First thing Tuesday, 11.15.05

♦ 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 the decision that, instead of nibbling around the edges of the paper, it made more sense to make one thing go away. Something had to go. It was a question of what."

Today's front pages

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♦ Michael Jackson's molestation trial should have been called a mistrial because Juror No. 5, a 79-year-old-woman, had a book deal in the works and a friend who testified for the prosecution, ex-Court TV reporter Diane Dimond says in her book. She writes that Jacko is broke, says Page Six.

♦ When the Times offed Robert Scheer, the announcement said his column would run through 2005. Here it is Tuesday and Scheer is not on the op-ed page. Joel Stein is: "You weren't one of those suckers who voted last week, were you?"

♦ Andrew Cuomo is in town this week to tap Hollywood wallets, following Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Dean and McCain (who also was seen lunching with Warren Beatty.) The LAT's new Hollywood and politics reporter, Tina Daunt, observes the process and gets the sound bite of the week from campaign consultant Bill Carrick: "Los Angeles is like the Iowa caucus of the fundraising scene. Even people who say they're opposed to Hollywood values are out here raising money."

♦ The Daily News' Tony Jackson says that Theo Epstein has been offered the job of Dodgers general manager with an ownership stake. The Times' Steve Henson, on the contrary, says that Epstein never got an offer and decided the Dodgers were not a good fit. The LAT says the Dodgers' search has come down to Ned Colletti, who works for the Giants, or assistant GM Kim Ng.

♦ I finally took in the Not a Cornfield project on Veteran's Day. Interesting sight, even without the alleged porn shooting that the organizers are all agitated about.

♦ Mickey Kaus is a regular on the new Bloggingheads.tv video website, going head to head on camera with Robert Wright of Slate and the New America Foundation.

♦ Linda Douglass, who covered politics on TV here in the 1980s, is leaving as ABC News' chief Capitol Hill correspondent to become a fellow at New York University's Brademas Center and work with the Rockefeller Foundation.

♦ Former LAT reporter Mark Gladstone took a buyout from the San Jose Mercury and will work for the state Legislature.

♦ "Moderate to strong Santa Ana wind event across southern California" until Thursday. Moisturize.