Weekly archive
July 13 - July 19, 2008
Saturday, Jul. 19
I'm woefully behind on emails and hope to catch up while traveling this weekend. Meanwhile, here's the link to Friday's LA Observed segment on KCRW. The script is posted below,...
Friday, Jul. 18
It's a summer Friday, what can I say. My weekly LA Observed commentary airs on KCRW at 4:44 this afternoon. Subject: what else, the incredible shrinking LAT. Mark Lacter's Friday...
Thursday, Jul. 17
Layoffs and voluntary departures continue at the Los Angeles Times, which has yet to reach the magic 150 figure for the newsrooms (250 paperwide.) Also, it seems that many staffers...
One of the big concerns I hear voiced repeatedly in Los Angeles about the new webbier, less journalistic L.A. Times is the fear that it will become LAT Lite: less...
Environment writer Marla Cone, a former president board member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, sent an email to the members explaining her exit from the Los Angeles Times. Example:...
Today's Los Angeles Times sports section, once a cash cow for the paper, carries a grand total of three tiny ads. That's 11 column inches of advertising across eight pages,...
Robert Abele at the LA Weekly wonders if the new character introduced in "The Closer" this season would be Sam Zell's idea of a model reporter. What’s with the inane,...
Departing Los Angeles Times reporters Marla Cone and William Lobdell will be on KPCC's "Airtalk" in the 10 o'clock hour, along with Book Editor David Ulin longtime sports writer and...
Taxi rules eased in Downtown and Hollywood For a six-month test period, Los Angeles cabs will be allowed to pick up fares in rush hour no-stopping zones — the curbs...
This week's LA Observed Script Project pages were submitted by Steve Chivers, a writer and producer for TV, movies and the Web. LAOSP producer Eric Estrin gives him thanks —...
Wednesday, Jul. 16
Confirmed departures not yet reported here, among the 150 editorial jobs (plus 100 outside the newsrooms) being lost by layoffs both voluntary and not: Steve Harvey learned he will no...
A pretty contentious exchange this afternoon between "Which Way, L.A.?" host Warren Olney and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa began with the mayor quipping "long time, no interview." Olney then started peppering...
Sean Heitkemper, formerly GM at KKJZ in Long Beach, got the thankless job of general manager at Pacifica Radio's KPFK back on July 1, as we told you then. Today...
Michelle Quinn, one of the Los Angeles Times staff writers who blogs about technology, used this photo of Pope Benedict to illustrate a post about Apple apologizing to customers of...
Unfortunately, the Daily News this morning bannered Dana Bartholomew's story saying the hotel and banquet center in Studio City would close. It's still big on the website. Miscommunication — but...
The blogger behind MetroRiderLA says the competition from professional transportation blogs and the need to make money — plus plain old blog burnout — nudged him to call a time...
No more table-top mustard pots at Philippe the Original, Lesley Balla reports at Eater LA. Truth be told, they were kind of grotty. But hey, the people declared it worked...
The quirky Sportsmen's Lodge hotel on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City will shut down Dec. 31, the Daily News says. [* But the paper was wrong. See below.] The 11-acre...
Quick look around: Susan Atkins denied release The Manson family killer of Sharon Tate has to die on our dime in prison, the state decides. LAT, AP Obama cover 'smart...
The L.A. Times local columnist writes today, "Like a lot of my colleagues, I've wondered if I should finally give it up, or might be forced to. But most of...
Martin Perlich has "opted for retirement effective immediately," according to the opaque memo posted by Laura Stegman at PRLosAngelesMediaMoves. KCSN is the music and news station at FM 88.5 out...
More confirmed departures: David Haldane was a reporter at the Times for 23 years, the last 16 in Orange County. "Yesterday (Monday) was my last day; I’m gone, gone, gone…...
Tuesday, Jul. 15
Jill Leovy is turning her year as the Los Angeles Times' homicide blogger into a book for Spiegel & Grau. "The Homicide Report: Black Men, Murder and America’s Unseen Catastrophe"...
John Spano, a former legal affairs reporter and editor who left the Times in the buyouts earlier this year, has landed as an associate with Kiesel Boucher & Larson, a...
Brendan Huffman, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Association since early 2006, said he plans to resign at the end of the year. "I'm just ready for something else,...
This is a note that someone in the Los Angeles Times building taped to the wall where past Pulitzer winners are recognized. A bouquet of flowers was left on the...
OCWeekly's Gustavo Arellano exchanged email with William Lobdell, one of the Los Angeles Times staffers who is ankling the shrinking Orange County office. They appear together regularly on the Orange...
Reactions to yesterday's death of former Daily News (plus Register, Star-News and AP) sports writer and editor Matt McHale include an obituary by Los Angeles Newspaper Group Sports Editor Kevin...
Carolyn Kellogg blogs at Jacket Copy that there is a potential winner in all the handwringing and debate over the magazine cover depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as Islamic militants....
It's Don Pierro, a former public affairs fellow at Coro. Release after the jump....
It's hard to know which would make Sam Zell happier — seeing so many prominent Times journalists heading out the door, or this headline that the editors have put in...
The Washington Post announced in the newsroom that Los Angeles correspondent William Booth is going back on the foreign beat. His wife, ex-foreign correspondent Anne-Marie O'Connor, will be leaving the...
Chuck Philips is the investigative reporter and Pulitzer winner whose March story linking rapper Sean Combs to an attack on Tupac Shakur was fully retracted by the Los Angeles Times...
Times publisher David Hiller invited staffers by email to drop in and say goodbye. He praises his executive assistant, Caroline Thorpe, who has worked with LAT publishers since Otis Chandler....
Emirates Airlines will land a massive Airbus A380 at LAX on Aug. 5 to conduct ground and flight tests. Sounds like a little PR is on tap too. "The A380...
SoupCans is a TV blog that runs a recurring Jackie Johnson Fashion Watch, so the blog was thrilled she talked to them. The Channel 2 and 9 weathercaster talks about...
Controller Laura Chick's auditors looked at 26 city departments and found that 16 have not updated their emergency plans in the past three years. The chief legislative analyst's office had...
Sandy Banks writes in the Times that she took herself to UCLA Medical Center fearing she was in the middle of a heart attack, but found out after a couple...
Turns out that the 150 or so newsroom staffers leaving the Los Angeles Times are a mix of buyout volunteers (who have to agree not to take another job until...
Ron Kaye's first try at post-Daily News movement organizing drew more than 100 potential activists to the City Hall lawn on Monday. David Zahniser in the Times set the scene...
Monday, Jul. 14
The company line, and what the Los Angeles Times reported as confirmed news on its website, is that David Hiller resigned as publisher. Now here's what he says: From: Hiller,...
Matt McHale, the former assistant sports editor at the Daily News and longtime Dodgers beat writer for the Daily News, Pasadena Star News and Orange County Register, died today in...
I'll be on "Patt Morrison" talking about the Times....
Staffers at the Daily News came to work today to find a new sign up in front of the building on Oxnard Street. It was previously announced that the plant...
Randy Michaels note to Tribunistas: I want to let you know that David Hiller has decided to step down as publisher of The Los Angeles Times, effective immediately. David took...
Editor Russ Stanton's memo to the staff says "Today, editors will begin notifying most of the 150 people who will be leaving us, and we hope to complete that process...
Councilman and Board of Supervisors candidate Bernard Parks scored some CNN time this morning during all the hot talk about that satirical New Yorker cover picturing Barack and Michelle Obama...
Every bed at the new Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center will be filled from the day it opens this fall, according to an independent report requested by the Board of...
District Attorney Steve Cooley sent a letter to the chairman of the state Board of Parole Hearings strongly opposing the compassionate release from prison of Manson family killer Susan Atkins....
Ann Marie Lipinski doesn't mention Sam Zell by name. But, well... She is the second highest ranking newspaper editor in Zell's empire. Lipinski's note to the newsroom does mention the...
Daily News wakes up to the real Valley Three-part series by Tony Castro called "San Fernando Valley: The New Ellis Island" focuses on the influence of Latino cultures and, in...
This monument — or is it art, a distraction, a ritual site? — is beside the Pomona Freeway at the Paramount exit in Montebello. See the whole scene at LA...
On the Los Angeles Times website: L.A.'s Latino mayor praises Obama at La Raza conference The locals just call him Villaraigosa. Shorter by two letters....
Sunday, Jul. 13
By Bay Area tradition, references to freeways don't carry an article. In Los Angeles we "take the 101" (or "the Ventura Freeway") but up north they just "take 101." Times...
This winter skiers and snowboarders will be able to fly to Mammoth for the first time in years. Tickets go on sale Monday for new Horizon Airlines service from LAX...
At the L.A. Times' Top of the Ticket blog, many of the reader comments posted about former Bush spokesman Tony Snow's death have been tasteless — to say the least....
