KFI is hot
It's the first time in twenty years that an AM station has topped the local
radio ratings, says the Times. Morning guy Bill Handel apparently picked up some Howard Stern refugees.
Last of the independents
Saul Levine has
no plans to sell his K-Mozart radio station. Because of him, Los Angeles is the last city in the country with two full-time classical music stations, says the Times.
Action!
The Board of Supervisors approved deals to allow the Sheriff's department to open its doors to two reality TV shows, despite Zev Yaroslavsky's objection: "Either a detective is out there trying to solve crime or he's trying to look pretty for the reality show." The shows won't be allowed in the part of the department that most needs public scrutiny — the jails — and all outtakes will be destroyed rather than kept around as evidence or public record. The LASD also gets approval of the footage.
DN LAX paralysis
Yesterday's power outage delayed 119 flights on the ground and forced another 102 flights bound for Los Angeles to be cancelled or diverted to Phoenix or Las Vegas. Airport spokeswoman Nancy Castles estimated that the flight delays, diversions and cancellations involved some 25,000 LAX passengers.
Breeze,
Times It's cold in here
It's a fact of summer work life that many establishments keep the air conditioners on
so high that you need to keep a sweater or jacket around.
Burnable movies
Four major studios
struck a deal with CinemaNow Inc. to allow more than 100 movies to be downloaded and copied to a DVD, for about $9 a film and up.
Bratton to council critics: Buzz off
Calling it like it is?
In a Daily Breeze piece about the gambit to turn the LAUSD board into a full-time paid job instead of a part-time gig, but with term limits of three terms, Bob Stern of the Center for Government Studies
sees why the idea might encounter public skepticism.
"It's a little strange in a sense to have full-time school board members but have the mayor take it over," said Bob Stern, president of the Center for Government Studies. "You'd think they'd want to make the school board less powerful and less attractive to the heavy politicos."
That suggests to Stern that an underlying motive may be to create a new, well-paying job for city politicians to move into when their own terms are up. The City Council on Tuesday also advanced a proposed ballot measure that would extend its members' tenure from two to three four-year terms.
"It's musical chairs," Stern said. "You go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth enough times -- Legislature, school board, City Council-- you have a lifetime career there."
More signs the honeymoon is ending
The City Council passed its plan to allow third terms for the current incumbents, but not for the mayor, city attorney or controller.
LAT,
DN. The Daily News editorial page
blasted the council:
just in case the odd concerned citizen did happen to catch wind of this, the term-limit measure was cleverly wrapped up in a bunch of phony reforms that will do nothing to bring good government to Los Angeles or end the cycle of corruption.
Council members feigned innocence, saying that, hey, it's not their fault, there's no time to lose. The deadline for the November ballot is fast approaching, and they had to get the measure to the City Attorney's Office quick so they could draft it up.
Never mind that in L.A. there's always another election coming soon - in this case the municipal election next spring rather than the general election in November is more appropriate. Of course, that would mean a real public discussion, and people would know what a fraud this measure is.
Anyone looking closely, however, can see through this false urgency to the forces conspiring to bamboozle the public. This is a sham thought up by the city's power brokers to reward the council that does its every bidding. Why even bother with elections when all they want is to keep ownership of the council they paid for?
Change at top of MTA board
Supervisor Gloria Molina rotates in to the chair, taking over from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa: "I don't see myself as a great innovator at the MTA, but as a facilitator who gets my colleagues to goal. This is not about showboating, showcasing and saying how much I brought home."
DN Cool reception for Baca's sales tax.
He wanted it to fight gangs, but the Supes aren't convinced.
LAT Westside's gangs
Still intractable, says the LAPD and the
Times.
HuffPost wants $5 million
Nikki Finke analyzes the site's
reported pitch to venture capital funders. She also
notes a Huffington Post item
by Bernie Weinraub, the former New York Times reporter, who complains that the
New Yorker story about Bert Fields and Anthony Pellicano let everyone off too easily. Says Weinraub:
I confess that I'm an extremely minor footnote to this story, having been named as one of the numerous people whose backgrounds were illegally checked or phones were tapped. In my case, it came after Anita Busch and I were writing stories about the business failures of Michael Ovitz. I spoke to Ken Auletta while he was reporting his article. But I don't think I told him too many jokes.
But the article is really funny. For one thing, we have a portrait of Bert Fields, the toughest litigator in Hollywood for decades, a man who has represented Rupert Murdoch, Tom Cruise, David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Madonna. Clearly Fields gets the job done. He has employed the disreputable Pellicano since 1989. That's a long time. In 1993, a front-page story in the Los Angeles Times exposed Pellicano's alleged mob links in Illinois and the way he physically intimidated people. Yet Fields, who claims he never lost a case in his life and has a steel-trap mind, told Auletta that "I'm not sure I read it."
Yet Fields and Ovitz are such pussycats here. They are shocked, shocked that their friend Anthony would have done all those terrible things that the prosecutors said he did. They had no idea that Anthony was a bad guy. And they are being victimized. Susan Estrich, a Fields loyalist, goes so far as to say that the Bush Administration may be going after Fields. What?
Where's Laura Rich?
The former Hollywood and entertainment biz reporter for The Industry Standard now has the title of Editorial Director
at Inc.com and fastcompany.com.
Meeting on LAUSD reform
Mayor Villaraigosa hosts the first of four town hall meetings for parents in the Los Angeles Unified School District. He will be joined by teachers and community leaders and will present details about his plan. Victory Baptist Church, 4802 S. McKinley Avenue. 6:15 pm.
Don't look now, but...
The Dodgers are at .500 and put Jeff Kent's 38-year-old body on the disabled list for the second time. But touted-rookie pitcher Chad Billingsley may have finally turned the corner, and newcomer Willie Aybar hit a pair of doubles. Now will GM Ned Colletti blink and trade away coveted prospects for veteran help? He comes from an organization, the Giants, that was notorious for making those kinds of (too-often bad) deals.
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* KFI tops radio ratings
