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LA Observed archive
for April 2005
If you don't find what you want here, check another month or search below.
Politics reporter Howard Fine in the Business Journal adds to what has been a less-than-fun week for Antonio Villaraigosa's campaign, writing in the new issue: What is it about Antonio...
The L.A. Times weighs in Saturday with its own look at the life and death of R. Gregory Stevens, three days after the New York Times showed the way. He...
• Zankou Chicken in Glendale was vandalized with red paint after the owner chose to stay open last Sunday, the day commemorating the killing of 1.5 million Armenians in Ottoman Turkey...
* Recast with new details Channel 4 says at 5 p.m. that the airport police officer died after a suspect got control of his squad car and crashed into a...
District Attorney Steve Cooley just jumped into the fray over Antonio Villaraigosa's $1,000 campaign checks from workers (and their families) at two Florida firms that want to sip from the...
After realizing that his own little ethics scandal isn't going away, Antonio Villaraigosa announced Thursday he will return the $1,000 checks donated to his campaign by employees of two Florida...
LAT Assistant Managing Editor Janet Clayton reorganized the Metro editors a bit this week to create a new desk to specialize in coverage of immigration, growth and population changes. One...
The mayor "has never contacted me in the four years he’s been in office,” Rep. Maxine Waters tells Betty Pleasant in The Wave. "He has never been in my office...
Police chief Bill Bratton said this morning that six LAPD officers will face administrative discipline for their role in the arrest last June of Stanley Miller, a suspect who was...
* Newest at the bottom, including Bill Lockyer out of the race for governor... • Looks like an interesting cover package in LA Weekly on apartment living, under the theme of...
This is a one-source item, but I believe a pretty good (if confidential) source. The source says that Council President Alex Padilla tomorrow will endorse Antonio Villaraigosa for mayor. Padilla,...
Former mayor Richard Riordan will leave his post as state Education Secretary on June 30, Gov. Schwarzenegger's office just announced. With deep regret I have accepted Richard Riordan's resignation as...
* As usual, freshest stuff (think Laura Bush and John Kerry) at the bottom... • David Shaw lunches on a double-chili-cheeseburger at Tommy's before he samples the Dodger Stadium cuisine for...
Today's New York Times revisits the death on Oscar weekend in February of R. Gregory Stevens, the gay Republican operative who had been staying with actress (and active Democrat) Carrie...
Good piece of enterprise reporting by Copley's David Zahniser, who found that 19 employees of Miami-based Travel Traders, which operates hotel gift shops, are listed as giving $1000 each to...
Antonio Villaraigosa's campaign is enticing supporters to attend a Saturday rally with the candidate and "a national political figure." It's John Kerry, the Times says. Meanwhile, Villaraigosa and Hahn showed...
In today's Times, editorial page editor Andrés Martinez writes that "working at a major metropolitan newspaper these days can feel a bit like working for the East German Politburo, circa...
Andrew Breitbart's career shift from the Drudge Report to a key role with the upcoming Huffington Report must be so surprising in his circle that he has issued a statement,...
Antonio Villaraigosa's first on-air thirty-second ad of the runoff campaign is out. The theme is his commitment to education. Villaraigosa mentions that his wife is a teacher (but not that...
The cover of Business Week's May 2 issue advises the corporate (and media) world that their customers and competitors are figuring out where blogs fit in, so they better jump...
The LAT today joins the media pack on the Huffington Post, with an arch quip from ex-Timesman Tom Rosenstiel: "Is this a new kind of communication: a unique, elite blog-salon?...
The comedian who played a bit part in the Los Angeles mayor's race, as a friend and campaigner alongside State Sen. Richard Alarcon, underwent a kidney transplant last week, his...
General Motors' attempt to intimidate the L.A. Times by pulling $10 million in ads "couldn't happen to a nicer newspaper, as far as I'm concerned," USC law professor and Fox...
The fired L.A. Times reporter emailed this note today, giving his side of how his departure from the paper was handled. Slater again denies making things up and says he...
* Newest items at the bottom... The Times' King-Drew series won the grand prize in today's Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards...Tonight's SPJ event on "Ethics and Entertainment Journalism" at the...
Surely you didn't think that baseball outcast Jose Canseco wrote Juiced, his tell-all book on steroids, by himself (if at all.) His uncredited ghostwriter was Steve Kettmann, a Brooklyn-based journalist...
Fired LA Times reporter Eric Slater tells Howard Kurtz in today's Washington Post that he got lazy on his disputed story about Chico — "It was the worst story I've...
The National Enquirer has gone British for a new chief of the Los Angeles bureau. David Gardner, who had been West Coast editor of London’s Daily Mail, replaces Jerry George...
This one was in Orange County just before 2 in the morning, and the victim is expected to live. Four people have been murdered while driving on SoCal freeways in...
Long but terser-than-usual roundup, due to a books-filled weekend away from the computer. It was great to chat with old friends, new readers, media people and bloggers and to hear...
Times Sports Editor Bill Dwyre's professional burdens include being made fun of in print by columnist T. J. Simers and approving the expense accounts of his writers. Regarding the latter,...
The exact form that will fit with journalism standards is still being discussed, says San Francisco Chronicle managing editor Robert Rosenthal, but the paper will launch some kind of blogs...
Buried on page 28 of today's Calendar section in the Times, Universal runs an unusual message in plain serif type, with no art or adornment: Last week, Universal Pictures and...
Following Mayor Hahn's opening bid of three appointees to the L.A. school board, Antonio Villaraigosa came back Thursday and bid up the pot, saying whoever is mayor should have final...
Lindsey Deutsch is the 20-year-old prodigy whose loaner violin, a Sanctus Seraphin made in 1742 and worth $850,000, was stolen from the back seat of her car in West Hills...
Councilman Eric Garcetti uses his blog mostly to keep the 13th district informed about local happenings. This week there are items on a visit by Gen. Tommy Franks and a...
News and blog-views that rolled into L.A.O. Central while I was otherwise engaged on a Thursday (and updated at the bottom) ... • Mark Ebner and Andrew Breitbart report on their...
Patrick McDonnell, the LAT's Baghdad bureau chief, is finally getting out of the war zone after about a year and a half. He'll be moving this summer to become Buenos...
Good story by Ian Gregor in the Breeze about a village of RVs that squat more or less permanently in Lot B at LAX — and the people who live...
Marc Cooper reviews the pricey new field level seats at Dodger Stadium and finds them, as I suspected, not worth $100 — or even $10 — if you like to...
One of ten in Thursday's Times: Rodolfo Gonzales obituary — The obituary in Thursday's California section about Chicano activist and poet Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales misspelled the name of New Mexico...
Robert Greene at the LA Weekly recites "a few of the critical details" that Mayor Hahn left out of Monday's State of the City speech. For instance, while it's true...
Kim at the 1947 Project observes that "for as long as there’s been a highway into the hills, young lovers have gone up into Angeles National Forest on Saturday nights...
Continuing the run-up to the book festival, Thursday's Calendar Weekend in the Times runs a piece by Scott Martelle that grasps for the soul of the city through literary references...
The front-page centerpiece in today's Daily Journal explores the double life of 56-year-old defense lawyer Ronald S. Miller, who is also porn actor "Don Hollywood" and was the creator of...
Alex Ben Block, the editor of Television Week and former editor of the Hollywood Reporter, will be on Larry Mantle's Airtalk tomorrow at 11 a.m. on KPCC to talk about...
Yesterday's City Hall settlement with Fleishman-Hillard over inflated billings gave a glimpse of the competition between two ambitious politicians, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo and Controller Laura Chick. In announcing that...
Ex-Times reporter Eric Slater blames his story errors partly on editing and says the paper fired him before completing its investigation into his work. He confirms for the Chico Enterprise-Record...
LAPD anti-gang investigator Will Beall has sold Riverhead a pair of novels set in South Los Angeles — and Hollywood powerhouse CAA is marketing the film rights. LA Rex and...
The mayor hopeful has raised almost $1.2 million in two weeks and reports reaching the $1.8 million official fundraising cap for the runoff. The cap will be lifted, however, because...
They came from six runs behind again this afternoon to win in the tenth inning on another clutch home run by Milton Bradley, who's feeling the love these days. The...
What is it with media types and fish? The LA Weekly's Marc Cooper always sounds happiest when he's blogging about being on the sand or a pier somewhere. Now today,...
Mack at LAVoice turns up the news that some San Diego entrepreneurs are making plans to moor a cruise ship off the coast and fill it with six hundred software...
On Monday morning, Mayor Hahn packed the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center on Washington Boulevard with his mother and sister, friends, supporters and department heads to hear the annual State...
Gourmet editor and former L.A. Times food editor and critic Ruth Reichl doesn't really look like this. It's one of the disguises she used as a restaurant critic for the...
FishbowlLA threw its Mediabistro-sponsored launch party tonight at Pearl in West Hollywood. The blog's Michael Sonnenschein posted his thanks at 10:40 p.m., apologizing for some "rough patches" and passing along...
Tuesday's Times will run an Editor's Note further explaining the problems with that shoddy March 31 story about Chico State and announcing that staff writer Eric Slater (pictured in happier...
Editor and Publisher says the Times is expected to announce some movement on the Eric Slater situation today. They report a rumor that Slater has been fired, but no confirmation....
Her intentions are not quite as grand in scale as Walking in L.A., but mixed-media artist Lisa Salem says she will leave her Echo Park home in May and walk...
Today's Downtown News tells the obscure story of George Kress, the king of L.A. house movers back when it was common to see a home (or a school or store)...
Only saw the last half of Sunday night's mayoral snipefest, but what I caught was not pleasing. Neither candidate came across to me as visionary, commanding or likable. Villaraigosa, in...
Franklin Avenue bloggers Mike and Maria drove past 4101 Wilshire this weekend and report, sadly, that Perino's — once L.A's most glamorous restaurant — has been razed. Knew it was...
New items added at the bottom • Dawson's Books, the oldest bookseller in Los Angeles, celebrates its 100th anniversary this month with an exhibit at the store and Michael Dawson Gallery...
When entertainment PR vet Mark Kern was mugged on an L.A. street and had his dog Nikki stolen, he didn't just get mad. He unleashed a media wave. Franklin Avenue...
To be honest, I can't tell whether this restates previously known circulation losses, or whether it's a new drop. But an E&P story says that Tribune today told analysts to...
The Bear Flag League, an association of eighty California bloggers, has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in that case up north where Apple is demanding that a website identify its sources...
That's the term used for KCRW's Harry Shearer by Lloyd Grove in today's New York Daily News. He says that on last weekend's "Le Show," Shearer played an audio tape...
It could be this week's LAT Poll showing Villaraigosa with an 18-point lead and a month to go, or the Bob Hertzberg-Bernie Parks-Magic Johnson endorsements, or the weight of everything,...
Twenty-two years after agreeing to open a public access walkway across his Carbon Beach property in exchange for the okay to build a large house, David Geffen — reluctantly —...
Free tickets to hear panels at this month's L.A. Times Festival of Books can be grabbed on Ticketmaster starting at noon Sunday. Authors who will be speaking include Madeleine Albright,...
Los Angeles Time Machines is fascinated by Los Angeles restaurants and bars from the 1930s, '40s, '50s and '60s. Musso and Frank holds the place of honor on the main...
In Boston since 1857, the Atlantic Monthly is moving to Washington. Editor Cullen Murphy is among those who won't make the move. He'll oversee the transition, then step aside. Romenesko...
INT. CROWDED SUNLIT ATRIUM DAY County Supervisor GLORIA Molina introduces BOB Hertzberg, after they don white coats for tour of high-tech medical laboratory with ANTONIO Villaraigosa. They lose the...
On the General Motors company blog, VP of communications Gary Grates says he won't detail any grievances against the L.A Times while the paper "has an ombudsman who is investigating...
Longtime ESPN baseball columnist Peter Gammons lifted a few lines Wednesday from a Steve Henson piece in the L.A. Times about Dodgers centerfielder-slash-reformed head case (and potential team leader?) Milton...
The subject is geography, from the LAT: Donner Party — A map in Tuesday's Section A with an article about the Donner Party showed the wrong locations of three rivers....
Today's Times sort of covers the candidate's East Coast fundraising swing, which stopped in New York, Washington and South Florida. No details are reported of Tuesday's private New York breakfast...
Times staffers were informed late today that Denver bureau chief David Kelly is rotating in June to be a roving correspondent in Orange County and the Inland Empire. His Denver...
For the second time in a month, a driver on the Harbor Freeway was shot and killed in the middle of the day. This time, the shooting occured near Redondo...
Howard Fine reports on the L.A. Business Journal website that Bob Hertzberg will come out for Villaraigosa tomorrow in the Valley. Fine cites "a source close to Hertzberg." The Villaraigosa...
Couldn't find any fresh media mentions of Xeni Jardin today, but there are these things to know (updated at the bottom): • Local websites nominated for Webby awards from the International...
City Controller Laura Chick and Councilman Bernard Parks will appear in a new run of cable TV ads for Antonio Villaraigosa to begin right away, his campaign announced. In her...
The Times has sent editor and former reporter Jim Newton to Chico to try to corroborate reporting by the paper's Eric Slater that has come under fire. Slater's story in...
Not exactly, but Mark Glaser at USC's Online Journalism Review delves into the subject of how commercial blogs like Defamer and Wonkette pay their writers, and finds that the money...
Today's New York Observer reports on the curious case of NYT metro reporter Alan Feuer, who admits being slipshod with facts in his new book about (very) briefly covering the...
The LAPD's cold case homicide unit is tracking four unsolved serial rape-murder sprees with eleven female victims, many of them prostitutes, the Daily Journal said in a story Monday. The...
The county Supes, reacting to more deaths at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, yesterday ordered county health chief Thomas Garthwaite to physically move his office to the troubled hospital....
Today's LAT Poll says that even whites in the Valley and blacks in south L.A. favor Antonio Villaraigosa by a wide margin, after going big for Jim Hahn in 2001....
My host, Total Choice Hosting, has responded nicely with a detailed explanation of yesterday's interruption. It was due to an overload on the servers, probably from the vulnerabilities of the...
Judith Regan is vacating New York and moving her publishing and media group to Los Angeles by the end of the year, to concentrate on television and film projects —...
From the Times' Tracy Weber and Charles Ornstein, still on the case after winning a Pulitzer: Another patient hooked up to a cardiac monitor died at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew...
During a trial status conference Monday for John Stodder, the ex-Fleishman-Hillard executive indicted for his alleged part in overbilling the city DWP, Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam D. Kamenstein disclosed that...
Over at America's Suburb.com, I talk about driving to the peak of Oat Mountain above the Valley for the first time. Usually the road is closed that far into the...
Fox Sports chairman David Hill holds the top spot on the L.A. Business Journal's new list of most powerful local sports executives. Hill moved up from number two, jumping ahead...
For reasons that still aren't clear, my hosting service — Total Choice Hosting — abruptly cut off access to L.A. Observed this afternoon. Luckily the break was temporary, but I...
The home web page of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin carries this retraction: An apology to Bo Jackson A story we published online March 24 and in print March 25...
The forthcoming magazine for young upscale Latinos is written up in today's New York Times, with a photo of founders Jaime Gamboa and Gabriel Grimalt. The Tu Ciudad team is...
General Motors' withdrawal of national car ads from the L.A. Times is getting lots of play. Investors Business Daily quotes a marketer calling it "a remarkably nonsavvy move." The New...
Al Lucas, a 26-year-old lineman for the Los Angeles Avengers of the Arena Football League, died Sunday after his head struck the knee of an opposing player at Staples Center....
Villaraigosa goes out to Bob Hertzberg's home turf in Sherman Oaks this morning to accept the endorsement of "a leading Los Angeles entrepreneur." He's bringing Dick Riordan with him. The...
• Tracks magazine has gone on hiatus after a little more than a year, while management pursues "new financing support with the goal of relaunching the magazine in the future." • The...
Rabbi Steve Weil, who harshly criticized Mayor Jim Hahn's campaign last month, now says he believes that zealous Jewish community volunters, not Hahn campaign staffers, are responsible for forged signatures...
OK, now we know: Antonio Villaraigosa has outraised Mayor Jim Hahn by about a third in the opening weeks of the runoff campaign. Hahn reported $407,795, compared to his rival's...
Sean Bonner's item a couple of days ago at Blogging.la about Star Wars nerds lining up at Grauman's Chinese Theatre — the movie isn't scheduled to screen there, but they...
General Motors yanked all of its advertising in the L.A. Times Thursday because of unspecified but "strongly voiced objections from our dealers in California about factual errors and misrepresentations in...
Retired baseball and NFL player Bo Jackson sued the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, sports editor Jim Mohr and MediaNews Group for defamation after the paper quoted a dietary expert saying...
Daniel Hunt has discovered one difference between Los Angeles and Northern California. Up there, neighbors will sneak onto your porch and steal your newspaper before you wake up. Hunt and...
The cover story in CityBeat charts the "terrible rise, fall, and slow resurrection" of the former Eastside power broker Richard Alatorre. Chip Jacobs writes that Alatorre could have been a...
The L.A. Times may be the biggest and most-awarded paper the Tribune Company owns, but the corporate culture sometimes still regards the hometown Chicago Tribune as #1. If Times staffers...
Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa released his appointment calendar since taking office in 2003 in response to a Times demand, but Mayor Jim Hahn cited security reasons for his refusal — even...
More than a third of the county's Americans of Armenian descent live in Glendale, and after an election this week a majority of the city council — and the city...
Benedikt Taschen, the German publisher turned Angeleno, fell in love with architect John Lautner's famous Chemosphere house that hangs over the Valley near Laurel Canyon. After being rented out as...
In an LA Weekly cover story, Robert Greene analyzes why a city council thought to be the most progressive ever just two years ago has not delivered. Mayoral politics and...
Antonio Villaraigosa's campaign filed his contribution report a day early, showing that he has raised $653,255 in the past four weeks. The reports aren't due at the city Ethics Commission...
• Denise Hamilton's newest Eve Diamond novel, Savage Garden, hits the shelves on May 3. There's a Jayson Blair-like subplot swirling around our favorite fictional LAT reporter. • Tim Brown, the LAT's...
The Beverly Hills-based Roger Richman Agency Inc., which represents deceased figures such as Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, the Marx Brothers, Steve McQueen and Vivien Leigh for licensing purposes, was bought...
In today's Daily Breeze, David Zahniser provides more details about the latest turn in the investigations into possible pay-for-play and other kinds of corruption involving city contracts and the Hahn...
It's common for the city council to end each meeting by adjourning in memory of residents who recently died. Today, the council went further. The entire day's agenda was cancelled...
Just got a look at the March stats, and it pleases me to be able to say that L.A. Observed set new highs across the board: for visits, unique visitors,...
It's the first time in eleven years that the Lakers won't play in the post-season. Meanwhile, Shaquille O'Neal's team has clinched a playoff spot with the second-best record in the...
Gawker today is launching a new blog, Sploid.com, that will try to push into the Drudge Report's news space with a British tabloid style and politics "between the whiny left...
Eric Slater, the L.A. Times roving state reporter whose piece on Cal State Chico is under fire, has apologized in an email sent to "friends and colleagues." Slater sent the...
Women's Wear Daily's MemoPad page says that Kent Black [mentioned on L.A.O. in February] has filled the long-vacant post of style editor at the soon-to-be-relaunched L.A. Times Sunday magazine. And...
Federal and county prosecutors looking into the Hahn administration have recently asked for detailed information about the mayor's trip to Asia in 2002 with then-commissioner Leland Wong, members of the...
You may be hearing that the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is going to vote on an ordinance that would require election bloggers to register and report expenses, as if...
The Malibu Film Festival is actually screening all its movies next week in Santa Monica (at the Aero Theatre) and will have its opening night party at the Viceroy. The...
Last year's week-long series on the troubles at King-Drew Medical Center won the Pulitzer Prize medal for public service, and foreign correspondent Kim Murphy shared a prize in international reporting....
Last week's Times story by reporter Eric Slater about the frats at Cal State Chico, already the subject of an LAT For the Record and scorn in Chico, continues to...
Power struggles "a factor," the art museum's longtime director tells the Times, but she insists there was no confrontation. Officially, she will announce today that she is retiring in November....
It's Pulitzer showdown day between the Times and OC Register: both have series up for the Public Service medal. The prizes start posting at noon L.A. time. Also: Some new,...
Curtis Vogel, whose complaint about an affair apparently led to the firing of three KNBC staffers, including his wife Kyung Lah, emails RonFineman.com: I won't comment on any of the...
The Times had to run this one: A March 22 Outdoors article about tuna fishing incorrectly identified an angler as Rusty Johnson. His name is Frosty Johnson. The article also...
The Times greets the baseball season with a Sunday front-pager by business writer Thomas S. Mulligan on how Frank McCourt managed to buy the Dodgers without any money, then made...
LAT scribe-turned-author Michael Connelly's latest Harry Bosch mystery, The Closers, comes out May 15. On his website, Connelly narrates a five-minute video tour of downtown sites mentioned in the book,...
Jewish Journal senior editor Howard Blume has an interesting media piece on the refusal of reporters at the Daily News and LA Weekly to pursue long-rumored details about Mayor Hahn's...
The Olympic flame atop the Coliseum was lit Saturday in honor of Pope John Paul II, and Catholic masses were offered here in twenty-nine languages. "Today, we are not...
Ex-mayor Richard Riordan, who backed Bob Hertzberg in this year's primary, is returning today to the Villaraigosa fold, the Daily News' Rick Orlov reports. Riordan had endorsed Villaraigosa in the...
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.
