramatico, which is distributed in the U.S. by Universal (of course).

At last night’s show, Melua—who is cute as a button and tiny, with a huge pile of brunette locks—sang several songs from her American release, “Pictures,” including “Sailboat”—-which should be on the radio, and “What I Miss About You,” which was lovely.

She also has a song about silent film legend Mary Pickford that name-checks the movie stars who created United Artists in th3 1930s—Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, and D.W. Griffith. UA should build a whole campaign around it. It’s much nicer than “Valkyrie.”  Check out this video for more info on that.

One poignant note: there were a lot of Georgians in the audience last night. They all sang along to a Russian song at the end of the show, very quietly, in and out of tune. They all know about her and are very proud.

Rapper Eminem has triumphantly returned to the charts–he’s No. 1 this week with over 600,000 copies of “Relapse.”

But how long before a new defamation lawsuit is filed by a family member? Back in 1999, Debbie Mathers Briggs — Marshall Mathers’ infamous mother — filed an $11 million suit against her son. She came away with just a $25,000 judgment and netted $1,600 after paying her lawyer.

Now, on a new track on “Relapse” called “Insane,” Eminem recalls in graphic detail rape and sexual abuse at the hands of a man he refers to as his stepfather. It’s unclear which of  Mathers-Briggs’ three ex-husbands (after Eminem’s actual father), or even a boyfriend — Eminem is referring to.

Whichever one it is, the “Insane” lyrics are certainly a potential place for a legal battleground. If the story is true, and so far Eminem’s childhood stories have unfortunately proven that way, “Insane” is the most frightening and awful “song” ever to appear on a popular CD.

And just to show you how bizarre the digital world is, it’s being advertised as a ringtone.

More on the Eminem front: I was the first to confirm back on February 9th that “Relapse” would have a Part 2. The sequel is ready to go this summer or fall when “Relapse” starts to fade.

“Relapse, Part 1″ — with obnoxious call-outs to Mariah Carey, Amy Winehouse, Kim Kardashian, Jessica Alba and Ellen Degeneres among others — is the biggest hit so far of 2009.

Speaking of those call-outs– if Eminem thinks he’s hurting these people, guess again. He’s reconfirming their pop culture status. But that’s another story.

Tom Cruise is trying to make a comeback. Will he succeed? There are various reports today that he’s signing on to film “Wichita,” an action comedy, co-starring Cameron Diaz. Not surprisingly, the deal is at 20th Century Fox, the studio that had foreign rights to “Valkyrie.” As it turned out, the loathsome Nazi film did better internationally than it did domestically with United Artists.

You remember United Artists? That was the studio Tom and Paula Wagner were going to revive a couple of years ago. Now the once great UA — sullied during this debacle — is adrift. They’re advertising DVDs of their eight Best Picture winners from their glory days — like “Annie Hall,” “Rocky,” and “Rain Man” — on their website. “Valkyrie” is not one of them.

Can Cruise have a comeback? If “Wichita” is made, it won’t be released until summer 2010 at the earliest. Another if: If Cruise can keep his strangeness to himself, a comeback is possible. The public has a short memory. But right now, a new younger generation doesn’t relate to him. If he needs proof of how that works, just ask Julia Roberts.

It’s the 30th anniversary of the “The Secret Policeman’s Ball” benefit shows that raised money for Amnesty International. This alone is a frightening thought — really, 1979 was 30 years ago? Seems like yesterday.

Anyway, Martin Lewis has organized Los Angeles and New York film festivals that are not to be missed. You can see Sting’s witty, self-effacing promo for it, and the whole thing can be accessed here. The films are out on DVD, too, but so much nicer to see on the big screen. The versions of “Roxanne” and “Message in a Bottle” are remarkable — and only available here since the CDs for both “Policeman’s Ball” albums are out of print.

P.S. There’s also a new, funny message from Monty Python’s Michael Palin posted here.