Weekly archive
December 5 - December 11, 2004
Friday, Dec. 10
I missed this last week, and according to Google so did all the local media. Preservation magazine reports online that Sen. Robert Kennedy's murderer, Sirhan B. Sirhan, has sued the...
The editor-in-chief in 1989 when the Herald Examiner folded died this week of cancer at age 76. His career included stints as managing editor of Chicago Today and the Chicago...
I've mentioned before the strange fascination that some L.A. Observed visitors have with TV news women, in general, and especially with Gretchen Carr, the former CBS 2 News anchor. The...
David Goldstein at CBS 2 apparently had the story last night (it's in the Daily Breeze today). A 78-year-old Lancaster man walked into the LAX police station last Saturday to...
Forbes calls this story "Flack Attack." The piece by Los Angeles bureau chief Seth Lubove details a legal dispute over $6 million in investments that Michael Sitrick of crisis PR...
Upstate in San Jose, the Mercury's longtime technology writer, Dan Gillmor, is leaving the paper to start up a "citizen journalism" venture. Here's the Mercury's announcement and Gillmor's short-on-details blog...
Mayor Hahn's connection with Fleishman-Hillard continues to cost him. Today, it's headlines about candidate Antonio Villaraigosa asking the city Ethics Commission to look into the mayor's role in the public...
Thursday, Dec. 9
This could get interesting (or not, depending...). An anonymous L.A. Times staffer (I presume) has set up a Blogspot account and posted this place-holder: View From the 3rd Floor Once...
They may not describe it as war, but the Beverly Hills papers are at the least having a public spat. After being called out by its rival the Courier, the...
Assistant Managing Editor Janet Clayton tinkered with the Metro lineup down at the Times today, naming a new editor to oversee state government coverage. It's Linda Rogers, who has done...
Robert Greene nails it in the LA Weekly: It is high opera, a classic tale of ambition, betrayal, revenge and perhaps even a little lust and greed. It has to...
The Times' five-day series on the bad situation at King/Drew Medical Center wraps up with a story by Mitchell Landsberg pointing the finger at African American community politics and reluctance...
For the second day in a row, the papers run stories about bad reaction to Mayor Hahn's political plays with city commissions. This time it's about his appointment last month...
Wednesday, Dec. 8
Tribune has a new idea for Hoy, the Spanish-language daily that was caught cooking the circulation numbers—and that here in L.A. isn't doing too well, cooked or not, up against...
The Beverly Hills Courier splashes a front page story this week attacking the city's decision to pay a higher rate for legal advertising in the rival Beverly Hills Weekly, with...
* Updated with newest posts at the bottom • The February issue of Hustler will carry the story by Michael Collins and Mark Cromer that liberal critics of Rep. David Dreier...
* Updated with link to story and cover of Blume and Kaplan Tomorrow's Pasadena Weekly will go into detail on the firing of LA Weekly reporter Howard Blume—described as the...
Former L.A. Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff finally shares his view of the Caltrans headquarters downtown with his New York Times readers. In a review today, he calls the Thom...
Soccer great Mia Hamm ends her long career on the U.S. national team tonight in Carson. She first played for the U.S. when she was 15 and now, at 32,...
Jim Hahn's administration at City Hall has a rep for removing commissioners without any thanks for their volunteer time (only the Public Works commissioners get a salary). Sometimes the firing...
The WGA board voted unanimously Monday night to let Written By go ahead and publish a roundtable discussion of guild politics—but only after a committee of non-editors removes "personally defamatory"...
The website LA.com has been based on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood, somewhat close to the trendy shops, clubs and restaurants that its writers frequent. But this week, they and their...
Tuesday, Dec. 7
The L.A. Times newsroom has been struck by a plague that could be considered an unintended consequence of all the belt trimming down on Spring Street. This email to Assistant...
Regular readers of New York's Gawker and its L.A. spinoff Defamer may have noticed a certain fascination with gossip about teenager Lindsay Lohan on both blogs (and with her nipples...
The Writers Guild board is under fire for playing thin-skinned publisher and yanking a roundtable discussion of guild politics from Written By, the organization's magazine. Variety's Dave McNary reports that...
Testimony began yesterday in the U.S. Tax Court case between the Tribune Co. and the IRS, which wants $915 million in back taxes and interest. It's a problem Tribune inherited...
Of 76 airports in the world, it takes longest to get through the ticket counter lines at LAX—and only Denver and Dulles have longer security lines. The Daily News story...
Science writer Robert Lee Hotz reports on the front page of today's LAT: Harnessing the electrical echoes of thought, researchers have developed a way for people to control a computer...
Monday, Dec. 6
L.A. Times photojournalist Luis Sinco talks at Digital Journalist about his photograph of Marine Lance Cpl. James Miller, taken during a battle in Fallujah. He calls it Thousand Mile Stare,...
Variety editor Peter Bart turned this month's issue of Vlife (not online) over to guest editor Brett Ratner, director of After the Sunset. Ratner took full advantage, getting stories on...
Today's political notes columns are light on City Hall items, but Rick Orlov does mention the new blog by Ken Reich, the former Times political writer, that we reported on...
A story by Troy Anderson in today's Daily News surveys the city-owned artwork that has gone missing—and led me to fritter away half an hour clicking around in the art...
With the rainy, cool autumn, people in Los Angeles have been noticing—and complaining about—ant swarms invading homes and apartments. Today's Times picks up on the buzz, sort of. The story...
Sunday, Dec. 5
Sunday's L.A. Times Book Review rolled out its dignified selection of the "best books of 2004," a fiction list of two dozen works including the latest by Philip Roth, E.L....
Michael Kinsley's latest East Coast addition to the Times pundit lineup runs today at the bottom of the Sunday Opinion cover, without introduction or bio blurb, under the label "Laptop...
