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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, some left over from last week...
• SaveOurTrade.com is pushing a union organizing effort in the pressrooms at the non-union L.A. Times. The site tabluates thirteen years worth of squeezes and cutbacks, for those who are keeping score at home.
• Tim Rutten's Saturday column in the LAT about Johnnie Cochran pointed out that they were longtime friends and that he collaborated on Cochran's book. Rutten also discloses that when he was a reporter covering the O.J. Simpson trial, Cochran would stop by his house some days after court and chat off-the-record about the case.
• The L.A. Business Journal looks at the competition among small newspapers for lucrative legal notices. The peg is that the Metropolitan News-Enterprise wants to become the designated ad publisher for forty local cites, and its rivals — led by the Daily Journal — very much want that not to happen. The LABJ also reports on the "dizzying challenges" facing the new Times publisher and the Journal's awards from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.
• The Press Club, the Annenberg School, Alex Ben Block, the New York Times and the Discovery Channel all have a hand in an April 22 journalism seminar at USC, "Who Can Be Trusted? - A Seminar On Sourcing." Participants include NYTers Philip Taubman (Washington bureau chief) and Michael Oreskes (the ex-WashBuro chief), Sue Horton and Patt Morrison of the L.A. Times, CNN's Aaron Brown, KTLA news director Jeff Wald and columnist Jill Stewart. Tickets are $30, $40 and $100 and in short supply, I'm told.
• Larry Mantle's Airtalk celebrated its 20th year on the air Friday with a show of past interviews, aired from the Museum of Television and Radio.
• KTLA's nightly news program, formerly "News at Ten," is now called Prime News.
• CityBeat is looking. Dennis Romero, the paper's multi-faceted staff writer, has left for Tu Ciudad Los Angeles, the new mag I've been telling you is coming from Emmis. Short move: the paper and the Latino-centric magazine are both upstairs from Los Angeles Magazine in the People's Bank tower on Wilshire.
• Robert Gelfand at The American Reporter argues that the media panel at the last mayoral debate flubbed the followup to questions on illegal immigrants and drivers licenses.
• LAT front page editor Leo Wolinsky, on how to play Jacko stories: "It's a tough one. Page One tells people what kind of newspaper you are - a serious paper or a tabloid..."
• New blog design and URL for film reviewer Luke Y. Thompson.
• Rodger Jacobs is calling for short fiction entries to mark the 65th anniversary of the death of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Jacobs is behind the push to rename Sunset and Hayworth for the author.
Late add:
• New LAT publisher Jeff Johnson quickly brought in a long-time Tribune Company exec, David Murphy, to be executive vice president and general manager.