Archive by Month
December 31, 2007
Happy 2008! Clearing the decks from 2007: Times-basher Patterico is out with his fifth annual Dog Trainer Year in Review, "documenting omissions, distortions, and misrepresentations"...
John Stodder, the former Fleishman-Hillard executive whose wire fraud and conspiracy conviction is on appeal, blogs about the pressure of facing Christmas with a prison...
Quite a media zoo at UCLA today as Rick Neuheisel, who led the Bruins to a Rose Bowl victory as quarterback back in his day,...
The mother of four who took a politically motivated shot at President Gerald Ford in San Francisco in 1975 got out of the low-security Federal...
An administrative law judge has ruled that wacky Wendy McCaw's Santa Barbara News-Press did violate a number of federal labor laws and must re-hire —...
Let's face it, the fun place to be for a politics junkie right now is Iowa. Mayor Villaraigosa flew in Saturday (after skiing in Aspen...
There are three notable photo exhibitions up at the Getty right now — a survey of nudes and seven decades of André Kertész among them...
If you were in Hollywood last night, you might have seen a line around the block at the Pantages after the performance of Wicked. Hundreds...
December 27, 2007
Josh Rawitch of the Dodgers gets personal in his blog farewell to Stu Nahan....
Remember when the City Council got around that whole referendum thing by, wink wink, making a few changes to its living wage policy for the...
KCRW and KPCC have jumped on this morning's assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Warren Olney's shows, "To the Point" and "Which Way, L.A.?," are both...
KNBC Channel 4 leads the TV stations with six Golden Mikes from the Radio Television News Association, including best newscast writing, documentary ("On the Verge")...
December 26, 2007
The Kings held a moment of silence before tonight's game to honor Stu Nahan, the former sportscaster at channels 4, 5 and 7 and sports...
December 24, 2007
Irv Letofsky, former editor of the L.A. Times Sunday Calendar section and a critic for the Hollywood Reporter, died Sunday of liver cancer at age...
Still catching up from my unintended, and unwanted, time away from the keyboard... Adam Carolla stays, Danny Bonaduce goes. The Virgin Megastore at Sunset and...
December 23, 2007
Valley history buffs were aghast to learn last week that the first hangar built at what's now called Van Nuys Airport was in the process...
The Tribune Company takeover by Sam Zell prompted Times media columnist Tim Rutten to pronounce the seven years of Tribune ownership at the LAT "a...
That was quite a front-page correction the L.A. Times ran on Thursday, below the fold under the headline 'Steroid affidavit unsealed.' The Times acknowledged that...
December 20, 2007
I'd forgotten what happens in offices around the holidays — tons of cookies, pumpkin breads, cheese platters and fruit baskets show up and sit around....
December 19, 2007
Robert J. Rosenthal, the former managing editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, will lead the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Berkeley-based independent reporting group co-founded...
The editor's note on page 34 of the new Vanity Fair caught my eye (well, after it was pointed out to me): "In Bryan Burrough's...
Tribune Company chairman Dennis J. FitzSimons won't be missed much at the L.A. Times. Here's his farewell missive sent this morning (the typos or misspellings...
Taking sides in the Supes race The county Federation of Labor comes out for Mark Ridley-Thomas, Supervisor Gloria Molina says she'll help Bernard Parks. L.A....
December 18, 2007
Ed Boks, L.A.'s constantly embattled animal services chief, is still blogging away. He posts today that the "No-Kill Equation" getting a lot of buzz...
It's been six months since Joe Hutchinson left the L.A. Times for Rolling Stone. Today his replacement was named. It's apparently a somewhat controversial decision...
Times Hollywood columnist Patrick Goldstein got off some good observations about the waning quality, originality and relevance of Oscar race analyzing and gossip. The award...
With the Zellionaire's takeover of Tribune expected to close this week, the L.A. Times and the Chicago Tribune are reporting that chairman and chief executive...
Tammara at Metroblogging Los Angeles posts about her connection to Laura Huxley, who she used to see around Hollywood Reservoir and who died on the...
Paying the price We knew Mayor Villaraigosa was going to put the screws on local business and rich guys to pay for his pet projects...
December 17, 2007
Los Angeles magazine's January issue, landing this week, has pieces on LAT homicide blogger Jill Leovy and on the Wendy McCaw situation at the Santa...
Leslie Brenner, the Food Editor at the L.A. Times, will move over to become interim editor of the monthly Sunday magazine. There's at least nominally...
I'm told by KCET that "Life & Times" will hold down its 7pm time slot until Dec. 28, then give way to Tavis Smiley. Stories...
Woman found dead in towed away car — a day later The body of an elderly woman was discovered hidden under the deployed passenger air...
December 16, 2007
In 1957 the mayor of Los Angeles helped install a plaque at 7th and Main streets downtown commemorating the birth of the local film industry...
December 15, 2007
From Tony Jackson at the Daily News: Camille Johnston, the Dodgers senior vice president for communications and chief spokesperson for the past two years, said...
December 14, 2007
Tonight's show at 7pm on KCET has Tom Brokaw looking back at the 1960s, Vicki Curry checking in on the Orange County Museum of Art's...
A long story at Editor & Publisher.com on newspaper political blogs ledes with the veteran reporter who co-writes Top of the Ticket, the L.A. Times...
The author and widow of Aldous Huxley has died in Los Angeles, according to family friends. She was 96. She was born in Italy and...
The DWP has decided to dump all the water in Silver Lake and the Elysian reservoir because of unusually high traces of the carcinogen bromate,...
The memo is out on the additions we told you were coming to the Times' web staff — LAist's Tony Pierce and LAO's Veronique de...
David Rensin writes with affection at Native Intelligence about all the months he spent with Freddie Fields, the agent who died this week, talking about...
Congestion pricing in diamond lanes You know all those carpool lanes being built squeezed onto freeways, often requiring a year or two of construction traffic...
"Perhaps no team comes off worse in the 409-page report than the Dodgers," says the trio of Times reporters who pored over the Mitchell report...
December 13, 2007
The late, beloved Rhino Records closed on Westwood Boulevard last year, but if you need a fix a pop-up Rhino store has opened on 3rd...
Following the lead of sister paper the Daily News, the San Bernardino Sun and Inland Valley Daily-Bulletin got hold of the salaries of county workers...
Five men aged 18 to 27 have been arrested in connection with the Thanksgiving weekend fire that burned 53 homes in Malibu. Authorities said the...
The Times found a passage based on internal notes from within the Dodger organization about former catcher Paul Lo Duca. Seems the team may have...
Seems there is some backstory to today's LA Weekly cover piece on Los Angeles street gang violence by Peter Landesman. It apparently had started as...
Jonathon Gold, in the course of praising the new French brasserie Comme Ça, on Melrose in West Hollywood: The cheeseburger paradigm has shifted a lot...
LAist was a tad late to the recent Undie Run phenomenon at UCLA, but has sure embraced it fully. Plenty of pics at the blog...
In a piece on semi-retiring Long Beach columnist Tom Hennessy, the District Weekly's Dave Wielenga says the Press-Telegram is losing local control in the consolidation...
Skipping the Golden Globes Yes, in case anyone cares, the few dozen C-listers who make up the Hollywood Foreign Press Association have again published a...
December 12, 2007
The ex-husband and abuser of Tina Turner died at home in suburban San Marcos in the San Diego area. Ike and Tina were a pretty...
The one-time vaudeville booker who became the agent for Judy Garland, Henry Fonda, Barbra Streisand and other stars died of lung cancer Tuesday at home...
The erstwhile LA Observed video maker pulled up to the Des Moines Register's Republican debate in Johnston, Iowa in a horse and buggy, trying to...
Evan George has left the Downtown News for the Los Angeles Daily Journal, where he will take over the health care beat and cover insurance...
Handicapping Parks vs. Ridley-Thomas The first seriously contested Board of Supervisors race since 1992 — when Kenneth Hahn was replaced — is "going to be...
December 11, 2007
No way the mayor's organizers could let this one slip away. Parents and teachers at six LAUSD campuses — including one of the high schools...
Remember the murder last year in Long Beach of off-duty Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Maria Cecilia Rosa? She was apparently surprised by two guys...
Publishers Lunch brings word that Maria Shriver has sold Just Who Will You Be, "presenting life lessons and reflections on what's important in her life,...
The L.A. Times is going back to reporter "bureaus" placed around the Los Angeles area, in hopes of flushing out more local news. The paper...
This one is more of a prank than yesterday's scam, also from Shelf Awareness: Kerry Slattery, general manager of Skylight Books, Los Angeles, Calif., has...
Villaraigosa school plan comes to a vote Teachers and parents at Roosevelt, Santee and Jordan high schools, and at Hollenbeck, Stevenson, Markham and Gompers middle...
December 10, 2007
OK technically it was an editor's note. And the day was Sunday. But it was just pointed out to me. The subject is architecture critic...
Jasmyne Cannick found one at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw mall....
I had to be sure she wanted them, but now it can be told: Vicki Kechekian was the first LA Observed subscriber to email for...
John Evans, co-owner of Diesel: A Bookstore out in Malibu, told the newsletter Shelf Awareness about a strange come-on at his Oakland store. I guess...
Somebody at the New York Times bureau in Iraq apparently fell for the old password trick. Read the memo: Gang, The Baghdad Bureau e-mail address...
Anonymous residents of Rancho Palos Verdes have demanded, through an attorney, that the city produce eleven years of public records — "all documents, communications, e-mail,...
Digging in for a long strike Patric Verrone's plan at the WGA all along was for a bloody fight over respect, says Michael Cieply in...
December 09, 2007
There Will Be Blood was voted the best picture of 2007. Here are the other awards that local critics went for, picked up from the...
David Rensin rants at Native Intelligence about a close call with a cellphone-gabbing, wide-turning Valley driver, and Jenny Price makes the case for camping in...
The defrocked Getty curator of antiquities who has faced criminal charges in Europe finally talks to the media, in the form of Hugh Eakin in...
I'm working through my email from last week and will be posting the most worthy stuff. To start, here's the latest memo at the Times...
December 07, 2007
No LA Observed on KCRW today since I'm traveling, but I'm told there's another of my segments about the Valley on John Rabe's "Off-Ramp" Saturday...
Thanks to Veronique for keeping everything going while I got drenched by non-stop rain in Hawaii. I never suspected lightning storms would be the best...
Around LAO: Writers talks look bleak, job reports look better, the ports get bigger, and gas gets, if not cheaper, then slightly less expensive. Mark...
Short and sweet: Tribune Co. uses $500 million in cash to reduce buyout loans and close the $8.2 billion deal by year's end. AP by...
December 06, 2007
A veteran copy editor has been fired by the News-Press after words from the gag front page traditionally composed for a departing employee's send-off ended...
December 05, 2007
I'm out here in the boonies where they've barely heard of the internets. Service is spotty and loading a page takes. A. Really. Very. Painfully....
December 04, 2007
A few links to limber up those early-morning fingers: Triple whammy Big surf, big wind, big rain - a big week for weather. David Reyes...
December 03, 2007
Surf's (almost) up! Say adios to the Lake of the Pacific. Surfline sees a swell swell headed our way. Bonus link here. The games people...
Red Hen, LA's own indie press, is off to an auspicious start tonight with its new writers-in-conversation series, Monday Evenings at the Geffen. Authors Janet...
Dear Kevin, So you've decided to work for a few days from the Maui bureau of LAO? Excellent move. Overnight temps here in SoCal have...
Sicha and two others editors quit the New York news and gossip site, apparently at least partly over a new pay scale. Romenesko rounds up...
The OC Weekly's Gustavo Arellano did a guest-host stint last week on KFI — yes the same AM shout station where John & Ken live...
As I mentioned down below, I'll be out of town all week. In addition to fewer posts from me it means I'm going to miss...
December 02, 2007
Karl Dorrell's stint as head coach in Westwood isn't over yet — officially — but the Times reports that UCLA has been in contact with...
All of us at LA Observed Tower congratulate Veronique de Turenne, doyenne of Here in Malibu, who will join the Los Angeles Times staff after...
Takedown of the new Michelin guide for Los Angeles began with Leslie Brenner in the L.A. Times food section back on Nov. 21. Sample: In...
The Greater Los Angeles Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists has picked six journalists to honor at its banquet next April. The winners of...
