Weekly archive
September 14 - September 20, 2003
Saturday, Sep. 20
City officials say it cost Los Angeles taxpayers $183,000 to close streets and direct traffic at the Bob Hope memorial service in the Valley on August 27. According to David...
Jill Stewart's latest anti-Gray Davis column from Sacramento is being aggressively fact-checked by liberal-leaning lawyer Steve Smith at his blog and in the comments to a Matt Welch post at...
Republican strategist and commentator Arnold Steinberg, in Tim Rutten's L.A. Times column today: Schwarzenegger's strategy requires a docile news media, and he's getting one. Steinberg and Rutten (and Democratic strategist...
Robert Garcia Tagorda, who was at the game, reacts at Priorities and Frivolities to last night's murder in the Dodger Stadium parking lot, apparently a Giants fan shooting a Dodgers...
The L.A. Times today takes its turn trying to figure out Mickey Kaus -- "a brainy, iconoclastic dart-thrower." The widely read, Venice-based blogger for Slate tells Bob Baker that he'll...
Victoria Riskin was reelected president of the Writers Guild of America, West. The rest of the top officers were reelected too, without any of the turmoil that surrounds the Screen...
Friday, Sep. 19
Arnold's campaign requires every staffer to sign a five-page confidentiality agreement, including a clause that the agreement itself is a secret. The L.A. Times received a copy: Schwarzenegger has devoted...
Mayor Hahn missed the deadline to appoint or replace 20 city comissioners, which under the city charter means council president Alex Padilla now gets to make the choices, the Times'...
Earlier in the week, recall candidate Mary Carey wrote (well, maybe she wrote) an op-ed piece in the L.A. Times making some points about the debates. Now the Times' Roy...
Thursday, Sep. 18
I must admit that as I read into the story in today's L.A. Times California section about a midnight raid by "duck freedom fighters," I kept waiting for the punch...
New York magazine plans to start a blog and is apparently hiring Elizabeth Spiers of Gawker to help on that and write pieces for the magazine. At least that's what...
Back at Variety after seven years at the L.A. Times, television columnist Brian Lowry is happy to discover "they've painted the place." Over that time, he says, entertainment coverage has...
Looks more and more like the recall election -- if it's allowed to go ahead -- will be a landmark of sorts for voter turnout, as some enthusiasts have predicted....
In Ramblin' Man, his upcoming biography of Woody Guthrie, USC journalism professor Ed Cray explores Guthrie's years in Glendale, Topanga and Silverlake hanging out with other notable lefties of 1930s...
The Daily Trojan alumni site lists info on 2,070 former staffers of the USC student paper -- by year and by name. Have fun....
For five good years in the 1960s, Johnny Cash was a Valley boy. Also in the LA Weekly: Jonathan Gold reveals where to find the other, other, other white meat....
Wednesday, Sep. 17
When Jerry Roberts left the San Francisco Chronicle and turned up last year as editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press, more than a few newspaper types moaned that he snagged...
California Authors notes two contrasting reviews of Joan Didion's Where I Was From: Patt Morrison, LAT: "...a soul–searching look at California’s complexities and contradictions." Benjamin Schwarz, The Atlantic: "He laments...
The piece by Peter J. Boyer in last week's New Yorker is the most calm and even-handed I've read about Mel Gibson and his self-described mission from God to make...
Or to put it another way, busy day for non-blog things. Will post later....
Tuesday, Sep. 16
Ron Fineman is back online with On the Record, his pay site with insider reports on Los Angeles TV news. He reports on the move of political commentator Sherry Bebitch...
In response to the latest L.A. Times Poll on the recall, Mark DiCamillo and Mervin Field of the Field Poll have posted a long rebuttal (in PDF format) to the...
Syndicated columnist Amy Alkon wrote a remarkable piece for the Los Angeles Times a few years ago (I think in the magazine) about tracking down the creep who stole her...
Greg Lindsay in Women's Wear Daily cites sources saying that Emmis Communications is reluctant to bid for New York magazine, seeing it as "a major fixer-upper, requiring millions in editorial...
The Simi Valley teachers union president is upset at education coverage in the L.A Daily News and is urging members to cancel subscriptions and stop using the paper in classrooms,...
West Nile virus, now confirmed in Los Angeles County....
The Column One story in the L.A. Times today grew out of reporter Rosie Mestel being told by a doctor, at age 43, that she did not have a left...
The L.A. Press Club is hosting a debate among four of the recall candidates for governor on Wednesday at 3 p.m. The confirmed participants are Cruz Bustamante, Tom McClintock, Arianna...
Monday, Sep. 15
HBO is losing the popular "Sex in the City," but to lessen the blow the cable network has commissioned a six-part documentary called "Pornucopia: Going Down in the Valley," about...
Publishers Lunch Weekly brings word of several local book deals, the most intriguing touted as "the first inside history of the RAND Corporation," the Santa Monica think tank. To write...
Readers have asked in email why the Los Angeles TV website run by Ron Fineman is off-line today. Ron explains that it's a little Network Solutions snafu, and he'll be...
Lou Cannon will be on Life and Times Tuesday night (7 p.m., Ch. 28) to talk about his fifth book on Ronald Reagan. He also has an op-ed in today's...
A new Los Angeles literary event, "Our Favorite Writers," begins tonight with Jeffrey Eugenides, author of the The Virgin Suicides. He will read and talk with Mona Simpson, the author...
Loyola law professor Rick Hasen is blogging on the 9th Circuit court order delaying the recall election, a move he supported in a brief. Incidentally, he has a piece about...
Schwarzenegger called John Carroll, editor of the L.A. Times, to tell him that the LAT's coverage had been very fair and balanced, political reporter Mark Z. Barabak said yesterday on...
Ron Brownstein, the national political reporter based in Washington for the L.A. Times, is among the most influential of the scribes covering the presidential campaign, says Howard Kurtz in the...
Slate takes a quick look at the four influential book review publications Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal and Booklist. You've probably never read these magazines, even if you've seen...
We'll be seeing more of the Hollywood Reporter in posters and ads around town as part of what the New York Times calls the trade's first big marketing campaign in...
The star DJ on the #1 music radio station in Los Angeles calls Jeff Smulyan, the president of Emmis, a good boss and "someone you can talk to." A profile...
The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association made L.A. Times film reviewer Kevin Thomas only the group's second recipient of a lifetime achievement award. There was a bash over the...
Most places the best-read story in today's newspapers will be about Ben and J. Lo. But at Los Angeles City Hall, everyone will turn first to the L.A. Times piece...
Boy, that Mickey Kaus has some nerve. He keeps violating the blogger code by actually leaving his computer to report stories. Couple of weeks ago he went to the gym...
Frances Ring, the former editor of Westways, wrote a poignant piece in the Sunday LAT Opinion section about being old and losing her license to drive. Perhaps the test would...
