Weekly archive
November 13 - November 19, 2005
Saturday, Nov. 19
When the Times chose to stake its biggest website initiative on the dicey notion that Hollywood awards are a year-round obsession of its readers, my main fear was that the...
Friday, Nov. 18
Readers of the TV news website RonFineman.com voted Channel 7's Marc Brown and Michelle Tuzee the best anchors in town. Wasn't close. They beat the KCAL duo of Pat Harvey...
Robert Scheer's syndicated column, dropped last week by the Times, will appear from now on in the L.A. Alternative. The paper, formerly known as the L.A. Alternative Press, has been...
When LAPD motor officer Tyrhone Ragland got to Armanda Renee Donnelly about 4:30 Thursday morning, her Lexus 3000 was off the Santa Monica Freeway at La Brea, on its...
A jury in the Valley ruled today that Robert Blake is liable for the death of his wife, Bonny Lee Blakely. The ex-actor was ordered to pay $30 million in...
I don't know whether today's moves are being called layoffs, involuntary buyouts or flat-out firings, but a number of long-time staffers at the Los Angeles Times are being told to...
The L.A. Times plans to relaunch its Sunday magazine Feb. 5 as West. The name has a history at the paper. A previous incarnation of the Sunday magazine was called...
Mack Reed at LAVoice.org has a memo about the FAA moving inspectors out of the LAX area to the Valley and Long Beach. They don't sound too pleased....
Robert Scheer will not be heard on today's Left, Right & Center on KCRW. But ScheerNation shouldn't get all protesty and throw up a picket line on Pico. He is...
Signs went up Thursday night at the fixture on Highland Avenue. There will be a closeout sale, then 34 employees will lose their jobs. The Aron's website claims the shop...
♦ Leading with the Getty again. John Walsh, the museum's former director, told Warren Olney (KCRW audio) "the spirit of the place is being undermined" and said: "The problem is with...
Thursday, Nov. 17
I told you early last year about an extraordinary website that presents hundreds of photographs of Los Angeles landmark buildings, giving dates and information on the architects along with city...
Rep. Brad Sherman of Sherman Oaks has been using JDate under the name of "jim2005ofDC,” according to The Hill in Washington. A spokesman for the Democrat confirmed the revelation for...
Joining the gossip-fray at Defamer is invitation only, to a point: "We’ll be sending out a first round of invitations to frequent tipsters, assistants, bloggers, loose-lipped craft servicepeople, etc etc...
Valley College student Bay'an Hedayaty says he was just snapping some shots of the Red Line station at Hollywood and Highland for a photography class assignment. But it was 10...
A reader writes: I just called to cancel my subscription to the Times – except for Sundays. And if the new TV Guide, which I get for $13 a year,...
The new blog collective that yesterday called itself Open Source Media responded today to the accusation that the name was already taken. The explanation is that the site's trade name...
At last night's road-show City Council meeting in the old Van Nuys City Hall, some safety improvements to the Valley busway were announced. They mostly involve slapping car drivers in...
♦ Yeah, curator Marion True shouldn't have taken that $400,000 loan from two wealthy art collectors right after the Getty acquired their collection. Today's front pages New York Times See/Read Washington...
Wednesday, Nov. 16
Former Superior Court Judge Kevin A. Ross lost his seat on the bench today for ethical violations and lying to the state panel that investigates judges. Seems the legal establishment...
Rabbi Steven Tucker of Temple Ramat Zion in Northridge died Nov. 10 in a solo car crash in Yosemite National Park that authorities described as a suicide. The Jewish Journal...
Times Editor Dean Baquet follows up the publisher's message with his own announcement. Staffers have until Nov. 25 to decide if they want to take the buyout terms: Nov. 16,...
This morning's missive to the Times staff from Jeffrey M. Johnson says: "Beginning this week and over the next three weeks, departments will be communicating specific initiatives including job reductions...
Item 1: Items from five Gawker Inc. blogs, including Defamer, will be featured on Yahoo! News. The Huffington Post already has a deal with Yahoo. Item 2: Open Source Media,...
Yesterday's incoming email at the LA Times was lost due to an outage between about 5 pm and 7:30 pm. Will Bob Scheer's fans claim they inundated the server? Meanwhile,...
When Will Campbell called to drop his subscription after the paper axed his favorite Outdoors section, the handler on the other end accidentally read him the spiel for the Bob...
♦ Reacting to the Times' series on abuses by conservators for the elderly, the Board of Supes formed a task force and an L.A. judge ordered an investigation into one of...
KCRW's Warren Olney kept asking for a reason why the Times would shed one of its few recognizable voices, but Andrés Martinez would never specifically say why he dumped Bob...
Tuesday, Nov. 15
After spinning through all the candidates they really wanted, the Dodgers today hired San Francisco Giants assistant Ned Colletti to be their general manager. The GIants have finished ahead of...
It was only last January that ex-Channel 5 anchor Sharon Tay landed a hosting gig at MSNBC. Well, TVNewswer reports today that MSNBC At the Movies and the "MSNBC Hot...
Bob Sipchen, the editorial architect of the Times' Current section (former Sunday Opinion), is moving back into the newsroom for a role in an as-yet-unannounced new initiative. Sipchen's departure from...
Times staffers who fear another budget shoe dropping this week (and the rumors are strong about some hammer falling tomorrow) won't be reassured by the word that swept through their...
L.A. Times editorial page editor Andrés Martinez took the unusual step of publishing an editor's note today to explain the paper's decision to drop Robert Scheer from the roll of...
Gary Dretzka of Movie City News knew Brenda You, the L.A. writer who apparently committed suicide over the weekend, and adds some needed texture to her story in an unpublished...
♦ More cuts are coming within weeks, Times Editor Dean Baquet confirms in a staff story about his shutdown of the Outdoors section (reported here yesterday) for financial reasons. "I made...
Monday, Nov. 14
The fledgling blog and advertising network to be launched Wednesday by Los Angeles bloggers Roger L. Simon (the novelist and screenwriter) and Charles Johnson (operator of the controversial Little Green...
Gawker posts this regarding the weekend death of Brenda You, a freelance writer who had the unusual profile of having been a Playboy model, a protege of Bonnie Fuller at...
Sources at the Times say the Outdoors staff has just been told the section will put out its final issue on Dec. 6. No word yet on what becomes of...
The Denver Business Journal says that billionaire Phil Anschutz is on the short list of potential buyers of the 32 Knight Ridder newspapers. For anyone who still thinks that Anschutz...
Robert Scheer continues his exit tour, tossing rhetorical bomblets at the Times for dropping his syndicated column. Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, posts some of Scheer's comments to...
Catching up with a longer-than-usual helping of Monday morsels... ♦ The Times' powerful package on conservator scams was three years in the making: among other things, a prime example of the...
Sunday, Nov. 13
Just a few that caught my attention... ⇒The Times launched a four-part investigative series on abuses of the elderly by "professional conservators," looking at every instance in Southern California between...
Unlikely hero "El Pando" Guillermo Ramirez punched in a goal during the second overtime—at 124:18—to give the Galaxy the championship of Major League Soccer. Final score: 1-0. The Galaxy only...
