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In response to the London bomb discovery, Mayor Villaraigosa wishes to reassure us all that Los Angeles is safe. His statement: Scotland Yard's immediate action to discover and dismantle a...
LA Observed archive
for June 2007
If you don't find what you want here, check another month or search below.
Both FishbowlDC and The Huffington Post are reporting this morning that Page One editor John Arthur has been promoted to managing editor of the L.A. Times, citing sources. Arthur is...
Two more refugees from West magazine who took buyouts to leave the Times have landed, both of them at Los Angeles. J.R. Moehringer comes on as writer-at-large. He is the...
Well now we know where (soon to be ex) L.A. Times managing editor Doug Frantz is going. He is returning to Istanbul as Middle East bureau chief for the Wall...
The biggest benefit of subscribing to LA Observed is the satisfaction of helping the website thrive. But sometimes we also get free tickets to pass along. When they're offered, we...
The first (of two!) new Pinkberry's in Brentwood hasn't been open much more than a week. But today at noon, the shop was shut down by a water main break....
Doug Frantz told senior editors this morning that he has resigned as number two editor at the Los Angeles Times. He didn't say if he was headed to a new...
Garden expert Lili Singer acknowledges that the opossums that roam Los Angeles at night look like bloated rats, but she's a fan nonetheless. The first Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana) was...
The Nation's Jon Wiener commiserates this week over the LA Weekly becoming less international, lefty and political. It's the other media takeover story in Los Angeles...When the Weekly was bought...
An artist went out early Sunday morning and mounted unauthorized plaques at three bars that have been gentrified. At Cha Cha, the plaque reads "Former site of Le Barcito." KPCC's...
How about some Morning Buzz? After the jump....
Now that the L.A. Times has given up on the idea of a readable and substantive Sunday magazine, Angelenos have to look elsewhere for deeper, well-written feature pieces out of...
Earlier this month, Marti Buscaglia was announced as the new publisher of the Orange County Register. Not going to happen. Current publisher N. Christian Anderson III said today that she...
Don't Let the Lipstick Fool You will be "an uplifting memoir profiling the author's personal and professional life," says Publishers Lunch. Dafina bought it for publication next May. Leslie won...
The San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group, part of the LANG empire, is moving people around and creating new positions. Larry Wilson fills the new job of Public Editor and will...
Click the link to go on in....
Los Angeles-based Washington Post writer William Booth chatted with Post readers online this morning about the Paris Hilton media circus. To the first commenter who said the media should be...
A David Hockney color offset lithograph, Untitled (Two Apples and a Lemon), that was a free insert in the Herald Examiner decades ago sold at auction this weekend for $1,200....
Bloomberg critic Linda Yablonsky is the latest to fly in, praise Michael Govan and visit some galleries. Excerpt of her piece: You just never know where genius may lurk. Chances...
Yesterday it was Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa giving a coveted spot on the full-time, paid Board of Public Works to labor attorney Julie Gutman. Today it's a bunch of commission appointments....
Click below for the Paris Hilton-is-free edition....
Slate.com has gone multimedia and unveiled a daily online video magazine. Slate V is based in the magazine's brand-new Venice offices and is headed up by Andy Bowers, the former...
I'll be part of a "poolside chat" at the Los Angeles Film Festival tomorrow night called "Who Let The Blogs Out?" The panel and schmooze session will be held around...
Good California poll numbers for Hillary and Rudy. Top of the Ticket FishbowlLA continues its run of Q-and-A's with LA Observed contributors by throwing 20 questions at Bruce Feirstein....
The founder of Langer's Deli died Sunday in Agoura from complications of being 94 years old. He is survived by his son Norm Langer, daughter Laurie Bernie and grandchildren. Previously:...
Jonathan Gold's latest list for the LA Weekly, from Abode to Woodlands....
Mary McNamara moves over from writing features for Calendar. To: The Staff From: Lennie LaGuire, Senior Calendar Editor We're delighted to announce that Mary McNamara, one of our most accomplished...
Monday's usual meaty helping of news and observations, after the jump....
Purging of top names at the San Francisco Chronicle continues. With a bunch of painful newsroom cuts still to come, Deputy Editor Narda Zacchino has decided the time is right....
Don Barrett has been informing and entertaining local radio buffs at LARadio.com for ten years, but it sounds as if the thrill is gone. He posted last week that while...
Now Michelle Delgadillo has business tax problems, but abruptly took care of them Friday in advance of a new round of stories. LAT, DN Popular progressive and previously faceless...
Anderson Jones, a freelance film critic who formerly reviewed for E! Online and made appearances on the "E! True Hollywood Story," died after suffering a heart attack at a promotional...
Civil rights attorney Stephen Yagman was just convicted of tax evasion, money laundering and bankruptcy fraud. The possible tab for nineteen counts: 80 months in federal prison. I'll just assume...
Al Martinez has been told that his Monday column will start in the Times' California section on July 2. It's the compromise solution reached by Times editors who got caught...
One of those days, sorry. Do check out Mark Lacter's Morning Headlines at LA Biz Observed. This afternoon at 4:44 pm on KCRW, I'll be talking about the Rocky Delgadillo...
Now this should get interesting. LA Weekly political reporter David Zahniser, the hottest property on the City Hall beat, is jumping to the L.A. Times to cover Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa....
Remember all the free publicity that obscure weekly Pasadena Now got for saying it would out-source local reporting jobs to India? Well, now the paper has an ad on Craigslist...
The wunderkind director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art tells the LA Weekly's Tom Christie how he intends to change the face of the city, and talks about...
It's illegal to turn right onto La Brea from Clinton Avenue during rush hour, and so many Hollywood traffic cops lie in wait that it has become fun entertainment for...
Tom Philp, who won a Pulizer Prize for the Sacramento Bee in 2005, will become an "executive strategist" with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. The Bee will miss...
Writers Dan Neil and Charles Perry of the L.A. Times (and former LAT film critic Manohla Dargis) are on MSNBC's list of 144 journalists who donated to political campaigns between...
San Jose Mecury News veteran Richard Ramirez was found dead at his home in Livermore. Ramirez began at the paper as an intern in 1984 and held several positions, including...
Today's Times relegates the obituary of Mexican music legend and big-time Los Angeles crowd pleaser Antonio Aguilar — "the Roy Rogers of Mexico" — to the obits page. In the...
LAPD Chief William Bratton was on the panel as KPCC reporter Patricia Nazario brought many in the audience to tears describing her encounter with a Metro Division officer (and his...
Congratulations to Sean Roderick, who graduates today in the top tier of her class at Santa Monica High School. She begins at UCLA in the fall, and her parents are...
In honor of the 38th anniversary of a landmark moment in Los Angeles rock and roll lore, here's some YouTube video of Jimi Hendrix jamming on stage at Devonshire Downs...
Catherine Elsworth, who holds down the Silver Lake bureau for the Daily Telegraph, would really like to test drive the new iPhone. But she was told by Apple that only...
For Richard A. Aust of Lake Forest, the LAT's decision to scale back West magazine to a monthly was the last straw. If they are only going to serve him...
A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that former Fleishman-Hillard executives Doug Dowie and John Stodder should remain free on bail while their cases are...
The bulldozer came today for that circa-1911 model home built to help sell the new town of Van Nuys. In those days, Van Nuys and two other farm towns —...
Word out of the Santa Monica courthouse is that Michelle Delgadillo came in this morning, pleaded no contest and received twelve months probation on top of paying fines. Stories forthcoming....
The 30-year-old daughter of former VP Al Gore lives near downtown with husband Paul Cusack, writes for "Saturday Night Live" and "Futurama" and has a new novel, Sammy's House, coming...
Business was fine, but the building was sold and co-owner Ben Weinstein got a good offer for what Scott Timberg calls in the Times about $10 million worth of inventory....
Click the link to come on in....
Michelle Delgadillo, wife of the city attorney, has an outstanding warrant for her arrest for failing to appear in court nearly nine years ago on charges of driving without insurance,...
The last of the West magazine senior writers to remain with the L.A. Times, Lynell George is moving back to her roots in Calendar. Here's today's memo from Lennie LaGuire,...
This month's Los Angeles Magazine admires Rick Caruso, creator of The Grove and upcoming shopping malls in Glendale and Arcadia, praised like this in editor Kit Rachlis' letter: "No one...
The pages get narrower by an inch-and-a-half on August 6. From the memo at the New York Observer's Media Mob: There are few design changes that will be obvious to...
The Police Commission vote on a second term is unanimous. LAT, CBS2, DN...
New York mayor Mike Bloomberg's people aren't too happy with Antonio Villaraigosa's people right now. Page Six at the NYP says that "humiliated staffers in Mayor Bloomberg's office were forced...
BBC correspondent David Willis' attempt to break into Hollywood as an actor has finally come to an end. But not before his ambitions crested with a call to be an...
First take on the news, after the jump....
OK, it's in New York City. But I'm just saying. WABC...
Yes, the wife of City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo was driving the city-owned GMC Yukon when it hit a pole in 2004. Yes, he'll pay for the repairs — he wrote...
Publishers Weekly leads today's Deals with Los Angeles Magazine staff writer Jesse Katz selling The Opposite Field to Crown in a preempt "said to be worth major dollars." Katz will...
The LA Weekly brought home seven first place ribbons from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies awards — best cartoon, column, photography, special section, website design, news story (short form) and...
One of the last Monty's steakhouses is closing after 66 years with just a week's notice to employees. The sale closed early, says the management. The site on Fair Oaks...
Columnist Joel Stein has pulled out of teaching that oral sex class at Babeland on Melrose, at the L.A. Times' insistence. The store blames "censorship" by the Times and says...
Hearst Corp. is demolishing the old Herald Examiner press buildings downtown to make way for residential towers. The landmarked Julia Morgan-designed offices at 1111 S. Broadway (shown here in the...
The Times editorial page launched a Rocky Watch box this morning that counts the days until City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo "comes clean" about who was driving his city-owned GMC Yukon...
Full load after the jump, and I do mean a full load....
Melissa Grego, managing editor at TelevisionWeek, posts to a blog-driven column reporting on her lunches with Hollywood figures. She started it up in January and most recently has dished on...
Longtime L.A. Times staff writer Mark Arax and the paper reached an undisclosed settlement of their public dispute about a story he wrote about the Armenian genocide that was spiked,...
Signs announcing a new Pinkberry in Brentwood Village (next to DiVino and across from Maria's) still claim the tarty frozen treat that makes Angelenos queue up is frozen yogurt. No...
Here at LA Observed we like to be thought of as getting to the meat of many issues. So, following up on last week's birthday for Langer's, here's an excerpt...
The L.A. Press Club bestowed its yearly awards last night at the Biltmore. Here are the top winners: Joseph M. Quinn Award - Judy Woodruff, PBS President's Award - Gustavo...
A tribute to the history of the gardeners — Landscaping America: Beyond the Japanese Garden — opens on Sunday at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo. This multimedia...
I'm away on business today, so there's no Morning Buzz. My KCRW commentary this afternoon speaks to the context of media reports on Mayor Villaraigosa's marriage. It airs at 4:44...
Alan Mittelstaedt, the former LA Weekly news editor guest-blogging for WitnessLA, posts on the issues raised by Mayor Villaraigosa's divorce and his handling of the announcement. Let’s cut a deal...
South Los Angeles has a crying need for social workers who want to stay and work in the community. Betty Pleasant's Soul Vine column in The Wave puts out the...
The famous deli at MacArthur Park celebrates its 60th anniversary on Friday with proclamations from elected officials, free prizes and, I assume, a fair bit of succulent pastrami changing hands....
Producer and author Tom Teicholz hit on a pretty good way to give his next book a shot at a favorable reception. He devoted his column in the Jewish Journal...
Pinkberry's popular frozen concoction isn't yogurt in the eyes of the law in California, but the makers would like to fix that. Alexa Hyland in today's Daily Journal chronicles the...
The mogul's backing of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is called "the political equivalent of the Oscar" in the Cause Celebre column by Tina Daunt that plays on this morning's LAT...
There are no Hall of Famers in the Dodgers dugout anymore. Murray was let go as hitting coach and replaced on an interim basis by recently retired infielder Bill Mueller....
On the Times Op-Ed page, Patt Morrison doesn't want to know any more about the Villaraigosa marital troubles. But Steve Lopez writes in the Times that it's time for Mayor...
Jim Newton, new editor of the Times editorial pages, explains to Editor & Publisher's Greg Mitchell why the paper on Monday called for a ceasefire and peace talks. "I see...
Bunch of morning news after the jump....
According to Babeland, the sex toy store on Melrose, Joel Stein will co-teach an oral sex workshop later this month. “I feel it's time to give back after taking so...
The L.A. Times readers' representative is telling people who email about the treatment of veteran columnist Al Martinez that his column will resume — only on Mondays and somewhere in...
Philip Anschutz could import his Examiner chain of local give-away newspapers to Los Angeles by the end of the year, according to Media Life, citing "a newspaper industry source familiar...
The radio host and author pens a Times Op-Ed piece about showing his niece around Los Angeles, even though he did get lost for a while. Everybody knows the comedy...
King-Harbor, Rockard Delgadillo and Phil Spector's groin are all in the news today. Click below for all the Buzz....
David Zahniser asks the questions in a piece the LA Weekly posted early on its website: Since he brought it up and all, what is he taking responsibility for? On...
Catching up on my feeds, I noticed that Jonah has shut down LA Blogs.com. Franklin Avenue has a suitable tribute to the site that introduced many of the city's fine...
Corina Villaraigosa, the mayor's estranged wife, cites irreconcilable differences in her court filing. She seeks spousal support and primary custody of Natalia, the couple's fourteen-year-old daughter. Antonio Jr. is 18...
It's amazing what basking in the Paris Hilton media glare can do for your profile. Even Radar Online is now covering Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, posting today about...
Today's New York Times reports on the rapprochement between LAPD chief William Bratton and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who "had not spoken to each other in 10 years....
Whole bunch of good stuff, hidden after the jump....
Ed Moss, the new publisher of the Daily News, arrives after spending just ten months at the Akron Beacon Journal — and slashing the workforce there from 734 to 600...
A federal jury acquitted former LAPD sergeant and Fox News reporter Roderick Bernsen of inappropriate sexual contact in a cruise ship sauna. End of the case, though Bernsen said: "My...
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa knows how to draw a crowd. His news conference this morning to discuss his marriage was reportedly packed. "I take responsibility for what is happening and I...
John McKeon didn't last long in Woodland Hills — he bounced Tracy Rafter and took over just last October. No word yet where he's headed. The new guy, Ed Moss,...
Former editorial writer Andrew Malcolm handles the West Coast, Washington bureau editor Don Frederick the east for Top of the Ticket. What can one more blogger bring to the nation's...
L.A. folk historian Charles Phoenix and National Public Radio producer Steve Proffitt are driving to Tulsa, Oklahoma in Phoenix's 1961 Pontiac Bonneville and filing reports for "Day to Day." Their...
Kurt Streeter, a Metro reporter at the Times whose lengthy narrative pieces have sometimes focused on athletes, is moving to the sports staff as a columnist and feature writer. He's...
In 2002, crisis PR mogul Michael Sitrick and Cardinal Roger Mahony met with Times editors trying to squash an investigation of the archdiocese by then-reporter Glenn Bunting. Today, Bunting joined...
CBS2 anchor Paul Magers' former home in the Minneapolis area — called by one blogger a "grand-to-ostentatious Lake of the Isles mansion" — is in the news back there because...
Nice online gallery and slideshow from graduating high school senior Annarose Mittelstaedt. Her website slideshow includes a Google Earth tour of the sights. Photo: Annarose Mittelstaedt...
The "best of" season isn't quite over. Los Angeles Magazine's is coming, but first comes Ciudad with the "best of Latino L.A." An online poll helped dub El Carmen the...
Matthew Garrahan, the Financial Times' man in Los Angeles, reported Sunday that Apple is in advanced talks with Hollywood’s largest movie studios about "launching an online film rental service to...
Big helping for Monday, served up after the jump....
The Times' Christine Daniels now writes a sports blog, Day in L.A., full time for the paper's website. Paris Hilton announces she won't appeal her jail time, a day...
Back in 2005 the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin retracted a statement about former NFL star Bo Jackson and steroids. It wasn't enough. This weekend on its website home page, the...
When Superior Court spokesman Allan Parachini concluded his live press conference announcing that Paris Hilton was back in custody, one of the media types yelled out: "Thank you, Mr. Manilow."...
Remember back in February when Mayor Villaraigosa summoned the Times to Getty House to deny blogger Luke Ford's report that his marriage was kaput? Curiously, Corina was not part of...
The brief West magazine experiment at the L.A. Times ends with the June 17 restaurant issue — and with it apparently goes the tradition of a serious Sunday magazine at...
Paris Hilton was dragged out the courtroom — weeping and screaming for her mother — and remanded back to the county jail in Lynwood. Unclear to me in all the...
A jury yesterday recommended that Frank Lima should receive compensation from the city of Los Angeles after he argued that he suffered retaliation for refusing to give preferential treatment to...
Click below for the Buzz. My weekly LA Observed commentary airs on KCRW (and on kcrw.com) at 4:44 pm this afternoon during NPR's "All Things Considered."...
Paris Hilton can phone in this morning's court appearance after all. Superior Court spokesman Allan Parachini, who has been speaking for Judge Michael Sauer, gave no reason for the change....
The feds have put King-Harbor hospital on notice again that all federal funds may be pulled because the emrgency room keeps putting patients in "immediate jeopardy." It's the fourth time...
The former editor of the Los Angeles Times editorial pages will be joining the New America Foundation as an Irvine Senior Fellow. Martinez, you'll remember, resigned in a huff after...
You definitely get the feeling the Paris Hilton backlash is a lot bigger than Sheriff Baca gambled on — and the storm is just beginning. Judge Michael Sauer wants Hilton...
Yes! Sometimes things just work that way. The DN editorial page staff has launched a new blog where editor Chris Weinkopf (from the right), editorial writer Mariel Garza (leftier) and...
Cynthia Littleton reports on her Variety blog that the LAPD has closed off Wilshire Boulevard outside the Screen Actors Guild, meaning it's also right outside Variety, E!, KNX-KFWB and the...
Annie Hundley arrived just last summer to run valleynews.com, the citizen journalism part of the Daily News website. Not any more, says this staff email from editor Ron Kaye: everyone:...
N. Christian Anderson yields the publisher portion of his title to Marti Buscaglia, publisher of the Duluth News Tribune. She formerly worked at the Long Beach Press-Telegram and at La...
Click on the link to venture in....
Paris Hilton was fitted with an ankle bracelet and released to house arrest after serving the four-plus days in county that are more typical for her kind of offense. The...
Thursday night's benefit concert for the Academy of Music at Hamilton High will feature David Foster as emcee, Kenny G, trumpeter Chris Botti, the horns of Blood Sweat and Tears...
Highway crews and flagmen working on the widening of California 138 across the Mojave Desert have taken so much physical abuse from motorists that the stretch between Lancaster and Victorville...
In rewriting an L.A. Times investigation about Beverly Hills detox doctor David Kipper, the New York Post dropped the careful wording used by the LAT and said flat-out (and inaccurately)...
The Stanley Cup now resides in Anaheim. Orange County's Ducks whomped the Ottawa Senators 6-2 to win the Cup in five games. At the fan site of the other...
Windows Steaks & Martinis, the restaurant with the amazing views atop what's now called the At&T Center, closes July 31. There has been talk of the office building going residential....
The latest internal missive from Executive Editor Meredith Artley says there were 77.9 million page views at LATimes.com in May, which they think is a record for the Times website....
City Editor Barbara Jones is being reassigned as part of a strategy to reconfigure how the L.A. Daily News gathers and delivers its content, online and in print. And, of...
Andrew at Here in Van Nuys blogs about a home in Studio City where the front exterior has been completely sheathed in 16-by-16 inch marble squares. It strikes him like...
The Anaheim Ducks will try tonight to become the first California team to skate with the Stanley Cup. Hockey fans have been lined up for days in the parking lot...
Wanda Langstom had 120 rats in her house, many of them living in cages. She also had 25 rabbits, six parakeets, a quail, a cockatiel and a Shar-Pei/chow mix. Authorities...
Sorry, other demands intervene. But Mark Lacter's morning headlines at LA Biz Observed include items on the Tesco stores that are coming to L.A., HBO, Ron Meyers and the Port...
State Assemblywoman Nell Soto, who is 80, has been out with a bad case of pneumonia since March — not that the political media has noticed. The San Gabriel Valley...
Frances Dinkelspiel, author of a forthcoming book on L.A. pioneer Isaias Hellman (her great grandfather), tallies up the toll of veteran Chronicle editors who are exiting. She writes: You know...
Now that the last of the Chandler family representatives have left the Tribune Company board, Chicago Tribune columnist Phil Rosenthal writes, "it's like passing a stone. One only hopes the...
We keep it tucked after the jump so the page stays cleaner. Click the link to head on in....
The L.A. Times website is finally going 24-7 (ish) with the addition of a couple of overnight editors. They will scan the wires and, in theory, keep the home page...
The Museum of Television and Radio in Beverly Hills (and New York) becomes the Paley Center for Media today. The New York Times reports: By no longer calling itself a...
Gawker says that New York Times Hollywood writer Sharon Waxman will go on book leave this summer then be reassigned off the beat and probably out of the L.A. bureau....
Budget pressures are the stated reason for ending Rick Wartzman's weekly California & Co. column in the Business section. But as usual with the L.A. Times these days, there's a...
Franklin Avenue spotted handwritten signs today on 6th Street near the mayor's mansion in Windsor Square posted to beseech drivers, Burma Shave-style, to SLOW... THE... F**K... DOWN! Photos at the...
Rip Rense was a reporter at the old Valley News and the late Herald Examiner, and keeps an online archive of the original L.A. Daily News at his website. He...
Longtime L.A. radio and television personality Tom Hatten left KNX Friday after delivering the entertainment report for many years. He became familiar to a generation of Southern California kids as...
Paris Hilton turned herself in at the Men's Central Jail downtown on Sunday night — after attending the MTV Movie Awards — and was driven to her temporary new digs...
Full Monday helping after the jump....
I had a feeling the decision makers at the Times were clueless that an outcry — from the paper's most loyal but ever more perturbed reader niche, no less —...
Reader Leon Kaspersky will be taking his family to Sunday's debut performance in Pasadena of Peter Schickele's "Three Cellos," courtesy of the Pacific Serenades chamber ensemble. Leon was the first...
This is the day for farewell messages down at the Times. A selection of emails to colleagues from the bought out and the otherwise leaving follows after the jump (with...
We reported before that L.A. Times Schwarzenegger reporter Peter Nicholas was leaving Sacramento for the Washington bureau. Now here's the memo from bureau chief Doyle McManus and national editor Scott...
The Sacramento Bee's subscriber-only Capitol Alert reports today on a nasty fight between Valley assemblyman Lloyd Levine and his former chief of staff, Stuart Waldman. Levine fired the aide last...
The free monthly from Southland Publishing (CityBeat, Pasadena Weekly) is "devoted to the revival of Downtown and the 'New' Eastside." Inside New Angeles are an interview of historian Mike Davis...
Christopher Hawthorne doesn't think much of the new Landmark Theatres as architecture, but his review details some touches like the three "Living Room" theaters with sofas, love seats and ottomans....
A quick look at today's news — and Al Martinez's final regular column for the Times — tucked away after the jump....
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.
