Archive by Date
September 30, 2007
Transportation planners get mounds of daily data from all the sensors installed beneath Los Angeles streets, but they throw it all away after a few days. The Times reports that...
With another of its occasional Sunday packages railing about city salaries, the Daily News posts online a database listing the name and salary of all 8,500 workers at the Department...
Former mayor Richard Riordan endorsed Rudy Giuliani for president, despite feeling "Giuliani is too liberal for the solid, right-wing Republicans in California, that part of the party." Washington Post...
September 29, 2007
KCAL9 and CBS2 anchor Dave Clark starts November 1 as anchor of the top-rated morning news at Channel 2 in San Francisco. His email to friends says "I have spent...
The band will headline a benefit concert at the Gibson Amphitheatre on Oct. 14 to raise money for rebuilding the Garfield High School auditorium that burned down this year. A...
September 28, 2007
Mayor Villaraigosa has dumped Department of Transportation chief Gloria Jeff and replaced her with longtime City Hall hand Rita Robinson. Jeff lasted a year and a half, after being presented...
Sorry, big deadline looming. No time for more this morning. Mayor Villaraigosa tells interviewer Michael Eisner that he had a conversation with Sen. Hillary Clinton about his extramarital affair. Help...
September 27, 2007
Emily Banneker at Blogging.la is bummed that L.A. Freeway Kids, the 1984 Olympics-era mural that adorned a south wall of the Hollywood Freeway (or Santa Ana, depending on your interpretation)...
In his talk today at Town Hall Los Angeles, Times publisher David Hiller said he may launch a free tabloid patterned after the Tribune's Redeye in Chicago. The Reuters story...
Timothy M. Phelps, the Washington bureau chief at Newsday, moves down the hall to the Times bureau as the Washington investigative editor. Memo from LAT bureau chief Doyle McManus:...
Author Denise Hamilton and Eating L.A. blogger Pat Saperstein did a fun road trip recently, visiting many of the local dining spots patronized by Hamilton's lovelorn newspaper reporter protagonist, Eve...
Phil Wallace mourns the demise of the morning sports talk show with NBC4's Fred Roggin, the Times' T.J. Simers and Simers' daughter Tracy. Dan Patrick, the former ESPN Radio talker,...
The family of Lana Clarkson said through its attorney that "we support the decision of the district attorney in this case and we will be present at the retrial. We...
Spector reaction abounds, plus Dominick Dunne, Zev Yaroslavsky and a BIG gift to Claremont McKenna College — and Fishbowl LA as tool again....
September 26, 2007
While I've been dilly-dallying on other projects and trying to get over a nasty cough, LA Observed contributors have been busy. Not Mark Lacter, though — LA Biz Observed is...
Readers of LA Observed are not just intelligent, discerning and sexy, they are also helpful (and well traveled, apparently.) David Hackett caught my mention last night of spotting the American...
Phil Spector's homicide trial ended this afternoon in a mistrial, with the DA's office vowing to try again. The final count was reportedly 10-2 in favor of conviction. Earlier, the...
A 1,000-page manuscript, The Development of Los Angeles City Government -- An Institutional History 1850-2000, will be delivered to the City Council this morning. The researchers pored through the municipal...
We've got Biggie Smalls, Antonio Villaraigosa, Frank McCourt, Derek Fisher and a bunch of other news topics. Click to head on in....
September 25, 2007
Blogger and former Daily Journal reporter Daniel Evans and his wife walked down to the corner store in Burbank tonight and spotted two TV news trucks. As they feared, the...
The latest media to discover the luxury denim industry in downtown L.A. is the New York Times, which focuses Wednesday on Bread Denim and draws the obligatory bigger meaning: Its...
Writer Frank Coffey's spoof site eTrueSports.com is now in video on YouTube....
Wendy McCaw finally took the witness stand to defend her reign of error over the Santa Barbara News Press. She contended that two veteran reporters were fired because of biased...
The Advocate, feeling pretty good after celebrating its 40th anniversary, is proud that news features editor Sean Kennedy scored an interview with Sen. Hillary Clinton at the recent Logo/Human Rights...
The Tribune Company has come up with a new tactic to cut costs and annoy the hell out of its employees — again. It seems that everyone on the staff...
Tom Tugend in the Jewish Journal has more details on the incident where city building inspectors ordered an Orthodox shul to halt its services on the eve of Yom Kippur,...
As the NYT's Sharon Waxman forecast in August, officials in Italy are dropping their civil case against former Getty antiquities curator Marion True. It's tied to a resolution of the...
Don Barrett at LARadio.com has uncovered several file folders with contracts, memos and other documents that show how KRLA deejay Bob Eubanks came to present the Beatles' first Los Angeles...
KPCC put its weekly Hollywood journalist roundtable segment Call Sheet on hiatus several months ago — not, I hope, because I guested on it a couple of times. Now the...
Our erstwhile video contributor has a couple of gigs taking away his time and his physical presence from L.A. One pursuit, as executive director of Why Tuesday, bears some fruit...
A director gets jail, Dodgers beat writers finally tell what they know, two more Marina eateries fail and it's awards day: Emmys, Ovations, genius grants and a stamp for Ruben...
September 24, 2007
Larry Harnisch at The Daily Mirror blog dug this photo out of the Times news archives and asks, what are these guys doing? The year, 1957, is a big...
If Mirthala Salinas stays with Telemundo Channel 52 it will be as the station's general assignment news chaser in the Inland Empire, not as the star political reporter and sometime...
Proposals to fix neighborhood councils, Mayor Villaraigosa's few thousand trees initiative, Seymour Hersh on blogs and much, much more for a catch-up Monday morning....
September 21, 2007
Mayor Villaraigosa signs off on a deal brokered by Council President Eric Garcetti. It's less, obviously, than the $2.7 million Pierce and the City Council agreed to last year, but...
Reporters assigned to the Phil Spector trial have to do something while they're waiting on the jury. Steven Mikulan covers the scene in the LA Weekly: In the courtroom, a...
Geffen and Spielberg, Lincoln Place, Mary Mapes on Dan Rather and a whole bunch of other topics covered today. Click to go on in....
September 20, 2007
At a Radio and Television News Association panel of news directors last night at UCLA, Bob Long of NBC 4 got most of the laughs — and sounded the most...
Steve Oney profiles Adam Carolla in the October issue, in which editor Kit Rachlis calls Carolla "the most provocative talk-radio host in Los Angeles, the quintessential Valley guy [and] an...
The only thing lamer than the new LATimes.com feature where reporter William Lobdell writes about pretending to do stuff that other people do for real is that former Breeze columnist...
Marc Cooper is joining the Huffington Post as special correpondent and will direct coverage of the 2008 political campaigns for OfftheBus.net, a co-venture of the Huffington Post and NewAssignment.net, NYU...
Veronique de Turenne didn't take the official snail mail seriously until it talked about "warrant for your arrest" and "$950 fine." But all's well that ends well. Here in Malibu....
Well, in a manner of speaking. Richard Montoya of Culture Clash has been named an Annenberg Film Fellow at the Sundance Institute to work on the film version of the...
Busy morning elsewhere. Light posting day....
TMZ.com ran a video clip of Superior Court Judge Lance Ito pronouncing O.J. Simpson "guilty as sin" of the Las Vegas charges — except it wasn't Ito. "A stupid mistake,"...
September 19, 2007
The Times lost its School Me blog and column when Bob Sipchen quit to edit the Sierra Club magazine in San Francisco and co-blogger Janine Kahn went to the OC...
Just for fun I checked Google News to see how many news websites used "the Juice is loose" in their reports on O.J. Simpson making bail. Surprisingly few: just Access...
He claims the network ruined his career. (You want to laugh, right?) Mark Lacter strikes the right tone: As defendants, the suit names CBS and its CEO, Leslie Moonves; Viacom...
I was misinformed: Yale Galanter, O.J. Simpson's attorney, is not the former husband of City Councilwoman Jan Perry. That would be Douglas F. Galanter. I had it wrong in today's...
Bill Plaschke's column today urges the Dodgers to quit haranguing KFWB host Bob Harvey over his post-game show. Here was the post I put up Monday about the team's Josh...
Where Bill Clinton and Antonio Villaraigosa were when the lights went out in Brentwood last night, plus Southwest goes kid unfriendly, a new Times feature on mundane things and a...
September 18, 2007
A Craigslist job posting advertises for an experienced director of audience development for an unnamed downtown Los Angeles website. The employer is described only as "one of the biggest brands...
In response to today's Breeze article on new computerized traffic signals across the South Bay, an LA Observed reader wrote to the Breeze reporter, Gene Maddaus: I noted in the...
Jill Ishkanian is the ex-senior reporter in Los Angeles who quit US Weekly to form Sunset Photo and News and was accused last year of breaking into the magazine's editing...
Split is 7-5 (but we don't know which way) and the foreman tells the judge he doesn't think they can reach a verdict on Phil Spector's guilt or innocence. Judge...
Some 100 journalists and others who attended last week's Mothers Against Drunk Driving national awards luncheon in St. Louis came down with food poisoning. MADD's email to participants: I hope...
Oh my God. Spotted in Valencia (also seen over the weekend in malls all over the Valley.) Photo: Daily News / David Crane...
Costly news for Wesley Snipes, a big reward in that infant murder, covering the Emmys like someone cares and more charges against Leland Wong — plus cold rain coming this...
September 17, 2007
New programming as The CineFamily launches Oct. 25 at the Fairfax Avenue theater, which gets a bigger screen, new projection and sound systems and leather sofas. Revival films will be...
I got a note last night saying that Bob Harvey, who hosts the post-game Dodgers talk show on KFWB, angrily told yesterday of being berated in a phone call from...
The newly reinstated dean-to-be of the future UC Irvine law school will be next year's commencement speaker at the rival Chapman University law school. The dean there, John Eastman, has...
Daily News television blogger David Kronke had a bad run-in with some nuts (he's allergic) at this weekend's pre-Emmy tea thrown by BAFTA and the BBC. Kronke refers to himself...
Columnists and other material that was behind the pay wall will be free as of Tuesday night. The New York Times is even opening up its archives back to 1986....
Liberal legal scholar and pundit Erwin Chemerinsky will become dean of the new UC Irvine law school after all. Chancellor Michael V. Drake spent the week in North Carolina —...
Where else do you get Tom LaBonge, O.J. Simpson and Sally Field in the same blog post?...
Another big exit from the Los Angeles Times, and another hit to the paper's national profile. Washington columnist Brownstein is joining Atlantic Media, publisher of The Atlantic and National Journal,...
September 16, 2007
There's talk of UC Irvine's chastened chancellor re-offering the law school deanship to Erwin Chemerinsky. Orange County conservative Hugh Hewitt says the offer should be made. LAT, Register More...
September 14, 2007
Marc Duvoisin, the LAT's assistant managing editor for writing and projects, gets a boost to deputy managing editor for all projects at the paper. Memo from Managing Editor John Arthur...
Friends are being told that LA Weekly staff writer Judith Lewis gave notice today and will leave by the end of the year, after finishing up some stories. That means...
The dead blue whale drifting off the Santa Babara coast drew so many onlookers yesterday that U.S. 101 was blocked for a time. It rolled onto shore this morning at...
Missed these in yesterday's flood of email — new appointees by Mayor Villaraigosa to the Cultural Heritage Commission and other city boards. Details after the jump....
Stewart has covered the sports side of TV and radio in Los Angeles since 1973, first for the Herald Examiner and lately in the Times. After today he's moving full-time...
Turns out Supervisor Mike Antonovich has a hand in the Erwin Chemerinsky debacle, more signs that water rationing is coming, and O.J. is questioned in Vegas — plus YouTube video...
September 13, 2007
When Jill Stewart was forced on the LA Weekly as deputy editor by headquarters in Phoenix, there was much speculation on how her politically charged editing style would sit with...
A three-judge panel of the state's Second District Court of Appeal sided with local groups and the city of Santa Monica and ordered that construction activity stop on phase two...
UCLA law professor Stephen Bainbridge blogs about applying to remodel his Los Angeles home and being informed by the bureaucracy that, on paper, his house doesn't exist. Nor does his...
Some pretty amazing numbers on non-English speaking, more parsing of yesterday's Erwin Chemerinsky story, some City Hall moves and more....
David Lauter, a veteran of Metro and the foreign desk, gets the job as editor over all news coverage within the state of California. Different title than his predecessor: Janet...
September 12, 2007
Bill Boyarsky went back to the ethics commission yesterday for the first time since his fellow commissioners didn't elect him president. In fact, nobody seconded his nomination. They didn't let...
Constitutional law scholar and media quotemeister Erwin Chemerinsky was all set to be named dean of the new UC Irvine law school — he even signed the contract — but...
Radar Magazine's October issue offers a hundred of the most overhyped people, places and things — and L.A.'s own* David and Victoria Beckham make the top of the list and...
Last week the political anony-blog Claremont Insider posted the pay and benefits totals for a whole bunch of Claremont city employees, based on year-end pay stubs found on the city's...
Steve Barr gets Locke High, a late-night bill for Anschutz and more gang woes for the Valley. Plus a little imitation-cum-flattery from the New York Times....
Ratings for last year's Oscars with Jon Stewart hosting were abysmal, but the New York Times' Michael Cieply reports that he's the choice again. An announcement is expected Wednesday. I...
PeopleJam, a self-help website due to launch this month by Hollywood execs Robert Tercek and Matt Edelman, has already been dinged for the lame name and "sickly sweet" approach. Now...
If you didn't get enough of corporate exec-turned-dumpster diver Madeline Nelson in the lede of yesterday's L.A. Times front page story, you can always see more quotes from her in...
Andrea Grossman's independent literary series Writers Bloc has become part of the Town Hall Los Angeles organization. Grossman will continue to select the programs, but there will be more promotion...
September 11, 2007
Memo to the staff from Editor Ron Kaye: Everyone: I'm very pleased to announce that Judi Erickson has been named City Editor. She succeeds Barbara Jones who is coordinating content...
Another outrage on Skid Row, NBC's plans to exploit its Spector juror, today's 9-11 commemorations and the new book on important Angeleno Franklin Murphy — and more....
September 10, 2007
The city of Beverly Hills wants to poke around in the visitor logs of LAist because of comments to a post last week that detailed an encounter between an angry...
From the September issue of Los Angeles magazine: In Josh Kun's "The Ballad of Music Man Murray," which appeared in the July issue, it was indicated that Jimmy Durante appeared...
Downtown's usually dark neon signs atop the old Rosslyn Hotel towers were relit last night for a film shoot. Eric Lynxwiler and friends rushed out to capture the sight. Via...
The Oscar-winning actress and former Mrs. Ronald Reagan (when he was a SAG Democrat) never let her true age be pinned down. Katie Harris reports at Bloomberg that Wyman died...
The Phil Spector Show moves into its third act, in and out at City Hall, TMZ-TV goes live and the latest on paralyzed LAPD officer Kristina Ripatti — and much...
Talk about culture shock. The LA Weekly is leaving its longtime physical and spiritual home on Sunset Boulevard in the heart of Hollywood for a sad stretch of Sepulveda Boulevard...
Remember when former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan was so perturbed at the L.A. Times that he dallied with starting his own rival paper? He even produced a prototype of...
Recent chatter in the L.A. Times newsroom had co-managing editor Leo Wolinsky in trouble with the forces of Tribune over his overtures to suitors Eli Broad and David Geffen and...
I'm jet-lagged and hacking loud enough to frighten the neighbors, but they tell me it's my turn to blog. Huge kudos and thanks to Veronique de Turenne, Jenny Burman and...
September 08, 2007
Undercover Black Man gives free reign to his enthusiasm for Larry David on the eve of Curb's new season -- today's post also offers some stellar links and a treat....
September 07, 2007
We now return you to your previously scheduled level of high-quality journalism. You know - actual reporting with depth, research, nuance, and fully dressed people. No more Governator references. No...
Just to prove my point this has been a weird week... Paris Hilton sues Hallmark over a "That's hot!" card. The Smoking Gun. Bisexual dating show coming to MTV. ABC...
Remember Francisco Linares, the South Bay homeowner sentenced to six months in jail for building a fence without a permit? No orange jumpsuit for him on Monday - if he...
The WSJ anoints Carpinteria as the new jet set getaway. (This after the NYT did the same for Oxnard earlier this summer.) Oops - 104,000 fewer new jobs than predicted...
Robot farmers, Arnie versus the GOP, nuns get the boot, Phil and Kobe agree, and a baseball card sells for $2.8 million. Bring weekend fun that much closer by clicking...
September 06, 2007
Janet Clayton says goodbye, and that "a cigar is just a cigar." To my dear friends and colleagues in Metro and around the paper: Jim and I are announcing today...
She writes a memo welcoming four new staffers (see below) to the LAT, then writes another memo, with her resignation. Mark Lacter at LA Biz observed has details, as well...
Four new multi-lingual reporters hired, according to a memo from AME Janet Clayton: Ari Bloomekatz, already on board, is a Spanish-speaking UCLA grad and intern-turned-staffer. Jean-Paul Renaud, from the South...
Less than a day after Mary Chagnon's fatal heart attack at age 90, her Hollywood landlord, eager to re-rent the apartment, stripped it of everything she owned. Illegal? Unfeeling? That's...
Police surveillance, valiant dogs, no more Mt. Whitney outhouses, and a view of KPFK that includes the word "hazmat". A deeply peculiar mix of stories near the end of a...
Luciano Pavarotti has died. Violinist.com, which includes a link to the tenor's last public performance, writes: Luciano Pavarotti has gone to the great stage in the sky. He succumbed to...
September 05, 2007
Amy Saralegui, who served as advertising director of Emmis Communications' Texas Monthly will replace Alan Klein as publisher of the company's Los Angeles Magazine. According to today's press release: Saralegui,...
Mark Lacter's got Vanity Fair's Power List, and reaction to Apple's decision to drop prices for the iPhone. LA Biz Observed. Eric Savitz, who was in SF for Apple's product...
Patt Morrison's eponymous daily KPCC talk show, which shines a light on culture and politics, goes to two hours beginning Monday. More time means lots more stories for the popular...
Wonder what's in store at Disney Hall when Esa-Pekka leaves the building? Check out this video of Gustavo Dudamel, or as expat (and perpetually homesick) LA native David Kipen likes...
A KTLA anchor jumps ship, sheriff's deputies in the hot seat, Barbie's behind (not my words) and a "nasty, naughty boy." (Again, not my words.) All that and Britney, too!...
September 04, 2007
Some tidbits, because it's just too hot to write actual paragraphs. LAT's Douglas Frantz now at Conde Nast Portfolio, according to Romenesko. Car hits driver in Beverly Hills. Only the...
That streak of light in your rear view mirror this morning? Mark Lacter at work. On KPCC this morning, then in LA Biz Observed with a full helping of news...
Robert Greene blogs on the LAT site about why our city's birthday gets lost in the shuffle, and what it was like to take that long, long walk on Sunday....
Need an excuse to extend the holiday eating binge a few more hours? Our city turns 226 today. Cake for everybody! LA City Nerd has the details and links galore,...
Heat, fire, a blog fight, and a van that drives itself. A modest start to the short week. Ease your sunburned hand on over to the link....
September 03, 2007
Every writer should know about the web site, landandfarm.com. There is no better way to procrastinate motivate yourself. Here's Paradise Ranch, a 119-acre property once owned by Cecil B. DeMille....
September 02, 2007
How can you not click through to a post with a line like this: If a couple of college goofballs decide to produce a gangsta-rap video called "Produce Paradise," smacking...
An earthquake (4.7 today in OC) and a potato salad recipe at the ever-eclectic LAist. Another public SoCal beach you won't see this weekend. Or next weekend. Or any...
September 01, 2007
No banker's hours here at LAO. (Though we do go weekend casual.) Jenny Burman celebrates the reopening of an Echo Park cafe. David Davis puts Beckham's woes (and salary) into...
Injunction against sonar testing near Channel Islands suspended. A federal appeals court allowed the Navy on Friday to resume using underwater sonar blasts in anti-submarine warfare tests off Southern California...
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