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Archive by Month
May 31, 2004
The month or so each spring when the jacarandas are blooming is my favorite time in Los Angeles. The splashes of color have seemed exceptional...
There's a new twist in the convoluted saga of Michel Thomas, the aging Beverly Hills language school operator who sued the L.A. Times for libel...
Notable stuff (to me) in or about the local media this Memorial Day weekend: • Tim Rutten calls the New York Times' admission that its pre-war...
May 29, 2004
Imagine looking through some forgotten files of your late father's and discovering a valuable work of art or two — or 50. Saturday's Ventura County...
The organizers of that joint L.A. Press Club-American Cinema Foundation event on Saturday night — the one with all the brouhaha over Charles Johnson of...
May 28, 2004
More tears than usual were spilled tonight at Santa Monica High School's last choral concert of the year. It would have been the final performance...
Los Angeles TV's two local morning news and gab shows plummeted in the May sweeps ratings book, Variety reports. KTTV's "Good Day L.A." was down...
Kausfiles found a link at ABCNews.com where they summarize each day the lead items and main political stories on the three big TV networks' evening...
Jon Friedman, media editor of CBS MarketWatch, was in town last week to have breakfast with Los Angeles editor Kit Rachlis (pictured) and to ponder...
The L.A. Times' Tony Perry had been embedded with the 1st Marine Division in Iraq for nine weeks when the heat, the stress and being...
The people who put on the annual San Fernando Valley Fair have decided that this year, the fair will actually be held in the Valley....
The all-but-gone E! Networks CEO explains her sudden resignation to TV Week, but claims she didn't read the Times scoop that foretold her removal --...
May 27, 2004
Slate magazine's eagle-eyed media critic Jack Shafer noticed earlier this week that a paragraph mentioning him on the subject of the New York Times read...
An emailer says that publisher John Salazar is out and that the paper may not publish this week for the first time in 37 years....
Harold Meyerson uses his LA Weekly column to call on Antonio Villaraigosa to run for mayor again. Villaraigosa admits that, while he is co-chairing the...
Angel City Press in Santa Monica and CaliforniaAuthors.com collaborated to produce an anthology of essays about California to benefit the budget-starved state arts council. All...
Freelance writer Nancy Rommelmann is shutting down "Leaving Los Angeles," the blog about her wilder years in L.A. and her final year before moving to...
Sallie Hofmeister reports in today's Times that Mindy Herman, CEO of E! Networks, could be dumped as soon as today (with a $20 million severance...
"Lindsey" writes on her blog that she is a Los Angeles escort -- and no, she doesn't take email or business calls off the site....
May 26, 2004
The Los Angeles Independent is out with a profile of Joe Cerrell, the Democratic political campaign and PR macher who got his start with John...
With reaction and commentary flying around about today's editors' note in the New York Times admitting the paper's role in hyping the pre-war Iraq threat,...
The latest Online Journalism Review column by Mark Glaser explores the impact that bloggers are having on mainstream media. One of his main examples is...
Today's New York Observer "Off the Record" column offers some background on that Michael Kinsley review of conservative pundit David Brooks' new book that was...
As Spoken Interludes closes in on its final event in Los Angeles, June 6 at the Skirball Cultural Center, a couple of new online literary...
Suspect Entertainment, the Los Angeles talent and production company that provides gangbanger actors and street thug atmosphere for Hollywood movies, videos and TV commercials, is...
May 25, 2004
Some L.A. Observed commenters were concerned last week by the ideological makeup of Saturday's L.A. Press Club panel on bloggers and politics. Panel organizer Cathy...
Before coming to L.A. to anchor the Channel 2 News, Paul Magers was the top-rated TV newsman in Minneapolis-St. Paul. He confesses his bias to...
The "Goodnight Midnight" party is Friday, May 28 at 7 p.m. at the soon-to-close bookstore at 1450 2nd Street in Santa Monica. Pilar Perez and...
Real estate developer and community activist Danny Bakewell talked to Michael T. Jarvis in the LAT Magazine on Sunday about his new role as publisher...
City councilman and former police chief Bernard Parks is said to be close to announcing if he will be a candidate for mayor against Jim...
With Michael Kinsley soon to become a half-time Angeleno and fulltime overseer of the L.A. Times op-ed and opinion lineups, what he writes is being...
Malibu gave the final OK yesterday to its ban on beach smoking, joining the cities of Los Angeles, Santa Monica, San Clemente and Solana Beach....
May 24, 2004
Novelist and food critic (LA Weekly) Michelle Huneven and L.A. Times literary critic Bernadette Murphy have sold Bloomsbury a book to be called The Tao...
The Wolfesden Actor Exchange was a bulletin board run by actor Sterling Wolfe where actors could post complaints and questions about casting directors and Hollywood...
Matt Welch details his take on the Sandra Tsing Loh-KCRW affair in a piece at Reason magazine and in a lengthy post on his blog...
Kate Lee is a 27-year-old assistant at International Creative Management in Manhattan who pals around with some New York bloggers. The New Yorker's Ink column...
L.A. Observed has learned that former staffers in the Los Angeles office of Fleishman-Hillard have been getting friendly calls from the St. Louis home office,...
The grand juries investigating possible City Hall corruption have grown interested in contracts between the Port of Los Angeles and a Shanghai-based consultant, William Wong,...
After 39 years, the former political writer, Atlanta bureau chief and lead reporter on the 1984 Olympics has written his last story for the Los...
The Los Angeles Business Journal's annual tote of the richest Angelenos is out. The paper counts 28 billionaires living in the L.A. area, up from...
May 23, 2004
If you've followed the scandalette of the week in D.C., catch the end as Wonkette's Ana Marie Cox has a drink with the most famous...
May 22, 2004
Blogads, the people who sell and serve up the ads that run on the right side of L.A. Observed and several dozen other blogs, collected...
My favorite obituaries are of people I never heard of but wished I had. Claudia Luther did a nice job in the Times today with...
The Sacramento Bee reports that the 34-year-old magazine of state politics and issues has been transferred (in a no-money deal) to the new California Journal...
Friday was International Media Day for Gov. Schwarzenegger, who spent several hours sitting in his Los Angeles office relieving the backlog of requests by the...
May 21, 2004
The L.A. Times Magazine has posted this Sunday's cover story on the John Kerry FBI files by Gerald Nicosia, the author of Home to War:...
Eric Garcetti closes his week on Slate with a tribute to his city council district staff, which includes speakers of Spanish, Tagalog, Armenian, and Russian....
Remember when Barbra Streisand sued that guy who flies down the California coast in a helicopter (with his wife at the controls) taking environmental photos,...
Hollywood screenwriter Robert J. Avrech (Body Double, The Devil's Arithmetic) has started a publishing company, Seraphic Press, to encourage novels written for religiously observant Jewish...
Some of you may remember last year when Michael Schneider of the blog Franklin Avenue wrote about his parked Honda being crashed into on Franklin...
Mack Reed of LAVoice.org listened to Mayor Jim Hahn this morning on the Kevin and Bean show and was not amused. The chitchat reads to...
The deputy governor and senior confidential adviser/media image consultant to Arnold Schwarzenegger -- and by that I mean Maria Shriver -- guests on Jay Leno...
Greg Mitchell, the editor of Editor & Publisher, will be the guest on "Deadline L.A." on Sunday at 1 p.m. (KPFK, 90.7 FM) to discuss...
May 20, 2004
The Tree People, a committee meeting, a press conference, a council meeting, a reception at Getty House and the Hollywood Entertainment Museum, then home at...
Besides the addition of Rob Long, reported earlier today, KCRW's new program grid makes room for what the station calls the first broadcast show devoted...
The OC Weekly's Steve Lowery writes that the paper's reporter Gustavo Arellano was barred by Chapman University from covering a press conference with Spain's ex-Prime...
Six AP wire stories are all that shows, plus this alert: "We are experiencing technical difficulties on latimes.com and calendarlive.com. We are working to fix...
The forthcoming KCRW program guide will show writer/producer Rob Long with a new slot in the commentary lineup during "All Things Considered." His four-minute spot...
USC creative writing professor Percival Everett is profiled in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers magazine, the CaliforniaAuthors.com blog notes. His newest novel is...
The current L.A. Alternative Press cover story, Dangerous Curves Ahead, explores the SuicideGirls web phenomenon that began in the Pacific Northwest and now is based...
Veteran Channel 5 reporter Warren Wilson has hired civil rights attorney Melanie Lomax to press claims that the station is discriminating against him in salary...
Today on the Times op-ed page, Max Boot advises his fellow conservatives to quit wasting energy against gay marriage and move on to more important,...
Nikki Finke reports in the LA Weekly that Wall Street Journal media editor Rich Turner decided not to bother chasing the L.A. Times and New...
May 19, 2004
In which the councilman from the 13th district tells the readers of Slate about the Los Angeles housing crunch, council chamber gadflies, the day's legislative...
In the comments to Cello returned with damage, below, blogger "A Fly in the Wall" asks if the incredibly relieved Stradivarius-forgetter Peter Stumpf spoke up...
The Times has figured out what to do with soon-to-be-ex assistant managing editor Miriam Pawel. She will join the never-larger ranks of reporters who write...
Writing "From the Left Coast" at National Review Online, Cathy Seipp criticizes Times editor John Carroll's recent "pseudo-journalism" speech and defends her friend Jill Stewart,...
The New York Observer editorializes today against its former editor, Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, disagreeing with the notion that his ethical lapses in Hollywood...
May 18, 2004
Today in Slate, councilman Eric Garcetti reveals that while he represents Silver Lake (and lives in Echo Park), his roots are Val. He grew up...
I rarely delete non-spam comments, but have killed two that were posted late last week in the April 28 entry about the Hertzberg child support...
The June issue of Reason magazine with a customized satellite photo of each subscriber's home on the cover is starting to arrive in mailboxes. The...
UCLA law prof and blogger (mostly about law, wine and religion) Professor Bainbridge tells the group blog Crescat Sententia what he sees as Los Angeles'...
I've noticed more speeding police cars with wailing sirens parting traffic around the city. That's usually a rare sight, so I wondered if something was...
A woman told police she was driving in Silver Lake, saw the 320-year-old Stradivarius in its case near a dumpster, and loaded it in her...
Esquire editor in chief David Granger, whose magazine just won four National Magazine Awards, will be on "The Treatment" with Elvis Mitchell on KCRW, Wednesday...
May 17, 2004
The memo to the staff today from L.A. Times Washington bureau chief Doyle McManus: Colleagues: We're delighted to announce two additions to the bureau: Walter...
The author of The Mailroom and the forthcoming The Little Stuff Matters Most (with Bernie Brillstein) has had a good week. Rensin's latest project All...
If you haven't gotten the good news already, it isn't coming. The 2004-2005 Nieman fellows....
City Councilman Eric Garcetti is writing the Slate Diary this week. In his first entry, Garcetti begins his Saturday helping to paint over some graffiti...
The memo is out on Christian Potter Drury, hired recently to be the L.A. Times' design director for the features side of the paper. The...
Now that NBC and Universal have joined, keeping the players straight can be a bit of a challenge for employees. The following policy memo sent...
David Kipen, the San Francisco Chronicle book critic and KCRW commentator, takes a look at the growing scene of West Coast literary journals. He spends...
Business Week L.A. bureau chief Ron Grover interviewed Disney dissident Stanley Gold on Friday for BW Online. Gold predicts that, even with Disney's recent 71%...
Fox News gossip Roger Friedman thinks that Michael Ovitz somehow spurred the L.A. Times to investigate Graydon Carter, and calls the story about the Vanity...
L.A. Business Journal media reporter Pat Maio interviews William Curtis, owner since 2001 of the Malibu-published Robb Report and other wealthy lifestyle magazines. Curtis says...
That spat between Sandra Tsing Loh and KCRW boss Ruth Seymour from a couple of months ago is back on the media radar, in the...
While Mayor Hahn culls lucrative PR deals from the City Hall budget, the big bucks are being made in contracts handed out to law firms....
May 16, 2004
The Sunday Opinion section of the Times did publish, on its front page, the "rise of pseudo-journalism" speech that the boss John Carroll gave May...
May 15, 2004
The New York Times on Sunday surveys the world of L.A.'s super-collectors of art, wealthy buyers "who are, not altogether quietly, reconfiguring the social face...
From the L.A. Times: Colonoscopy — An article in Section A on April 14 about virtual colonoscopy said that conventional colonoscopy used a flexible tube...
In the New York Times on Sunday (according to the date on the website), Janelle Brown does L.A. trend story #376A: screenwriters who write in...
May 14, 2004
Channel 2 morning anchor Kent Shocknek asked his blog readers on Monday if Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld should resign over the Iraqi prison abuses...
There are 2,255 stars for tourists to scuff their shoes on along the Hollywood Walk of Fame, including as of today one for longtime TV...
Before HBO or Blockbuster came along, selected parts of Los Angeles could see movies that were no longer in theaters on the legendary Z Channel....
May 13, 2004
The anony-blog A Fly on the Wall posts that UPN is considering a new "reality" series from Nash Entertainment in which real families would be...
That would be Orange County, the OC Weekly proclaims in a not-entirely-serious cover story that stretches the data a bit. Evidence presented for the claim...
The Los Angeles group blog started in November by programmer Jason DeFillippo and designer Sean Bonner gets a nice feature (sub. required) in today's LAT...
LA Weekly "Deadline Hollywood" columnist Nikki Finke predicts via email that the New York Times will publish a first story on Graydon Carter and his...
Dahlia Lithwick, the Slate senior editor who writes on legal affairs -- and who is herself a U.S. green card holder -- writes at length...
Media blogger Jeff Jarvis on the botched opportunity that was Air America: It's too damned bad that Air America came out in the hands of...
Criminal-defense attorney and former county prosecutor Steve Meister used to be an aide to L.A. City Controller Laura Chick, she who passed along audits and...
For the cover feature in the Times' Weekend Calendar today, Patt Morrison peruses and critiques a small sampling of the magazines published in and (more...
And the cellist, Peter Stumpf, feels bad about it. He must be a good guy because most of the musicians who talk about him in...
Michael Viner and Deborah Raffin's New Millennium Entertainment, the Beverly Hills publisher of Jayson Blair's book, was ordered liquidated by a bankruptcy judge, the New...
Candidate Bob Hertzberg still doesn't know if he will be allowed to reduce his sons' support payments because his income will drop as he runs...
CityBeat's Ed Rampell reports on BBC investigative reporter Greg Palast, who drew a crowd when he appeared last week at Immanuel Presbyterian Church and who...
May 12, 2004
After reading a Washington Post roundup of the DC party scene, Wonkette writes that the capital no longer qualfies as "Hollywood for ugly people." Her...
Editor & Publisher, the print newspaper trade mag, and Mediaweek today handed out the 2004 EPpy awards to honor "the best new media work by...
A photo on page six of today's Daily News shows publisher Tracy Rafter sharing a laugh with—why, it's Daily News über-advertiser Bert Boeckmann. The Galpin...
Nice splash in the Times Calendar section today for author Denise Hamilton, the ex-LAT reporter whose main character in her Los Angeles-based mystery novels, Eve...
Michael Walker's story in last Sunday's L.A. Times Magazine goes back and recreates the freak meterological conditions that caused heavy hail and five inches of...
With no station here to sell ads for, there's no reason to keep a presence, Radio&Records reports. The trade reported yesterday that the staff in...
Water bills will go up 11% next month, bumping the average household's monthly nut by $2.40 (LAT) or $2.94 (Daily News). The Times story by...
The Spanish language daily, in a battle with the new paper in town Hoy, decides to stress single-copy street sales and has increased the sites...
May 11, 2004
In advance of the LA Weekly's Thursday publication, columnist Nikki Finke has posted a web-only scoop reporting that the L.A. Times and New York Times...
The full text of L.A. Times Editor John Carroll's speech last week at the University of Oregon on "the rise of pseudo-journalism" is more hard-hitting...
LAVoice.org has a neat little counter that lets visitors know just how many times a blog entry has been read in its entirety. Last week's...
Elena Lappin, a Brit -- you know, the allies -- got off her plane from London and made the mistake of telling U.S. officials she...
New York Press contributor J.R. Taylor rips into Sunday's front-page LAT story "Hollywood Rediscovers Grown-ups" by Elaine Dutka, calling it sycophantic and breathless. (Movie City...
Bob Edwards continues to seem more celebrated in his ex-host phase than when he was at the mike for NPR's "Morning Edition." He'll be in...
Benedict Carey is leaving the L.A. Times to write about psychology and human behavior for the NYT's weekly Science Times section. He follows by a...
Kent Shocknek of Channel 2 News sent an email memo recently suggesting that the early morning show he anchors choose stories, then write and edit...
May 10, 2004
Blogger Patterico, who contributes to the Oh, That Liberal Media website, counted 30 letters to the editor in the L.A. Times this weekend that mentioned...
There must have been some smiling faces around the National Public Radio studios in Culver City when the memo from COO Ken Stern arrived. Regular...
Bonnie Fuller's Star has a new West Coast bureau chief, Mary Ann Norbom -- she's the third in eight months, Page Six says. "It's kind...
UCLA's Anderson School of Management announced the finalists for the Gerald Loeb Award financial journalism prizes today, but unfortunately made it unpleasant for many Net...
The editorial board of the student-run Daily Emerald at the University of Oregon has posted a commentary praising John Carroll's "pseudo-journalists" speech that L.A. Observed...
Tuesday's Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the abuses at Abu Ghraib will be aired live on KCRW starting at 6:30 a.m. Gen. Antonio Taguba,...
The LAT scribe-turned-successful novelist was the subject of a Bruce Weber profile in Sunday's New York Times magazine. The piece opened with Connelly sitting with...
Monday on "Day to Day" from the show's website: "America's shallowest Online 'blog' launches a new site about what some consider America's shallowest city --...
The Monday roundups of political items in both the Daily News and the Times look ahead to the coming race for mayor. Rick Orlov leads...
Time magazine's Los Angeles bureau chief, Terry McCarthy, has a piece in the current issue on John Carroll and the Times under the headline "Left-Coast...
May 09, 2004
J.D. Lasica, the Bay Area-based senior editor at USC's Online Journalism Review, has put online the introduction and first four chapters of the book he...
A front-page story in the new L.A. Business Journal raises ethical questions about a Daily News ad executive's email overture to "mend fences" between the...
May 08, 2004
L.A. Times Editor John Carroll, on a roll in the industry after picking up five Pulitzers this year and a big award from his fellow...
Ron Fineman's screen grab caught Hal Fishman opening a recent KTLA "News at 10" show with his coat on (left), then coming back from a...
May 07, 2004
Michael Kinsley spoke with Alex Chadwick on "Day to Day" this morning about his impending job with the L.A. Times. I didn't hear it, but...
Thanks to Mack Reed at LAVoice.org for commiserating online over my troubles in moving to a new and better computer host. It's of particular interest...
Air America Radio's chairman Evan Cohen isn't talking big plans any more. In fact, he quit today, along with his vice chairman and investment partner...
Ubiquitous L.A. freelancer and personally revealing blogger Nancy Rommelmann is now about six weeks from Leaving Los Angeles. She's been coming to peace with her...
The venerable Midnight Special bookstore tried to make a go of it after moving off the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, but it didn't...
L.A. screenwriter Andrew Leigh complains at National Review Online that the Times book festival had too many left-identified books on sale and writers on panels,...
Musicians were stunned and saddened when Peter Stumpf, the principal cellist with the L.A. Philharmonic, revealed that the orchestra's 320-year-old Stradivarius cello had disappeared from...
For reasons unknown, the Daily News likes to hype ordinary traffic congestion as gridlock (pronounced Gridlock!) It's worst in the headlines. Lisa Mascaro doesn't use...
Bruce Wallace is the new Tokyo bureau chief. His background is in the memo from Foreign Editor Marjorie Miller:...
May 06, 2004
Switching L.A. Observed to a new computer turned out to be one step more complex than anyone here at LAO Central realized. But the crack...
May 05, 2004
In a New York Observer piece today about the pending demise of the NYT's Saturday Arts and Ideas section, LAT Book Review editor Steve Wasserman...
Matt Welch speaks up for online scandal mongering in Reason, Cathy Seipp finds another Hollywood Republican to embrace at the National Review Online, Christopher Lisotta...
The L.A. Press Club, which is putting on a panel discussion on journalism schools tonight, has posted the finalists for awards to be given out...
In honor of the heat wave and the year's first brush fires, Franklin Avenue links to the classic video of Channel 4's Chuck Henry watching...
The headlines disagree on what happened yesterday when the city council took up the DWP's request for an 11% rate hike. Times: 11% Water Rate...
The prizes for general excellence at today's National Magazine Awards went to Newsweek, Popular Science, Gourmet, Budget Living, Chicago Magazine and Aperture. There were 39...
The L.A. Times went to Montreal to talk with HIV positive porn actress Lara Roxx and put the story (and her photo) on today's front...
May 04, 2004
Pulitzer-winning L.A. Times photographer Carolyn Cole got a plum new assignment today. She will be the paper's first shooter officially dedicated to foreign and national...
Now that he's off "Morning Edition," NPR's Bob Edwards tells Terry Gross on today's "Fresh Air" that on balance he's happy they "pried" him out...
We're at the point in the news cycle where the contenders and would-be challengers to Mayor Jim Hahn get most of the attention. Today on...
Former deputy mayor Joy Chen, who left the Hahn Administration in April, has turned up with a big job at the international headhunting (oops, I...
Ron Fineman.com (pay only) has the memo from KTLA Channel 5 general manager Vinnie Malcolm directing staffers to pay attention to memos--like his. Dear Fellow...
May 03, 2004
Gawker Media's long-rumored L.A. blog Defamer joins the party Tuesday morning. It's said to be mostly about Hollywood. The company run by online veteran Nick...
Franklin Avenue points out that Michael Kinsley won't be the first major L.A. media figure to do his job from the Pacific Northwest. KROQ morning...
Karl Fleming, the former Newsweek bureau chief in L.A. and editor at Channel 2, has sold a book called Nothing to be Ashamed Of: The...
Mike Lafavore resigns after just fifteen months with a little knock at reality programming. Romenesko has the memo....
I've turned off the comments function for a few hours to see if that stops a spam attack that began last night. Robots drop spam...
Elvis Mitchell never fit in at the New York Tmes, writes Carl Swanson in a New York magazine piece. The paper had to bring in...
May 02, 2004
Janet Maslin in the New York Times gives a glowing review to Michael Connelly's latest Harry Bosch mystery, The Narrows, which takes its name from...
Pretty important, the Economist thinks. The May 1 cover of the London-based weekly is devoted to a big photo of a tight-lipped Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger...
Think Los Angeles's history only goes back to the '84 Olympics? The Historical Society of Southern California holds its 120th anniversary gala dinner on May...
Miriam Pawel, the L.A. Times assistant managing editor who will be moved from her job overseeing state and local coverage in June, has told the...
Mayor Jim Hahn's directive to city officials last week to end expensive outside public relations contracts appears to exempt many services, the L.A. Business Journal...
May 01, 2004
The Millions, by Max Magee. He works at Book Soup and blogs daily, but catch him fast. He's moving to Chicago this summer to attend...
Someone emails to ask if it's a little ironic or something that the Writers Guild of America, West negotiations website has posted the full text...
L.A. Brain Terrain: "A SoCal-based blog recording upcoming intellectual activities for Angelenos interested in more than just driving, f*cking and (net)working!"...
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| The funeral for Mark Lacter will be held Sunday, Nov. 24 at 12 noon at Hillside Memorial Park, 6001 W. Centinela Avenue, Los Angeles 90045. Reception to follow.
Before I lived in Echo Park, there was a tiny 1920s bungalow-cottage-standalone house on N. Occidental in Silver Lake. I...
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