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Expect an exodus of Hollywood celebs away from the Howard Dean camp this week if he doesn't come back strong on Tuesday, the L.A. Business Journal says in a story...
LA Observed archive
for January 2004
If you don't find what you want here, check another month or search below.
My piece on PR giant Fleishman-Hillard and its top local operative, former Daily News managing editor Doug Dowie, is now up on the Los Angeles magazine site. The other story...
Coverage of California prisons, with L.A. Times reporters Jenifer Warren and Mark Arax. Sunday from 1 to 1:30 p.m., KPFK (90.7 FM)....
Jennifer Trosper, mission manager at JPL for the Mars rover Spirit, has converted to the 24-hour, 39-minute Martian day. What her days are like, from the MIT alumni site. Tip...
Steve Lowery at OC Weekly remembers in a column this week the brief era when Jerry Nachman, the ex-New York Post editor who recently died, sat in as the host...
The Times plans to reopen its grand front door on First Street, the city landmark "globe lobby," for the first time since Sept 11, 2001. Just Monday, L.A. Observed pointed...
Every so often Times sports columnist T.J. Simers comes up with a memorable line. His opener today makes it for me: Sometimes you worry you're going to run out of...
Now that Pixar has broken with Disney, studios are getting in line to propose marriage to Steve Jobs. All he's done is bring in $2.5 billion in box office and...
In his L.A. Times column today, Steve Lopez characterizes the subscribers who cancelled after the paper published its Gropegate stories at the end of the recall campaign as 10,000 "apologists...
The actor, writer, economist and Republican activist wrote "Monday Night at Morton's" for E! Online for seven or eight years. He cites his changed worldview -- and a new reverence...
When I noticed last night that the #3 Internet search term (after "Paul Magers" and "Gretchen Carr") that lands the unsuspecting here is "Giuliana Depandi," it seemed time to check...
Dan Weintraub, the Sacramento Bee columnist-blogger (California Insider) whose take on Arnold Schwarzenegger during the campaign and his first months in office has been largely favorable, seems to be turning...
Three times in the past 14 months, federal judges have ruled that ex-Marine Thomas Lee Goldstein was improperly convicted of murder. Still, he sits in jail in Los Angeles. Henry...
The L.A. Times plays catchup today on the week's city corruption grand jury story with a 460-word piece that carries five reporter credits -- two bylines and three tags....
Two docs in New York tell Lloyd Grove in the NY Daily News that John Kerry's forehead is shot full of Botox. The candidate says "never heard of it." "Not...
Mickey Kaus' Kausfiles has been on the ground on the campaign trail (on Slate's dime) for a couple of weeks, getting back in touch with his inner Democrat. Good stuff,...
Jon Weisman, who writes the Dodger Thoughts blog, will be a guest on "Which Way L.A.?" with Warren Olney tonight at 7 p.m. on KCRW (89.9 FM). The topic: Frank...
The KABC radio talk host has a deal for a show to run on CBS or UPN in the fall, the Hollywood Reporter says. Elder's site....
The former law reporter in the L.A. bureau of the Wall Street Journal is named the new editor of the paper's successful Weekend section. (Romenesko Memos)...
Just came back from Silver Lake where a strange coppery glint in the hills caught my eye. The mystery beacon was sunlight reflecting off the shined-up skin on the...
New York Times executive editor Bill Keller is backtracking from last week's surprise comments on the future of the paper's Sunday Book Review. He told the Poynter.com "Book Babes" then...
Deputy Mayor Troy Edwards testified before the corruption grand jury yesterday, the Daily News reports. Says the paper's Beth Barrett: Edwards was a key fund-raiser in Hahn's 2001 mayoral campaign,...
The Writers Guild board kept Charles Holland in place as president, despite questions about the stories he tells about his background. I especially like that when the Times could not...
A couple of comments were posted yesterday to an old entry (one of the first at L.A. Observed) on the death of writer Eddie Little. One is from a fan...
A former top executive at LAX, Richard M. Janisse, was called to testify today before the county Grand Jury looking into corruption in the awarding of contracts, the Daily News...
Today on Day to Day (KPCC 9 a.m., KCRW noon), Xeni Jardin profiles a guy who's a little tech crazy -- he has 11 video screens in his SUV. On...
The Radio & Television News Association of Southern California handed out its annual Golden Mikes on Saturday night. Here are some of the dozens of winners: Television: Best TV Newscast...
Joe Mathews of the Times' Sacramento bureau has sold a book proposal called The People's Machine: Governor Schwarzenegger and the Rise of Blockbuster Democracy, says Publishers Lunch. The book is...
The L.A. chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is having an event on Wednesday with five local PIO's -- and it's not cheap. $22 for members ($25 non-members) for...
Dean Singleton, Hearst, Copley & Scripps. (From Editor and Publisher, thanks to Brooks for the tip). Earlier: LAT campaign gifts...
In the heyday of soaring circulation and ambition in the 1980s, the L.A. Times basked in the warmth of being the flagship publication of a growing media empire. Times Mirror...
Glenn Bunting's piece in the L.A. Times magazine on sports writer Frank Deford's journalistic mistakes certainly elicited a bunch of response. On Saturday, the Times corrections page offered some response...
Shelby Coffey, the former editor of the L.A. Times, returned to the pages of the Washington Post Sunday with a review of two books on journalism, including Ken Auletta's Backstory:...
Matt Haber, half of the duo that writes the very readable blog Low Culture, had a piece in yesterday's New York Times' Arts and Leisure section on Sidney N. Laverents,...
For some reason, the name Paul Magers - the new anchor on the Channel 2 news - is one of the most common search terms that brings new visitors to...
The Downtown News says the Morrison Hotel at Pico and Hope near Staples Center is for sale. The hotel appears in a photograph on the cover of The Doors' 1970...
The Writers Guild board meets today to figure out the latest mess it has itself in, involving the credentials of the new guild president, Charles Holland. A quick recap: Holland...
Rep. Billy Tauzin has turned down the MPAA's offer to take over for Jack Valenti. Instead, he'll apparently become the highest paid trade association lobbyist in the country. Wash Post,...
The acclaimed German-born photographer lost control of his Cadillac leaving the Chateau Marmont (where he lived with his wife June) at 11:40 this morning and crashed into a wall across...
LAVoice.org is a new community site made up of, says the FAQs, "ultra-local newsgatherers, pundits and outspoken writers whose collective knowledge of their neighborhoods and the city at large far...
"Democracy Now," the national show hosted by activist Amy Goodman that airs mornings on Pacifica Radio's KPFK, fixated yesterday on John Kerry and George Bush both being members of Yale's...
The fashion monthly decrees the top poker game in town is the Gourmet Poker Club, which has met once a month for 25 years: Barry Diller, Steve Martin, Johnny Carson,...
Warm Santa Anas - mellow beach weather - in January. So clear that Catalina Island looked to be hovering in the bay, instead of 26 miles (or so) out. In...
The City Council voted Wednesday to add Los Angeles to the list of 230 cities, counties and other government bodies opposed to parts of the USA Patriot Act, which President...
Agustin Gurza has been focusing on Latino pop music for Calendar and now will write about the "entire Latino arts and entertainment scene." The memo follows. Also, sources around the...
Publishers Lunch reports that Paris Hilton (or her agent, Dan Strone at Trident Media Group) is circulating a book proposal for Tongue in Chic: Confessions of an Heiress. Her co-author...
The New York Times has yet to hire a new book review editor, but that person will almost certainly be an outsider and make these changes: more emphasis on non-fiction...
Collage Dance Theatre, the innovative company behind last year's "Sleeping with the Ambassador" performances inside the abandoned Wilshire Boulevard hotel, is looking at doing a show at the shuttered Perino's....
The first time Nikki Finke met Ray Stark, the producer-agent-publicist threatened her. She calls him the Most Vindictive Man in Hollywood, but still wept upon his death over the weekend....
Author Susan Choi is the guest today on Bookworm with Michael Silverblatt (KCRW, 2:30 p.m.). Her novel is American Woman, told from the point of view of the Asian American...
The February issue of Los Angeles is the annual Oscar-timed number, with Patricia Clarkson and Benicio Del Toro on the cover. Inside are a piece on the culture of In-N-Out...
Journalist RiShawn Biddle throws off the gloves on his blog and declares, "Why I Can Never Be a Conservative (Ever Again)." It's complicated, but here's a snippet: As Berlau notes,...
The Daily Dish (meaning gossip page) at the N.Y. Daily News says today that bad-boy Beverly Hills publisher Michael Viner, no stranger to the pages of L.A. Observed, and his...
Last week in The New Yorker, Nation columnist Katha Pollitt confessed at length about web-stalking the lover who left her for a younger art critic. Pollitt never named the man,...
Cathy Seipp pokes fun at Pitzer College president Laura Skandera Trombley -- and the school's decision to stop using the SAT -- in a piece today at National Review Online....
L.A.'s movie screen landscape looks to be changing, Carl Diorio reports in today's Variety. Mann proposes to build a five-screen, stadium-seating theater at the north end of Westwood Village, with...
The L.A. Times has created a new senior job, assistant managing editor for photography, and filled it with longtime Timeser Colin Crawford. Yesterday's memo follows:...
The L.A. Press Club and Reason magazine are teaming up to throw a book party for ABC co-anchor John Stossel and his latest, Give Me a Break: How I Exposed...
On the front page of this week's L.A. Business Journal, Howard Fine chronicles Mayor Jim Hahn's differing takes on Gov. Schwarzenegger (free with registration): When it comes to his view...
LA.com, the city guide website being jointly produced by Gannett, Dean Singleton's MediaNews Group and Stephens Media Group, has a new blog up: LAComfidential. Most of the recent posts are...
A couple of L.A. Times names showed up in a Washingon Post story Sunday about journalists who make political campaign contributions. The relevant passage: Los Angeles Times food writer Charles...
In yesterday's LAT Book Review, David L. Ulin considers the newest study of Los Angeles by Cal Arts professor Norman M. Klein, a novella and accompanying CD-ROM called Bleeding Through:...
Magazine and tabloid sales are off as much as 20% due to the southern California supermarket strike, says a Business story by Melinda Fulmer in today's L.A. Times. Market sales...
The other shoe falls: Just days after the La Opinión-Tribune divorce became final, the Tribune Co. discloses it will launch a daily Los Angeles edition of Hoy, the company's Spanish-langauge...
Some DN readers didn't get the paper today. Here's the explanation from the website home page: To our readers: Because of electrical problems at the Daily News' printing plant, today's...
Tad Friend's "Letter from California" for The New Yorker this week is about the L.A. River -- the line on the contents page reads, "Trying to rescue L.A.'s lost waterway."...
The Boston Globe's Ideas section (via Commonwealth Magazine) maps out the "10 regions of U.S. politics" and puts L.A. in a narrow, brown sliver that comprises the SoCal coast and...
Looks like a pretty good scoop by baseball writer Ross Newhan on the front page of the L.A. Times: Los Angeles developer and philanthropist Eli Broad has offered to buy...
Collins, the TV editor at Hollywood Reporter, returns to the L.A. Times as a television writer. He used to be a regular Times freelancer and worked for Inside.com. Collins also...
US Weekly's follow-up cover story on Britney Spears' brief marriage carries 16 bylines. Discuss. (from NY Daily News)...
Oleander bushes are the latest Southern California plant infected by a scourge that seems imppssible to stop. If they all start dying, some parts of L.A. will look denuded. Lisa...
David L. Ulin has a new book coming in July on earthquake prediction -- and the op-ed in today's L.A. Times to prove it. Where were you on Jan. 17,...
The paper announces it will combine with New York's El Diario/La Prensa to establish a national chain of newspapers catering to Latino readers. Reports the L.A. Times, "the new company,...
For those who keep track of such things (you know who you are), L.A. Times Business Editor Rick Wartzman is shuffling some desk assignments. As of Monday, these moves kick...
La Opinión and the Tribune Co. formally broke off their relationship today, several months after it began publicly unraveling. The Lozano family, which owned 50% of the Spanish-language paper, has...
SaveDisney.com, the get-even website that Roy Disney and Stanley Gold launched last month after angrily leaving the company board, is already announcing a redesign. The goal is to have more...
Harry Shearer sits down for a Q-and-A with Dean Kuipers at CityBeat. It doesn't take long for the subject to turn to Harry's least favorite hometown paper. Q:What made you...
Kate Sullivan in the LA Weekly likes what is happening at 103.1 on the FM dial. I haven't listened to the new Indie 103, but a couple of e-mail correspondents...
KCBS Channel 2 is misleading the L.A. Times about the status of former anchor Gretchen Carr, says Ron Fineman. The paper reported the station claims Carr has been off the...
Today is the big sit-down between Maria Shriver and the head of NBC News over her future on the air, the LAT says. Tim Russert has spoken to both parties....
The Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood is getting a Red Box to go with the Blue Whale and that green thing next to it. Cesar Pelli, the master architect...
Richard Horgan writes at FilmStew that Peter Biskind's new book, Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance and the Rise of Independent Film, will be the talk of the parties at...
A couple of blogs mostly rooted in Los Angeles, Slate's Kausfiles and the Volokh Conspiracy, were finalists in the Blogger of the Year category of the first Opinion Awards given...
The Daily Trojan rounds up yesterday's gathering of journalists talking about celebrity coverage at the USC Annenberg School. Dean Baquet, Tim Rutten, Robert Scheer, Ed Asner and People's Cynthia Wang...
Best smirk-inducing line in today's LAT story on Leland Wong, a top City Hall fundraiser and all-around operator. Wong said he was unaware of a $100 limit on gifts to...
Lead story in the LaLaTimes (not to be confused with any other Times)....
It always used to be humbling, and a mite embarrassing, at the LAT when California groups wishing to make a statement would buy full-page ads in the New York Times....
Bill Plaschke in the L.A. Times says the pending Dodgers sale to Boston developer Frank McCourt is looking more and more like a bad deal. This problem reaches all the...
Schwarzenegger adviser Mike Murphy, described by Television Week as a "hot-hot-hot Republican campaign strategist," has been hired as consulting producer for Dennis Miller's new show on CNBC. He says it...
Staff reporter Glenn Bunting's first-person cover piece in the L.A. Times Magazine on Sunday dinging the reputation of author and Sports Illustrated writer Frank Deford is prompting some pointed letters...
Alexander Proctor, the ex-con accused of threatening Times reporter Anita Busch over a story about actor Steven Seagal, was sentenced to 10 years on an unrelated drug-trafficking conviction. In the...
The L.A. Daily News got itself a new publisher and CEO Monday. Tracy Rafter had been a senior VP for the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, the chain of DN owner...
Local book deals from Publishers Lunch Former Time entertainment reporter Benjamin Nugent sells Elliott Smith and the Big Nothing, the life, career, and dramatic end of the late Silver Lake...
Sorry, otherwise engaged. L.A. Observed will return Tuesday....
From a mediabistro party in December at the Loews not in Beverly Hills, though the hotel would like you to think so. Photos include (but aren't limited to) Travis Smith...
Here's a way you know your book is having an impact -- when the New York Times national staff runs a feature on what people think about it. Los Angeles...
Author and New Yorker writer James B. Stewart's next book target is Disney. He's well along on the project, which Simon and Schuster will publish in the fall, says Paul...
The USC Annenberg School and the Poynter Institute are presenting a discussion next Tuesday (Jan. 13) on, in their words, "journalism ethics, standards, and editorial decision-making" in the coverage of...
A shorter Friday roundup: L.A. Times front: Schwarzenegger budget cuts, Bush's manned moon mission. Daily News front: Rover success, mission to Mars. Film Week, KPCC 11 a.m.: Top 10 lists,...
The ESPN columnist who scored an early copy of the Pete Rose book and posted the first review -- Alysse Minkoff -- works out of her home in Brentwood, says...
The park's practice of charging locals lower admission off season -- $8 to $10 less than tourists -- is legal, a state court of appeal ruled today. The mildly whimsical...
Newsweek's Los Angeles bureau chief David Jefferson went through the interviews, negotiated over salary and start date, and accepted the high-level job of Associate Editor of the L.A. Times Editorial...
The L.A. Film Critics awards for 2003, via Movie City News. The site's Leonard Klady opens the door a little on the selection process....
The new edition of Slate's annual Movie Club, in which five film critics serially dish at agonizing length on the year's cinema, includes Manohla Dargis of the L.A. Times. Her...
In print: L.A. Times front: Schwarzenegger to propose 10% fee hikes at UC and CSU, up to 40% for grad students. Daily News lead: Reaction to Bush plan on illegals....
Film critic Henry Sheehan, a regular on KPCC's "Film Week" segment, has added audio interviews to his website at HenrySheehan.com. The first is a lengthy (more than an hour) conversation...
In a web-only story on the LA Weekly site, Christine Pelisek takes a look at the coroner's report on the Oct. 21 stabbing death of singer Elliott Smith. It's easy...
UCLA professor Mark A. R. Kleiman uses some pointed blogger critiques of New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and Chicago professor Daniel Drezner to make interesting points about the clash...
Jeff A. Taylor at Reason's Hit and Run blog argues it's OK for Maria Shriver to report for NBC and help to govern California, which she's been doing by pressuring...
From L.A. city hall bureau chief David Zahniser in the Daily Breeze: Responding to widespread pressure from the city’s librarians, a City Council committee has recommended that Los Angeles take...
It's Bill Sing, the L.A. Times Business Editor for six years until the new Tribune leadership came in. The paper has also hired Marc Lifsher away from the Wall Street...
Media critic Cathy Seipp dings today's L.A. Times front pager on that domestic terror plot in Texas for quoting a journalism professor unpopular with the right. And why, you may...
In the L.A. Times food section today, Charles Perry unfolds the colorful past of theme restaurants in Los Angeles. He says it all began with The Jail in Silver Lake...
Editorial writers mostly liked Gov. Schwarzenegger's State of the State speech last night. Steve Lopez doesn't join them. L.A. Times: Masterful...Schwarzenegger delivered a tough but upbeat speech, at times eloquent,...
Tim Rutten turns his LAT Regarding Media column today into a tribute to his longtime friend John Gregory Dunne, who died last week. A snippet: Dunne was a master of...
On the air: Day to Day, KPCC 9 a.m./KCRW noon - President Bush's proposal to change immigration laws. Fresh Air, KPCC 1 & 7 p.m. - David Cay Johnston, New...
"Advice Goddess" Amy Alkon shows up in the new Psychology Today quoted as a member of The Brights, described in the piece as "a growing group of atheists, humanists, and...
The site Sports by Brooks says today, based on undescribed and unnamed sources, that it is "unlikely" NBC will pick up the talked-about series based on the life of Jeanie...
In today's L.A. Times Calendar, Lynell George interviews three authors whose settings are fragments of the Los Angeles whole: Alan Rifkin (Signal Hill: Stories), Elizabeth Stromme (Joe's Word: An Echo...
Responding to a growing sense of a corruption scandal, Mayor Hahn yesterday banned his commissioners from getting involved in interviews of city contractors they would later vote on. Hard to...
Writers Guild head Victoria Riskin did indeed quit this morning, as recommended yesterday. A press release is up on the WGA website....
Remember those stories in December saying that Maria Shriver was cozily back at work at "Dateline NBC," and the LAT story (and L.A. Observed post) about her taking an active...
Well, education cuts aren't off the table anymore. The L.A. Times says Gov. Schwarzenegger will propose cleaving $2 billion out of the ed budget today -- and with the signoff...
Martin Schall's Los Angeles Architectural Photo Gallery at you-are-here.com has up 800 images of buildings, panorama views and scenes of local communities. He's got more than 200 of downtown alone....
Items: * LARadio.com reports that KNX 1070, which axed the nightly Drama Hour saying it wanted to concentrate on news, has raided KFI for non-news weekend programming. The station has...
As part of his mea culpa book tour, in which he finally admits flouting baseball's #1 rule and lying about it tastelessly for 14 years, Pete Rose reportedly tells ABC...
Writers Guild president Victoria Riskin was not an an active member of the guild when she was reelected in September and should resign, says an independent report released this afternoon...
George Russell Weller has been charged with 10 felony counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence for driving through the crowded Santa Monica farmers market last summer. He's to surrender...
KTLA Channel 5's coverage of the Rose Parade got higher ratings in Los Angeles (again) than the three big networks combined, says Michael Schneider in Variety. I didn't watch the...
An Atlanta consulting firm that declares the "best" urban newspaper by simply counting stories of interest has rated the L.A. Times tops in the country. Civic Strategies' criteria for picking...
Question: What property has the highest assesed value in Los Angeles County? #1 - Getty Center museum and research institute $2.2 billion #2 - BP Carson Refiney $2.0 billion #3...
Associated Press does a little feature on Court TV's Diane Dimond and her scoops on the Michael Jackson sexual abuse case. A few months ago, reporter Diane Dimond told Court...
Honchos of The New Frontier, the self-appointed successor to George magazine long promised by Kennedy friend Helen O'Donnell, tell Folio they will finally launch in February after some false starts....
New York Times L.A. correspondent Charlie LeDuff is in the news again over a plagiarism accusation. This time it's an old one, posted on Romenesko from an upcoming San Francisco...
L.A. journalist Joseph Mailander recounts on his blog (Joyrides Without Maps) how he got caught up in yesterday's cancellation of that Aeromexico flight to LAX, due to fears of Al-Qaeda....
Clinton fundraises in LA
Jim Henson Studios on La Brea became a presidential campaign stop on Thursday.
Brown declares disaster area
The natural gas leak above Porter Ranch now qualifies for various government actions. Story
Performing arts with cheer
Donna Perlmutter closes out 2015 with productions downtown and on the Westside.
