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Los Angeles Times writers and editors chose 25 films from the past 25 years that "communicate some inherent truth about the L.A. experience." The arbitrary time period made "Chinatown" and...
LA Observed archive
for August 2008
If you don't find what you want here, check another month or search below.
Bill Boyarsky, posting dispatches from the Democratic gathering at Truthdig.com, concluded that this convention marked a welcome end to big media dominance of political reporting. This from a media veteran...
La Opinión columnist Pilar Marrero relaunched her politics blog in Spanish for the Democratic convention, and it sounds like she will keep it going on the La Opinión site and...
But my LA Observed spot today on KCRW talking about Obama, McCain, Palin and Biden is, at its essence, about Los Angeles traffic. Here's a link to the audio with...
As Mark picked up earlier at LA Biz Observed, prominent lawyer Terry Christensen and former private eye Anthony Pellicano were convicted today of conspiring to illegally wiretap the ex-wife of...
Houston bureau chief Miguel Bustillo jumps to the Wall Street Journal. He is a product of the LAT's once-lauded minority intern program. His exit email to the staff wonders why...
Times editorial writer Robert Greene, who authors most of the editorials about City Hall and local politics, was impressed by Gavin Newsom's talk to the California delegates in Denver yesterday...
In the third to last installment of the LA Observed Script Project, Mayor Russell Napolitano is on his way to be executed with the beautiful Rachel, but slips out of...
New York Times calls the choice of the anti-abortion, conservative Christian with less than two years in office (she is 44) a "roll of the dice, a gamble that an...
Scott Martelle has been busily covering the presidential election for the Los Angeles Times, including many posts to the Top of the Ticket blog. But he was tapped on the...
A 1941 Richard Neutra house was recently moved from Brentwood to Angelino Heights. Photographer Brian Thomas Jones has a slide show up at LATimes.com. Though it's rarely seen now now,...
The L.A. Times says it omitted race from the descriptions of three Melrose-area serial robbers by mistake. From the Reader's Representative blog: At least a dozen readers sent a question...
A serial murderer is back killing in Los Angeles, says the LAPD. LA Weekly Antonio Villaraigosa and Gavin Newsom go head to head this morning at the Democratic convention....
The Los Angeles County ordinance making it a misdemeanor for taco trucks to stay parked for longer than an hour was tossed out Wednesday by Superior Court Judge Dennis A....
This won't qualify as an epic collapse because the Dodgers weren't that good to begin with, but this el foldo might be etched into the memories of L.A. fans for...
Los Angeles magazine's September issue includes a round-up of the area's best high schools (not on line) and a book review-cum-profile of the city's most visible activist parent of the...
Beth Barrett was a mainstay of the Ron Kaye era at the Daily News — and before — digging into city and county spending and other investigative projects. Today's exit...
Variety Managing Editor Ted Johnson blogs at Wilshire and Washington that one of the men arrested in what was first thought to be a plot against Barack Obama was staying...
Technical difficulties — as in no Internet connection — at home this morning. So, better late than never... LAT's James Rainey gets up close and kinda personal with Arianna Huffington...
Those fears within the Tribune about Sam Zell's radio-izing of the company look even more justified now. A day after the Los Angeles Times hired a top executive with roots...
They've got Joe Torre blogging about his new life in L.A., and posing for silly pictures to hold up web spots for State Farm Insurance. Sample: So I just moved...
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been making the rounds and got some face time on MSNBC this afternoon — outside of prime time — but City Controller Laura Chick...
An LA Observed informant who has been at most Hollywood Bowl events this summer reports that Keanu Reeves showed up early on his motorcycle for last night's Radiohead show and...
This time it is City Editor Judi Erickson who decided the grass is greener outside the Dean Singleton newspaper universe. Memo from Editor Carolina Garcia: All, I'm sad to report...
KCRW's convention package includes online video shot by producers for Warren Olney's show in Denver. They have found an Obama lookalike, protesters and "dancing Democrats," plus an interview with Charlie...
Investigative reporter T. Christian Miller is joining the Los Angeles Times exodus to ProPublica, the non-profit that hired Pulitzer winners Charles Ornstein and Tracy Weber. Miller's exit e-mail, sent recently:...
Publisher Eddy Hartenstein had made his first move, adding a new senior executive and "chief revenue officer" at the Los Angeles Times — and grabbing him from the parent company...
Bil Boyarsky is covering the Democratic convention scene for Truthdig and his featured story today is about the abortion issue at the Interfaith Gathering held in Denver by religious leaders,...
The L.A. Times posted canned stories on other Obama VP selections by accident, and of course they got out. LAT John McCain raised money in Northern California yesterday before...
Taking a little summer respite. Mark Lacter has morning headlines and more at LA Biz Observed, Adrienne Crew checks in on the new Holocaust photos at Native Intelligence, and there...
Sometime this fall the Los Angeles Times will unveil wholesale changes that SoCal readers may or may not want. The reinvention of the Times as we know it was ordered...
This was the weekend that Sandra Tsing Loh's latest book, "Mother on Fire," got reviewed in the New York Times and her hometown Los Angeles Times. Both reviewers enjoyed the...
I figured it would get harder to recruit submissions for the LA Observed Script Project as the story got longer and more layered, but producer Eric Estrin has been keeping...
On an average day, USC theater students Peter Vack and Troian Bellisario bring in $100 performing lines from "Romeo and Juliet" on the New York City subway. "Several people thanked...
Barack Obama will announce Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware as his running mate in a few hours, the New York Times, L.A. Times and Washington Post all agree....
I knew that former Daily News reporter Lisa Mascaro had moved to Washington in 2006, then landed a job as the DC correspondent for the Las Vegas Sun. But I...
With Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, City Council President Eric Garcetti and assistant president Wendy Greuel headed to Denver for the Barack Obama investiture, Councilwoman Jan Perry is in charge. The Downtown...
Gawker has posted a whole bunch of excerpts from the Washington, D.C. case that led to a restraining order against former L.A. Times rising star Andrés Martinez. OK, he's a...
My radio segment this afternoon — back on the air after two weeks of pledge break — rounds up Rocky, Michelle, Antonio, Kerri and Misty. It airs at 4:44 pm...
Mariel Garza moves up to editor of the editorial pages at the Daily News in Woodland Hills. Oscar Garza (no relation), formerly the editor of Tu Ciudad magazine and before...
For the eighth time in two weeks, a robber has hit the stretch of Melrose Avenue between Fairfax and La Brea. The latest, at 5:30 pm on Wednesday, occurred just...
The Pasadena Weekly has run a surprising commentary by editor Kevin Uhrich in response to a controversy over whether a Glendale city official referred to residents of Armenian heritage being...
Only one problem with that: Tyron Freeman's union contributions on behalf of Board of Supervisors candidate Mark Ridley-Thomas are mostly so-called independent expenditures. So the money officially never got into...
Kelly Mullens' attorney Blair Burk says in a statement that the lawsuit filed today by ex-L.A. Times editor Andres Martinez is without merit — and grows out of a restraining...
Whoa, this needs some background. Martinez is the former editorial page editor of the Los Angeles Times who resigned last year over the brouhaha that resulted from his offer to...
Dave Strickler, a former USC research librarian, has painstakingly compiled an online database listing the run years and some details of every comic strip to appear in the Los Angeles...
Orange County-based Kevin Drum moved his Calpundit blog persona over to Washington Monthly as Political Animal and began getting paid for his politics blogging four years ago. Now he's been...
KUSC, at 91.5 FM, is "the largest listener-supported classical music station in the country and one of the last bastions of full-time classical music and arts programming on public radio,"...
The Los Angeles Times got beaten on Tuesday by the San Francisco Chronicle's disclosure of an FBI probe into City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo. A memo to the staff last night...
This weekend I saw the recently finished Belmont Station apartments on the old soccer field at 2nd Street and Beverly near Belmont High and wondered if the subway tunnel opening...
New York Times picks up on the Tyrone Freeman story. NYT Folos on Caprice Young leaving the charter school association. LAT, DN, Witness LA Police chief William Bratton will...
The head of the United Long-Term Care Workers, an SEIU local that is the largest in California, takes a leave in the aftermath of Times stories showing how the union...
Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor win gold again. Straight sets. In a rainstorm. Perfectly matched team of athletes. 'Nuff said. Add Misty: As she did in Athens, May-Treanor marked the...
The Central City Association, which presses Downtown interests at City Hall and worked hard to get into Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's good graces after backing Jim Hahn big in 2005, announced...
Scott Kraft will move aside after the election to the new position of senior editor and roving correspondent — the special deals didn't end with Sam Zell, it seems —...
Bruce Wallace, currently a correspondent in Tokyo, gets the Foreign Editor job that Marjorie Miller said awhile back that she would be vacating. Here's the memo from Editor Russ Stanton:...
Juan Alvarez is sentenced to eleven life terms in the Atwater Village Metrolink crash that killed eleven in 2005. LAT...
The perp is caught on tape at Metblogs....
Starr, the makeup artist for Angelina Jolie and other celebrities, was found deceased inside his Silver Lake Elysian Heights apartment. He was described variously as 48 or 51. Police forced...
City officials called on hikers and others to help them find an arsonist who set five fires in Griffith Park last weekend. DN Overturned sewage tanker closes Pacific Coast...
Don Corsini has run the two CBS-owned channels since 2002. He will stay until the end of the year, when Patrick McClenahan will be promoted to president and general manager....
The FBI's investigation of City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo seems to center on his wife Michelle's businesses and income, the Times reports. It's clear the Times had been digging on the...
A story in the L.A. Times last week on reactions from local Russians to the events in Georgia was based on interviews conducted in Russian by Metro reporter Ann Simmons....
Corie Brown won a big-within-journalism award for a story on climate change and wine. Too bad she doesn't cover wine, or anything else, for the Los Angeles Times anymore. From:...
Laurie Pike posts at the Los Angeles Magazine blog ChicLeak that involved sources believe the Fashion Week partnership between IMG and Culver Citys Smashbox Studios will go away after October's...
Patrick O'Connor, the Daily News' editorial cartoonist, has some fun with the upcoming change of venue to Denver for City Hall electeds attending the Democratic convention. See it big...
The EPA intends to step in and settle the bureaucratic debate over whether the Los Angeles River is navigable. LAT The LAPD will release a study today concluding that...
Today's San Francisco Chronicle reports that "FBI agents have begun a criminal investigation of Los Angeles City Attorney Rockard 'Rocky' Delgadillo, a one-time rising star of California politics whose career...
The South L.A. activist pleaded guilty to attempting to bribe a witness in a criminal case involving his daughter, Jasmin Eskew. Ali's sentence was enhanced because of a 1992 robbery...
New Los Angeles Times Publisher Eddy Hartenstein met some of the staff this afternoon and didn't make any headlines. That's a switch from previous debuts by Times and Tribune executives....
Eddy Hartenstein's email to the staff is brief. He will address all hands at 3 pm. Good day, As an avid reader of The Times for more than 45 years,...
Hollywood producer and manager Joan Hyler was hit by a car on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu and is in critical condition at UCLA. DN wires Mayor Villaraigosa has...
In case you missed any, here are quick links to the weekend posts at LA Observed. (That new publisher of the Times seems so long ago.) You can always get...
Matt Kemp homered on the first pitch the Dodgers faced Sunday — his first ever as a leadoff hitter — and Andre Ethier clubbed a walk-off home run in the...
Michael Phelps and Dara Torres are great stories, but let's appreciate how difficult it can be for the athletes who don't get to be called Olympic champions. Over at the...
Eating L.A.'s Pat Saperstein joined LA Observed author Denise Hamilton on a culinary tour based on locations mentioned in "The Last Embrace," Denise's latest Los Angeles-based mystery. This one, set...
Leroy Sievers is the former "Nightline" executive producer who has been commenting on the air and blogging about his cancer for National Public Radio. Sievers had previously been the CBS...
Los Angeles photographer Charlie Grosso has been working on an exhibit she calls Wok the Dog, an examination of "the commerce of meat," shot at markets around the world where...
As the LA Observed Script Project nears its natural end point, producer Eric Estrin has an assignment for the would-be screenwriters out there. This projects been a total blast to...
One of the challenges facing new L.A. Times publisher Eddy Hartenstein will be stopping the brain drain of top journalists who see no future in a Sam Zell-run media venture....
The reports — starting, I believe, with Cynthia Littleton in Variety back in July — have all been accurate. Up next in the rotating chair of Los Angeles Times publisher...
Occasionally someone who gets caught abusing L.A. stereotypes complains that I don't point out the same style violations by writers about New York. Go figure — we call it LA...
Even though Tribune's innovation guru keeps advising Sam Zell's newspapers to make stars of their staffs and be funnier, in last month's cutbacks at the Los Angeles Times the editors...
Record producer Jerry Wexler has died at age 91. NYT DWP commission president Nick Patsaouras sent Mayor Villaraigosa a resignation letter, but apparently has been talked out of quitting....
A hockey fan who posts at LetsGoKings.com as riseandfall9 describes being shot outside a club in Hollywood and having to call 911 himself even though a half-dozen other people looked...
A generation of Los Angeles kids grew up watching cartoons on Channel 9 and drinking their milk when Engineer Bill or his announcer said "green light" — and stopping...
LA Observed author David Rensin was on a book tour-vacation when Hollywood manager and producer Bernie Brillstein ">died, but I for one have been anticipating David's reaction. He helped Brillstein...
Zach Behrens at LAist test-drives the city's new website for searching and keeping tabs on City Council files, motions and votes....
Film critic and KCRW host Elvis Mitchell was stopped recently at the U.S.-Canada border between Detroit and Windsor and a search of his luggage found a box of contraband cigars...
NPR's "Morning Edition" ran a story today from inside the county's Twin Towers jail in Downtown, calling it the country's largest mental institution. NPR.org The LAPD lost a $500,000...
You may think the Los Angeles Times is shrinking in print, but don't let your eyes deceive you. This Sunday's LAT was 368 pages fatter than a week before, if...
At the urging of the City Council, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo agreed to suspend his lawsuit against Controller Laura Chick and she agreed to suspend her review of his office...
Hey, if Sam Zell and Tribune can colonize the Los Angeles media, why not Arianna Huffington in Chicago? The site launches Thursday. From Romenesko letters: Huff Post bloggers work for...
I was an assistant metropolitan editor at the Los Angeles Times when the Rodney King riots erupted in April, 1992 and the Northridge earthquake struck on Jan. 17, 1994. Huge...
The city Ethics Commission did go ahead this morning and levy almost $15,000 in penalties against Councilman Jose Huizar for misusing his campaign accounts, partly to do opposition research on...
Darren "Bo" Taylor was co-founder with USC Trojans coach Pete Carroll of A Better LA and ran Unity One. The Coach Pete Carroll website posts: There are superheroes. And then...
The city Ethics Commission votes today on whether to fine Councilman Jose Huizar $15,000 for violations including the use of office-holder funds to investigate David Tokofsky, then a school...
Eric Estrin and the LA Observed Script Project were featured tonight on the KCAL news at 8 pm and 10 pm and the Channel 2 show at 11. Eric says...
While perhaps a billion people watched the U.S. and China meet in basketball at the Olympics, Sports Business Daily says that few had more riding on the game than the...
Allan Sloan of Fortune Magazine, a persistent skeptic of Tribune dealings, breaks down Sam Zell's latest creative financing scheme for Marketplace: "The company is in, as you know, big trouble....What...
Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo today filed a civil court challenge to block Controller Laura Chick from asserting the power to audit his office, and she called in the...
Back in the 1920s, when Ventura Boulevard through Sherman Oaks was a two-lane highway with dirt shoulders, real estate agents pitched it as the "Wilshire Boulevard of the Valley." It...
L.A. journalist Sharon Waxman plans to launch The Wrap News in January as a Hollywood counterpart to Politico. Market Watch ABC's interest in Jay Leno and how it could...
Photographer and music journalist Rena Kosnett thinks she got one of, if not the, final interview with the singer, songwriter, musician and former "South Park" voice who died Sunday. Hayes,...
Dodgers outfielder Andre Ethier can't convince Joe Torre to play him full time, even though he's second on the team in home runs and gets on base more than Juan...
The Times' Paul Pringle weighed in Saturday with an investigative piece saying that the SEIU-affiliated United Long-Term Care Workers local headed by Tyrone Freeman, and a related charity, have been...
Echo Park author Sarah Miller has an amusing piece in the Times opinion pages Sunday about John Edwards' former extra-marital squeeze, who rented the room Miller had vacated in a...
It's pledge break time at KCRW, so my segment did not air last Friday in the usual 4:44 pm slot and will miss this coming week too. LA Observed on...
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky has posted a personal piece at his county website explaining why he pushed to require fast-food stores to list the calories of their fare on menus. Yaroslavsky...
ABC News has an interview between Bob Woodruff and the former (and not future) VP candidate, confirming the affair with videographer Rielle Hunter. Edwards says he doesn't love her, that...
Bernie Brillstein, the successful Hollywood manager and producer, died last night after suffering from complications following double-bypass heart surgery in February. Here's a snip from Cynthia Littleton's story on the...
Times national editor Scott Kraft addresses the paper's handling of the John Edwards-at-Beverly Hilton story. Blog Supervisor Don Knabe changes his mind and says he will vote to place...
The funeral for murdered Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy Juan Escalante will be held at 9 am downtown at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Burial follows at...
Email sent to Rebecca Rosen-Lum, former religion writer at the Contra Costa Times up north, gets back this little dig: The Contra Costa Times has cut its coverage of religion...
In the face of political and media criticism over the DWP board spicing up the future pension of COO Raman Raj, CEO David Nahai just released a statement saying never...
Cyrus Sanai, the lawyer who publicized the existence of Judge Alex Kozinski's web stash as part of a grudge against the judge, files his report for the LA Weekly on...
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa gave his list of faves to the Times' Guide section. It differs some from the list in Angeleno I posted last night — but still will sound...
Sen. Dianne Feinstein is mulling whether to run for governor in 2010, which would complicate things for Mayor Villaraigoisa and the others. Skelton/LAT Other plaintiffs' lawyers in the most...
RealTalkLA lives on, in a way. (I can't get the website to work.) Craiglist has an ad for LA Reporting and Writing Interns Sought that reads: RealTALKLA.com, founded by Jay...
EaterLA's Lesley Balla did a little feature for Angeleno's food issue this month comparing the dining quotients of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and predecessor once-removed Richard Riordan. (Jim Hahn gets left...
Here are Mark's morning headlines at LA Biz Observed. (Morning turned into all day. Should be back posting tomorrow.)...
It was less than a year ago that L.A. Times Sports Editor Randy Harvey praised his hire of young Metro reporter Jonathan Abrams to cover the Clippers. Now it's the...
Supervisor Gloria Molina joined the two Republicans on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to reject placing a sales tax increase question on the November ballot, citing friction between...
Journalists at the Press-Telegram, District Weekly and LBReport.com (and maybe elsewhere) held the first meeting of the newly christened Long Beach Press Club. Here's a report on the meeting with...
Top of the Ticket finished atop the blog rankings at the L.A. Times again this past month, with the celebrity driven stuff just behind. Peter Viles' L.A. Land continues to...
Actor George Clooney is the featured attraction for the Geneva event on Sept. 2. Here's the email sent to potential Barack Obama donors: Subject: A Reception with George Clooney in...
Teams from the FBI, LAPD and other agencies are up on the residence hill at UCLA this morning for a large-scale training drill set in Rieber Hall, an empty dorm....
In the August issue of Angeleno, national food and travel editor Brad A. Johnson picks his top 50 L.A. area restaurants and hands out some awards: Restaurant of The Year:...
Journalist Sharon Waxman blogs that the trade paper is on the market, based on two sources....
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa hired Miriam Long, now a senior deputy for Supervisor Yvonne Burke, to be his deputy mayor for education, youth and families. From the release: For 12 years,...
Bill Boyarsky, LA Observed's occasional politics columnist, is a finalist in nonfiction for the 2008 book award from the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association. It's for "Big Daddy: Jesse Unruh...
You knew it was only a matter of time before the suits who run the L.A. Daily News realized last week's dress code was a dumb idea. Editor Carolina Garcia...
Back in 2005 we told you about Gene Hughes, creator of the bible of police scanner frequencies. He also volunteered at the desk at the LAPD's Wilshire division. His real...
Controller Laura Chick continues to look at race for City Council in Studio City. Orlov/DNTrouble in the county Hall of Administration over Bill Fujioka's role. DNCouncilwoman Jan Perry responds to...
William Lobdell launched his new Orange County-centric blog with a list of the 42 things he knows after a career at the Los Angeles Times. Excerpts: 8 - The idea...
Love this story. Firefighters in Ventura County are monitoring a patch of land north of Fillmore where the temperature of the ground reached 812 degrees on Friday. From the Ventura...
Manny Ramirez deftly flicked away the attempted needles of Times columnist T.J. Simers in the morning paper, than went 4-for-5 against the Diamondbacks and clubbed his second home run as...
Michalene Busico, who left the Los Angeles Times last week, was one of the high-profile New York Times talents who jumped to the LAT during the John Carroll-Dean Baquet era....
The month just ended was the second-highest ever for visitors to LA Observed. We're over 2.6 million visits for the year; July is the earliest month that LAO has reached...
Juan Abel Escalante, a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy assigned to the Men's Central Jail, was shot and killed outside his Cypress Park home as he left for work about...
I'm told via email that "EVERYBODY is wearing jeans today in the newsroom of the DN. Heh-heh." Yesterday: No more jeans, or Weiskopf, at Daily News...
Executive editor John Arthur to the L.A. Times newsroom early this morning, about the paper's scoop on the suicide of anthrax suspect Bruce Ivins: From: Arthur, John Sent: Friday, August...
Today's Wall Street Journal has a front-page story on Angelenos who commute to work via bicycle. WSJ Mayor Villaraigosa has raised more than $1.6 million for next year's reelection...
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.
