Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

You have raised a tricky question. California Evidence Code Section 452(h) allow judicial notice to be take of "Facts and propositions that are not reasonably subject to dispute and are capable of immediate and accurate determination by resort to sources of reasonably indisputable accuracy."

So, if you want to ask the court to take judicial notice that Barak Obaba is the President, you may do so. If you want to emphasize the point, you could, theoretically, show a picture from a newspaper to help the judge. Nevertheless, the new article is not the matter that is being judicially noticed. It is the content. The article, itself, is hearsay, and, unless it fits within the statutory exceptions to the hearsay rule, the article is inadmissible.

So, check California Evidence Code Sections 451 and 452 to see if something can be judicially noticed. If so, then request the court to take judicial notice of the fact - not the book or article or new story that contains the fact. If you want to make it convenient for the judge to become acquainted with the fact or you want to emphasize it, you could attach an excerpt of the news item, but that excerpt would likely be inadmissible evidence.

News reports are generally not subject to judicial notice. They may be admissible by other means, but even then the court will only be able to infer that the article was published. The court will not infer that the contents of the article are true. After all, the author of the article is not in court, and the article itself was not signed under penalty of perjury.

Whether "anything can be accomplished" with a given piece of evidence depends upon why it is being offered. A piece of evidence that would be critically important in one context might be entirely irrelevant in another.

Yes, you will irritate the judge and show him or her that you don't know what you are doing.

If you need to attach an article to inform the judge of some fact, then i would suspect it is not a matter of common knowledge so judicial notice can not be taken of it.