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Archive by Month
March 30, 2007
Washington Post columnist and Slate contributor Richard Cohen makes a stab at some Grazergate humor. Didn't work for me, but your mileage might vary. Excerpt...
Thank you to everyone who emailed while I was off. It was deeply moving and helpful to my family to receive such good thoughts from...
March 27, 2007
The News & Chatter side of LA Observed plans to stand down for a day or so to mark the passing of my father. Robert...
Come on inside for a first look at the day......
March 26, 2007
Yeah, the Times really got its money's worth out of that innovation. "We have concluded we will not be moving forward with the program," the...
Student journalists at Occidental College dug through old literary magazines to find two poems that Sen. Barack Obama published in 1982. "What better than the...
An L.A. Times press release announces several reductions in the value of what the paper give its dwindling readership — oops, I mean "editorial changes...
This afternoon at 2 pm Patt Morrison will have on the German photographer behind You-Are-Here.com, the best website of Los Angeles architectural photos. He blogs...
Tim Swanson, who has been the west coast bureau chief of Premiere and a writer for Variety, will blog about "the worlds of film, music,...
The Times has quietly eliminated some of the typographic cacophony that erupted on the front page in October. Gone are the skinny, sans-serif headlines, the...
Lots of news to begin the week, sliced and diced after the jump....
In the new issue out now, Joe Domanick examines the case against Phil Spector while Strawberry Saroyan sizes up the career of fired book publisher...
I received a whole bunch of thoughtful email last week on the Grazergate episode. Submissions are over at We Get Email from, among others, a...
March 25, 2007
Last week's most noteworthy posts, subjectively speaking. Well, there was that business with the Times and the editor who gave a page to the movie...
In Andrés Martinez's email to LA Observed after he quit Thursday as Times editorial page honcho, he implied that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld...
Allison Silver, now a producer on "The Charlie Rose Show," edited the Sunday Opinion section in the L.A. Times for ten years before moving over...
We told you last week that radio personality April Winchell had blown Bill O'Reilly's cover as a man of the people by exposing his rant...
Tim Cavanaugh, the web editor who joined the Times Opinion staff recently from Reason magazine, reacted to the resignation of his boss, Andrés Martinez, by...
March 24, 2007
Times media columnist Tim Rutten was fingered by Andrés Martinez (in Thursday's email to LA Observed) as one of the LAT staffers supposedly blocking innovation...
Petersen was a giant figure in Southern California car culture and created a large magazine and book empire, Petersen Publishing. He grew up around his...
March 23, 2007
Times Editor Jim O'Shea sent a missive around the newsroom this evening replying to Andrés Martinez's attacks emailed to LA Observed and posted earlier...
Mel Gibson cursed a professor at Cal State Northridge last night after a screening of Apocalypto,, which the professor had termed racist. ""He told...
Travel editor Gary Warner of the Orange County Register bought this souvenir T-shirt at Holman Stadium, where the Dodgers play their spring training games in...
Abbreviated edition today, after the jump....
(* Update after jump: New email from Martinez reacting to Times editor Jim O'Shea.) After my post last night on his exit blog from the...
March 22, 2007
Kelly Mullens, the crisis PR executive whose love life has suddenly become newsworthy, is known for her recent work on behalf of homophobic "Grey's Anatomy"...
Native Intelligence contributor David Rensin adds his voice to those saying goodbye to a valued friend in Cathy Seipp, who died Wednesday: I met Cathy,...
Lost in the earlier flurry of posts about the resignation of Andrés Martinez were his verbal attack on the Times newsroom and veiled bitterness at...
The former New York Post gossip reporter alleges that Beverly Hills gazillionaire Ron Burkle committed libel, emotional distress, interference in business relationship, injurious falsehood, abuse...
Executive Editor Matt Coker isn't moving north to Long Beach — he's going another 400 miles further. His email to what remains of the OC...
Brian Grazer's thoughts on the big issues won't be in Sunday's Los Angeles Times Current section, if there even is a Current stuffed deep into...
I was locked in a meeting when the morning's dramas went down, but here's the bottom line. Los Angeles Times Publisher David Hiller, under heavy...
CBS 2 news director Nancy Bauer Gonzales is well-known to LA Observed readers as the stickliest control freak to run a Los Angeles newsroom. Her...
Bill Boyarsky played a prominent role in cleaning up the L.A. Times' ethical mess after the Staples Center scandal in 1999, serving as the conduit...
We've got foie gras, rattlesnakes and a bunch of media and politics notes today. Come on in......
Bob Woodward is the Washington Post editor who was not on the 4 o'clock news yesterday on ABC 7. Bob Woodruff is the former ABC...
Times publisher David Hiller says in the morning paper that he might kill this Sunday's Current section rather than run an editor's note about how...
March 21, 2007
The Hollywood Christmas Parade is no more. Last year's 75th edition of the parade was the final one, organizers announced today. "This is a very...
There will be a public funeral for Cathy Seipp at 10 am on Friday at Mt. Sinai Hollywood Hills on Forest Lawn Drive. Denise Hamilton...
Sunday's Current section in the Los Angeles Times will carry an editor's note disclosing some details of a romantic relationship between Andrés Martinez, the paper's...
Cathy Seipp's public battle with lung cancer ended at 2:05 this afternoon. She was surrounded by family members and friends when she died at Cedars-Sinai....
Reader Lorna Herf and her husband — the ones who walked away from paying cash for a BMW because the dealer demanded a thumbprint —...
President Bush gave Attorney General Alberto Gonzales a vote of confidence last night, but why let that ruin a good story? This morning's Daily Journal...
Is Los Angeles headed for racial conflict? That and more inside....
March 20, 2007
Technically, I guess it's the booboo of the week because it was in last Thursday's LA Weekly issue. But I just noticed: The article “Nasty...
Los Angeles New City Monthly, from the company behind CityBeat, will "celebrate the intellectual and cultural 'renaissance' of L.A.'s Eastside, from Hollywood through Silver Lake...
The Communist Party USA has donated its archives to New York University. "Decades of party history including founding documents, secret code words, stacks of personal...
I finally got around to Deborah Solomon's Q-and-A with Ron Burkle in Sunday's New York Times Magazine. He talks about Hillary, briefly glances off David...
L.A.'s knockoff attempt at a "fashion week" appears to be losing its online sizzle. LA.com's blog is covering the shows and hoopla, but not the...
Come on in...just click below....
March 19, 2007
LA Observed's man with the video camera, Jacob Soboroff, greeted the A380 Airbus this morning at LAX. Check it out at Native Intelligence: He's got...
Michael Newman is the deputy editorial page editor at the Los Angeles Times who starred in a minor media dustup this month over his observation,...
You (and I) weren't crazy: the Times did launch a new enviro-blog last Tuesday and suspend it on Thursday. It will return in early April,...
Daryl Cagle's Professional Cartoonists Index has become a go-to daily blog digest of editorial cartoons. Today, though, he commiserates about the incredible shrinking (except for...
Journalist and blogger Cathy Seipp has been bravely and publicly battling lung cancer for many years. (She was not a smoker.) Her daughter Maia Lazar,...
This is one of the Airbus A380's that took off in Europe this morning and are scheduled to land in the U.S. about 9:30 am....
Start the new week with a jolt of news and observation. Click to enter......
March 18, 2007
Blogger Lorna Brown was all set to buy a new car at South Bay BMW. She and the sales team agreed on price, trade-in, everything....
Here are twelvish of the smartest, scoop-iest or most insidery posts from the past week here at LA Observed. Click here if you want the...
Next week John Humble, whose website I stumbled upon in 2005, receives a pretty nice honor for a living Los Angeles photographer: a show of...
March 17, 2007
First cut on Saturday afternoon...plus Sunday updates at the bottom. Richard Alarcon resigned from the Assembly in time to allow the special election to fill...
Our Morning Buzz post on Tuesday reported the launch of a new L.A. Times blog, Carbon Shift, to cover "energy-related news: climate change, energy security,...
Now that talkjock Marc Germain has left KABC 790 for the left side of the radio politics spectrum (and the right side of the AM...
March 16, 2007
There's continued talk at the L.A. Times of looming cost-cutting and a senior newsroom shift in the works, but I guess there is no hiring...
Mayor Villaraigosa is expected by many to eventually endorse Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for president, but for now he is saying nice things about several...
Last year's L.A. Times publisher, Jeffrey Johnson, has a taken an executive post where he will oversee media interests for Ron Burkle's Yucaipa Cos. Burkle,...
Mosey in for a look by clicking below......
March 15, 2007
Tonight's Los Angeles Political Roast raised $575,000 for the American Diabetes Association, but the 1,000 or so people who packed into a Century Plaza ballroom...
Judea and Ruth Pearl received word Wednesday night that the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, has confessed to killing their...
The L.A. Times has announced that Current, the paper's Sunday (for now) commentary and ideas section, will have a guest editor every quarter to...
More La Cucaracha-related troubles at the L.A. Times feature section: 'La Cucaracha': In some copies of today's Comics Plus, the "Blondie" comic strip was printed...
We keep it hidden so the page doesn't look all ugly. Click to come on in....
March 14, 2007
Yes, newspapers still care about Pulitzer prizes. Prompted by yesterday's news that the Times has two Pulitzer finalists in criticism who nominated themselves, a whisper...
Word out of Orange County is that newsroom staffers at the Register have signed a letter protesting the posting of anonymous comments on the paper's...
In this week's The Z Files, posted to the LA Weekly website more than a day early, David Zahniser reports on a recall move against...
Busy day inside. Come on in......
Science writer Robert Lee Hotz is leaving the Times for the Wall Street Journal to write the Science Journal column. An elected fellow of the...
March 13, 2007
The National Labor Relations Board plans to take action against Wendy McCaw's Santa Barbara News-Press for illegally firing seven staffers who backed the newsroom union...
KFI News' Eric Leonard reports on his blog that at least two California Highway Patrol officers assigned to the Newhall station were placed off-duty during...
Channel 7 morning news anchor Phillip Palmer goes under the knife tomorrow at St. Vincent's to donate a kidney to a friend, former KCAL news...
All three finalists in the cricitism category of the Pulitzer prizes are from Los Angeles, Joe Strupp reports at Editor & Publisher. The trio includes...
Coverage in the Orange County Register of April Branum giving birth — she weighs 420 pounds and didn't realize she was pregnant — became the...
Joseph Russin joins KTLA News as executive editor of planning. "Russin's responsibilities will include overseeing news coverage on-air and on the web, planning feature stories...
From the L.A. Times: An article in Sunday's California section profiling members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors said that decorations on the...
It's all after the fold....
March 12, 2007
Now we know why all those OC Weekly resignations have been coming so fast. Several of the departed are joining former Weekly editor Will Swaim...
Edgar Baitzel died Sunday of cancer. He joined LA Opera in 2001 and became Chief Operating Officer in February 2006. Placido Domingo, the opera company's...
Claudia McMahon joins the staff of Councilman Dennis Zine today as communications deputy. "She comes to us with a wealth of media experience including several...
The new fashion-centric Image section will appear monthly in the Times starting next Sunday then switch to weekly in September. The section will be headed...
Barbara Hansen's TableConversation.com picks up where her ethnic food columns in the Times food section left off. Hansen left the paper last June and since...
Click below for the full Buzz, of course, but don't miss weekend posts on a new Doug Dowie profile, the death of Richard Jeni, Ruby...
March 11, 2007
Here's a quick look at the best of last week's LA Observed entries... Nancy Bauer Gonzales means it this time, dammit: no perfume, cologne or...
Mayor Villaraigosa's main photo op for Monday will be to announce that the only African and sole female elephant at the Los Angeles Zoo is...
Standup comedian Richard Jeni was found gravely injured from a gunshot wound Saturday morning inside his West Hollywood apartment. He died soon after at the...
Sacramento Bee reporter Aurelio Rojas visits with Doug Dowie (his former boss at UPI) in today's paper and says the story of the ex-editor and...
Jim Beardsley, a local historian who is the archivist at Marymount High School, stopped by the old Marineland site on Palos Verdes Peninsula and...
March 10, 2007
Last year's winners of the Los Angeles Marathon and other top runners boycotted this month's race because they didn't receive their winnings for almost a...
March 09, 2007
Geez, it's been nothing but memos today. One more: the LAT Business section shuffles editors and brings back Anne Reifenberg, who had been running West...
As we hinted earlier, the columnist rotation changes. Out are Erin Aubry Kaplan (as reported previously), Max Boot and Jonathan Chait. Meghan Daum escapes the...
Channels 2 and 9 news director Nancy Bauer Gonzales has gone on the warpath before against perfume and cologne in the office (as well as...
Interim editor Steve Lowery has just become the latest OC Weekly staffer to depart in the wake of Village Voice Media's takeover. His email to...
Look whose arms are being twisted to subscribe to the Los Angeles Times: employees. Head of circulations Jack Klunder, who returned to the LAT after...
Mark Frauenfelder of BoingBoing was on "The Colbert Report" this week in his hat as Editor of Make magazine. Mark and the host fired marshmallows...
Denise Hamilton ponders the sighting of catfish in the Los Angeles River at Native Intelligence, Friday morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and We Get...
Click for the whole thing......
March 08, 2007
Inspectors poking around to find out why a big piece of plaster fell off the Theme Building at LAX discovered pervasive rust damage. Encounter, the...
Rob Eshman, editor of the Jewish Journal, writes in the new issue that he decided to stop his moaning about America's reliance on foreign oil...
Every year Joe Strupp of Editor & Publisher reports the supposedly secret list of finalists submitted by Pulitzer Prize judges. One year I beat Joe...
An LA Observed reader asks: "Why are there seven jobs for ABC 7 listed on JournalismJobs.com?" Dunno, but it's true and they are all for...
Now we know the answer to the question: what if they gave an election and (almost) nobody came? Rest of the Morning Buzz is inside......
March 07, 2007
Lalo Alcaraz feels pretty good about having "La Cucaracha" restored to the L.A. Times. He's sending around this riff on Dewey Beats Truman....
OC Weekly staffers learned about their new music editor from The Stranger in Seattle. Luke Y. Thompson announced he's headed to the OC as...
I'm going to guess that the pressure to fold the Times' Sunday Book Review into a cheaper, thinner Saturday tabloid comes from the Chicagoans in...
Bon Appétit senior editor Heather John began dreaming about her post-L.A. Marathon meal long before she entered (and completed) Sunday's race. When her first choice...
Assemblyman Richard Alarcon wins a seat on the City Council without a runoff, pulling 54.6% to Monica Rodriguez's 27.9%. (She was the one endorsed by...
Latest L.A. city election results are here. In early results, Richard Alarcon was winning his race to rejoin the City Council and Mayor Villaraigosa was...
March 06, 2007
Are we entering an era of cross-newspaper snark? Yesterday it was Daily News blogger Mariel Garza making fun of an L.A. Times editor who finds...
Back in November we noted that the Times' then-new publisher David Hiller replied to a disappointed reader's email with a personal note. That's still his...
That was fast: the Lalo Alcaraz comic strip that was killed yesterday will be back tomorrow by popular demand. Flip side: the dog cat gets...
Kit Seelye is giving up the media beat to cover politics for the upgrading New York Times website. Gawker has the newsroom memo: It is...
$25 million from BP will finance the museum's new entrance off Wilshire, says the LAT....
If Jeffrey Trachtenberg's Wall Street Journal report is accurate, that would mean the Times decided to face the critical music and launch the scaled-back Book...
Actress Dania Ramirez holds up the clothes for the spring fashion issue, which focuses on local designers Eduardo Lucero and Emiliano Moreno. Also in the...
Would you believe it's election day again? Los Angeles and some surrounding cities will vote. Go ahead, try it for a change — in L.A....
March 05, 2007
New email to LA Observed from a Reagan White House staffer, an emeritus professor and others covering the loss of La Cucaracha, the incredible shrinking...
Tavis Smiley scores an interview tonight on PBS with Bruce Gordon, who resigned Sunday after just nineteen months as head of the NAACP. "A 64...
A ruling on Friday by a committee of the Library of Congress means that KCRW.com and other websites that stream music could have to pay...
Michael Newman, the Times' deputy opinion editor from out of town, thinks so after running yesterday's marathon. He particularly seems to not much like Boyle...
April issue is the last one in print, says Ad Age. The magazine brand will continue online....
Cynthia Littleton was the recently named (well, last March) editor of The Hollywood Reporter and Anne Thompson was deputy film editor. They join Variety as...
Today's Wall Street Journal advances tomorrow's Beverly Hills municipal election with a front-page story that focuses on the Iranian face of the city through Jimmy...
One person was more surprised than most by the Times' announcement today that several comic strips would no longer appear daily. He is Lalo Alcaraz,...
The San Francisco Chronicle has a unique understanding of how readers here might react to the LAT folding its Book Review in with Current. The...
Ton of media notes today, and a lot of other stuff. Click below to go on in....
March 04, 2007
If layoffs or buyouts hit the Los Angeles Times newsroom later this month, as many on the staff predict, you can bet there will be...
David Beckham damaged a ligament in his right knee playing today in Madrid, and European media were full of reports that the injury is serious...
Times columnist Tim Rutten rehashes 'Frontline' in his Saturday column and finds it "mysterious and troubling" that his bosses, editor Jim O'Shea and publisher...
March 03, 2007
David Abel, publisher of The Planning Report and Metro Investment Report, now has a colloquium named after him. "Rethinking Governance in the Age of MySpace.com"...
March 02, 2007
Essayist William Kittredge will pick up the Robert Kirsch Award on April 27 when the winners in the following Los Angeles Times Book Prize categories...
Men, that's who. Only 36 percent of the broadcast viewers on ABC were male, tying the show’s all-time lowest popularity among men, Alex Ben Block...
Quentin Tarantino's two months in residence at the New Beverly Cinema has inspired Dennis Cozzalio, the blogger behind the under-appreciated Sergio Leone and the Infield...
With this year's new L.A. Marathon route, a lot of people are going to head out Sunday and run into street closures. The map and...
Last Buzz of the week. Click to get the skinny....
March 01, 2007
The LA Weekly's David Zahniser asks how it is that Assemblyman Richard Alarcon spent more than $415,000 running for election when he didn't have an...
Jill Leovy asks the question in her Homicide Report blog at LATimes.com: "Are Black-vs.-Brown Racial Tensions Driving Homicide in L.A.?" Her answer is no. Take...
The dimensions of departing airports chief Lydia Kennard's deal to keep a hand in the pot at LAX are becoming clear. Nice deal, if you...
Mark Sarvas, L.A.'s most recognized lit-blogger, has a post up at The Elegant Variation that he's been hoping to write for a long time. He...
Adolfo V. Nodal was general manager of the city's Cultural Affairs Department from 1988 until the Hahn Administration took over City Hall in 2001. (He...
It's not quite O.J. Simpson-in-a-white Bronco, but it's still a premium-grade L.A. police chase tale. During yesterday's press conference to remember the 1997 North Hollywood...
Marc Germain, who recently departed his talk radio gig as Mr. KABC, begins Monday as the afternoon drive-time talk jock on a newly revamped AM...
Mark Frauenfelder, a former colleague of mine at the Industry Standard, who talks about the rise to Internet stardom of BoingBoing in this month's Los...
There's no Morning Buzz today due to the press of other time commitments, but just look at what's fresh on the site right now. Good...
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| The funeral for Mark Lacter will be held Sunday, Nov. 24 at 12 noon at Hillside Memorial Park, 6001 W. Centinela Avenue, Los Angeles 90045. Reception to follow.
Before I lived in Echo Park, there was a tiny 1920s bungalow-cottage-standalone house on N. Occidental in Silver Lake. I...
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