Archive by Month
December 28, 2004
Sontag died today [Tuesday] of leukemia at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. The L.A. Times online obituary by her good friend, Book...
December 24, 2004
Posting will be light through New Year's Day. But I will probably add a few notes here during the coming week, with the freshest at...
December 22, 2004
Last night's debate featured some spirited back and forth sniping between the candidates, mostly directed at (or by) Jim Hahn. Talking to reporters afterward, the...
Mediabistro.com is trying out a new column on how PR people should pitch various media. It's done Q-and-A style, with the questions posed by Laura...
The Los Angeles Fire Department's media relations staff has started a blog with releases on incidents in the city. It went up yesterday and reports...
The Times has named Jim Rainey a national media writer. He recently covered the presidential campaign and has reported in the past on L.A. city...
December 21, 2004
Around the race for mayor: • We know what Richard Alarcon will talk about at tonight's debate. The state Senator filed papers yesterday pushing a ballot...
AP says the Dodgers and two other teams, the Yankees and Diamondbacks, have okayed and submitted the trade that has been rumored since last week....
L.A.'s most important Denver-based player, Philip Anschutz, has filed trademark applications to reserve "The Examiner" as the name of newspapers in 69 cities. The Denver...
December 20, 2004
Times media critic David Shaw on Sunday ran his list of the year's worst journalism moments. His top 10 include Dan Rather's use of fake...
Edited since first posted LAist has found a sure-fire way to get more City Hall readership, at least for the day. The blog has posted...
December 19, 2004
One of my favorite lists in the L.A. Business Journal is the annual rank of most valuable private property in Los Angeles County. My favorite...
LAVoice.org has competition for its series keeping tabs on the web presence of the five top candidates for mayor. In the Downtown News, Jon Regardie...
Both the L.A. Business Journal and LA Weekly are getting ready to unveil newsier websites. In the new issue, the Journal announces that over the...
December 17, 2004
Luc Robitaille has been a favorite of Kings fans since he arrived from Quebec as a teenager they all said couldn't skate. Lucky (his nickname)...
Adding to Mayor Hahn's labor sweep this week, the Police Protective League officially threw its endorsement his way today. No surprise there, since the LAPD...
December 16, 2004
I suppose there have been worse overall news days for the Dodgers, but December 16 has to rank up there. Morning brought the report that...
Franklin Avenue puts out the word that KCAL Channel 9 will adopt a New York television tradition by airing a crackling fireplace on Christmas morning....
The Food Section, the New York-based website Gourmet calls "the consummate gastronomic blog," is devoting a week to Los Angeles culinary spots. Guest editor Kristin...
The county Federation of Labor hears from the candidates for mayor today and then votes on an endorsement, Rick Orlov says in the Daily News....
The LA Weekly's Marc Cooper was quite disturbed by the Times coverage of the death of Gary Webb, the Sacramento reporter who shot himself last...
December 15, 2004
That's the opening date for the hugely expanded Griffith Observatory. The landmark in Griffith Park has been closed for renovation since January 2002, but until...
The New York Daily News' Rush & Molloy say that the prospects of LAPD chief Bill Bratton being appointed Homeland Security chief by President Bush...
Author Penny Rudolph lives in Albuquerque but she is setting her newest murder mystery Thicker Than Blood here. Her website describes it: In this latter-day...
December 14, 2004
On her blog, radio personality and voice actor April Winchell has posted an MP3 file of an on-air tiff (audio she wants you to listen...
The link to the Third Floor View blog from inside the L.A. Times goes this morning to a "not found" error page. There's no indication...
Joe Scott wrote a notes column called "The Body Politic" that ran on page two of the Herald Examiner during the 1980s. It was a...
Second-tier mayoral candidate Walter Moore is so determined to play with the big boys that he is loaning his campaign $100,000. The attorney told the...
KPCC's Kitty Felde is taking Talk of the City over to Catalina today for a live broadcast. One of the topics will be the coming...
The Times business section has a new editor on the tech pod. To: The Staff From: Rick Wartzman, Business Editor Aaron Curtiss, Senior Technology Editor...
December 13, 2004
Political and media hands have been lamenting the demise of the annual holiday party thrown in Hancock Park by the Times' Janet Clayton and her...
The Zócalo lecture series is asking the question on January 27: "Does the American Middle Class have a Future?" Given the topic, the speakers are...
December 12, 2004
That new L.A. Times newsroom anony-blogger who made it known that he or she would begin writing on Monday didn't wait. After my post on...
Updated through the weekend, newest at the bottom • Mayor Jim Hahn and councilman Bernard Parks both opened their 2005 campaign headquarters on Saturday. Hahn's (photo...
December 10, 2004
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
December 09, 2004
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
December 08, 2004
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,...
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...
* Updated with newest posts at the bottom • The February issue of Hustler will carry the story by Michael Collins and Mark Cromer that liberal...
* 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
December 07, 2004
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...
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...
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....
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....
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...
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...
December 06, 2004
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
December 05, 2004
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...
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...
December 04, 2004
* Updated all weekend, newest posts at the bottom • A new (to me) blog of L.A. street photography: The Streets are Alive, by Nitsa of...
The good news for Renee Montagne is that, as of today, she is no longer the interim co-host of NPR's Morning Edition. She and Steve...
December 03, 2004
KCRW tried another conservative on today's Left, Right & Center: Michael Murphy, Republican media consultant for John McCain and others and adviser to Gov. Schwarzenegger....
When the author and former Daily News book editor Bruce Cook died last year, a number of fans posted comments here on the blog. His...
The Times' society editor for 14 years (1971-1985) chronicled the days when the Chandler family reigned over Hancock Park and the prominent names in Los...
One in eight drivers in California and the U.S. has a sport utility vehicle, the Census Bureau says. In California there are 2.75 million, an...
Its website says that Our Weekly will launch in January "dedicated to the African American communities in Los Angeles." Based on Western Avenue in South...
If nothing else, last night's televised debate removed any doubts that the mayor's race is going to be a rancorous, negative and highly personal clash....
December 02, 2004
The California Journal is halting publication in January—at least temporarily—after 35 years. A non-profit board has tried to build an endowment to keep the monthly...
Eric Spiegelman at Cinemocracy treks to the wilderness of Beverly Hills—"or, as I usually refer to it, across the street"—to check out the odd monument...
The recalled ex-governor has joined the Los Angeles law firm of Loeb and Loeb. An AP story says Davis had been a lawyer before, briefly,...
The candidates for mayor come together tonight at the Musuem of Tolerance (and on KNBC and KWHY at 7 p.m.) and hope that somebody—anybody—cares at...
Given recent events in the LA Weekly newsroom, this is interesting: fired Weekly writer Howard Blume will sit in for regular Deadline L.A. host Barbara...
Ken Reich reported for the L.A. Times for 39 years until last spring, when he was allowed to retire after bullying a newsroom aide. Now...
December 01, 2004
Beth Sweeney won the popular vote (10,399 to 8568), but at the conclusion of The Audition channel 5's Supreme Court of judges tapped Ross King...
In this week's New Yorker, Los Angeles-based staff writer Caitlin Flanagan ponders the ritual of giving presents to teachers for the holidays. Her vantage point...
Candidate Bob Hertzberg is out today with another online-only ad, vowing that his first priority as mayor would be to splinter the Los Angeles Unified...
In today's Zits comic strip in the Times, the character named Pierce asks to borrow a pencil, then rips open a condom package with his...
Xeni Jardin posts at Boing Boing that the old-fashioned paper blog is a "handwritten journal attributed to a woman who lived in Boston in 1878....
Police commisioner and developer of The Grove Rick Caruso says he'll bankroll a drive to put Mayor Hahn's sales tax hike for more cops on...
Artifacts from Tutankhamen's reign are returning to LACMA for the first time since drawing big crowds in the 1970s—but it could cost you $30 to...
Talker story of the day: The Orange County couple who both got heart transplants at Cedars-Sinai, seven years apart....
