Archive by Date
March 31, 2008
Bunch of people let go today. If I get details I'll pass them on....
Hats off to the new Dodgers show producer, Charles Steinberg. The ceremony before today's opener evoked "Field of Dreams." While a dramatic beat played across the stadium, an old man...
I've received a couple of emails from fans who did just fine getting to the Coliseum game on Saturday, by avoiding the Dodger Stadium shuttles. The funny thing about Saturday...
Short piece in the U.K. magazine on L.A.'s move toward more density — and how cities around the West want to avoid becoming the next Los Angeles. Excerpt: The original...
Joe Torre era begins "Opening Day never gets old," Torre tells Steve Herbert of City News Service. CNS via KNBC From the weekend Zahniser's car theft tale Columnists quit CityBeat...
This updates the preliminary list I posted on March 4. It's based on my best information, but I'm sure there will be additions or deletions as better info comes in....
Times City Hall reporter David Zahniser cracks Column One for the first time with a first-person story about his 1989 Toyota Camry being stolen and recovered three times in six...
March 30, 2008
I'm told that two of the original CityBeat columnists have given up their gigs in response to last week's dump of editor Steve Appleford. Natalie Nichols writes the pop-culture column...
A few hundred fans applauded Dutton's Brentwood Books on Sunday afternoon, filling the courtyard where so many authors have spoken on their L.A. tours. The store closes April 30, and...
Take a look at the line for the Dodger Stadium shuttle bus to Saturday's Coliseum game. Jon Weisman blogged that when he left the game early, the line to return...
Stephanie Simon, a national reporter based in Denver for the Los Angeles Times, will roam the heartland for the Wall Street Journal starting April 14. At the L.A. Times she...
Dith Pran was the Cambodian journalist whose ordeal in the Khmer Rouge death regime was depicted in the 1984 film "The Killing Fields" and, earlier, described in the book by...
Pretty weird: the Dodgers didn't even send out a left fielder, opting instead to use a fifth infielder/rover. But it sounds like the party inside the Coliseum was grand, and...
That's the name of one of L.A.'s most literate film blogs, mentioned here now and then through the years. Now here's the backstory behind the name, pegged to the start...
Calendar section writer Robert Welkos, co-author with Joel Sappell of the Los Angeles Times' seminal investigation of Scientology awhile back, took a lighter touch than most of this season's buyout...
Times legal affairs writer Henry Weinstein's voice carries a lot of weight in the newsroom and his departure may be the one affecting staff morale the most. (Here's his Friday...
Many of the journalists who departed the L.A. Times on Friday sent farewells to the newsroom. Some directed messages at Tribune owner Sam Zell. Here's the email from special projects...
March 29, 2008
An email going around from an LA Weekly staffer says someone at the paper has decided to throw out most of the printed copies of the paper. Folks, Believe it...
Friday was clean out their desk day for the editors, writers and other staffers who left the Los Angeles Times in the lastest wave of buyouts. (I'll update my list...
I won't be joining the mass baseball party this afternoon at the Coliseum — here's why, from my KCRW commentary yesterday — but those who do should have fun. And...
March 28, 2008
I've got a bunch of things to do away from the computer, and today really is a holiday for some, including UCLA staff: Cesar Chavez Day. Here's a roundup of...
March 27, 2008
The headline is NYU journalism professor and blogger Jay Rosen's response to Warren Olney's question about how big a black eye the L.A. Times has suffered in the Sean Combs-Tupac...
Gustavo Arellano announced in today's OC Weekly column that he's dropping the long-running ¡Ask a Mexican! gig that has brought him fame and...well, maybe just fame. And lots of angry...
Reporter Myron Levin, one of the veteran reporters to take the Los Angeles Times buyout, checked out today with a farewell email to the entire editorial staff. He seems to...
The Washington state 19-year-old who cracked the phone system and got Orange County dispatchers to sent a SWAT team to a home in Lake Forest was sentenced to three years...
Romenesko adds up the stream of comments on the errant Tupac Shakur story: 25 pages (now 30 and counting, because they limit each to ten entries.) First seven provide a...
The L.A. Times will resume calling its staff critics what they are. Memo today: From: Wolinsky, Leo Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2008 11:58 AM Subject: Critic Bylines After a 7-year...
The Los Angeles Conservancy is out with its preservation award winners for the 27th year. Of the residential restoration of the Eastern Columbia building downtown, they say: "Magnificent yet long...
Betty Pleasant, the Wave's Soulvine columnist, has been hammering away that there is a racial aspect to the gang murders sweeping South Los Angeles and the Eastside. LAPD chief Bill...
CityBeat's L.A. Sniper columnist Alan Mittelstaedt captures Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky's persuasive argument that the Times' cutback of local coverage through the years contributes to the city's bad traffic by letting...
Should Marcus Allen be CAO? Daily News editorial says no, citing Allen's crossover from city service to lobbyist: "Allen's experience aside, he is a questionable choice to fill this important...
March 26, 2008
Veteran Los Angeles Times reporter Chuck Philips and his editor, Deputy Managing Editor Marc Duvoisin, issued statements of apology for the story that linked Sean Combs to the murder of...
After this week's issue went to bed earlier today, the staff of CityBeat was told that founding editor Steve Appleford is being replaced by Steve Lowery, who starts Monday. This...
The firefighter who suffered fatal injuries today in Westchester was identified this evening as Brent A. Lovrien. He was a 10-year veteran assigned to the 'A' Platoon at Fire Station...
An underground explosion around 2 pm blew off manhole covers on Sepulveda Boulevard near La Tijera. Both streets were closed briefly for air ambulance operations. A gas leak or electrical...
Friends, fans and employees of Dutton's Brentwood Bookstore will gather in the courtyard one last time this Sunday at 5 pm. The shelves already look rather sad, but the final...
As a reporter, I liked to write about L.A's infrastructure — freeways, water, refuse. I always thought there was a book in the history of the Los Angeles sewer system,...
Sam Zell wants his "partners" in the Tribune empire to send their ideas to a new online Idea Bank -- and to make withdrawals too. The latest from Uncle Sam:...
Fabian Wesson, wife of City Councilman (and former Speaker) Herb Wesson, has opened a committee to explore running for the Assembly in 2010 when Speaker-elect Karen Bass is termed out,...
CBS executives are moving to the Studio City complex from Television City this weekend. The influx of all those suits figures to disrupt the Radford lot culture, not to mention...
The report in the Smoking Gun that the Times got duped on its recent Sean Combs- Tupac Shakur story has been top of the page for hours now at LATImes.com,...
Every so often we get a glimpse of how things really work, without the cautionary impulse and spinning that takes over when people are talking to the media. Eater LA...
The Smoking Gun claims that the L.A. Times relied on FBI documents fabricated by con man James Sabatino for the paper's report last week that the 1994 shooting of Tupac...
Designing for drive-by bullets Planning for street shooting is becoming part of the L.A. architecture, according to the Times. "When we look at the pragmatism of our neighborhoods, we have...
From the South Bay Daily Breeze: Correction about concert I am grateful for the very kind words by letter writer Rosemarie Persek ("SP event was inspirational," March 17) regarding my...
Riffing a little on Los Angeles magazine's 64 Greatest Things in L.A. contest, Los Angeles Metblogs has started polling on the 64 Worst Things about L.A. The blog's competitive pairings...
Ever since Lee Abrams began memoing his future co-workers all over the Tribune Company with his ideas on Innovation!, I've been getting emails that skewer his ideas as less than...
March 25, 2008
Back when boxing was a big spectator sport in Los Angeles, Art Aragon fought major bouts at the Olympic Auditorium, Wrigley Field and Hollywood's Legion Stadium. He was "the top...
The City Council will wait a week to vote on the hike sought by the Department of Water and Power. Time for more politicking study. The Daily News, which has...
Borrowing a page from Frank Girardot in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, adopted sister paper the Daily Breeze has launched its own crime scene blog. Reporters Larry Altman and Denise...
Newsom, one of the California mayors who might run for governor in 2010, said today in the state capital that it's "wildly premature" to consider running but added he "surely...
A couple visiting from Colorado had their bikes stolen — and their vacation spoiled — by a "mid 30’s well-dressed white couple" in Santa Monica on St. Patrick's Day. They...
Chief administrative officer Karen Sisson is returning to her alma mater, Pomona College, to be vice president and treasurer. She has been CAO since December 2006 and before that was...
Lee Abrams hasn't started yet, but writes another memo in which he gets all enthused thinking of original ideas...that newspaper and TV editors and website producers have been doing all...
The news got out yesterday that Tribune would switch its San Diego affiliate to Fox from the CW Network. Now here's the memo explaining the move, and naming a new...
Christian Lander, the Culver City-based writer of the hit satire blog Stuff White People Like, has gotten a William Morris agent (Erin Malone) and a book deal out of the...
Two Long Beach city council members marched with Press-Telegram workers outside the beleaguered newspaper's offices yesterday. P-T, LB Report Also in Long Beach: Surgeons say they successfully repaired a hole...
Ugly Downtown parking structure to finally go Parking Lot 17, the "Erector set" structure across from the courthouse at 1st and Olive, was reviled the day it went up in...
March 24, 2008
Radio One has agreed to sell KRBV-FM, also known as V100, to the company that used to operate KBIG and KZLA here. Bonneville is paying $137.5 million for the station,...
The every-burgeoning Los Angeles entertainment desk of Associated Press snagged a photo editor from Getty Images. Press release on the hire of Guinevere Smith as national entertainment photo editor after...
Lisa Napoli did a nice story on today's Marketplace about Ngawang, a 23-year-old DJ in Bhutan who is visiting — and discovering — Los Angeles for the first time. Until...
Greg Krikorian, a Los Angeles Times veteran who is the lead reporter on the Anthony Pellicano trial, applied for and received the recent buyout. He's joining the office of the...
CEO Sam Zell enjoyed the little dig his Chicago Tribune got in on the rival Sun-Times, which held a contest to let readers' express their opinion on Zell's possible interest...
Eric Alterman's piece considers the HuffPost as a step along the path of evolving news and opinion, away from the printed newspaper. Some tidbits: First envisaged as a liberal alternative...
Contents of SWAT report Reporter Eric Leonard obtained a copy from outside the LAPD, posts the PDF file and summarizes the conclusions, including a relaxation of physical standards so that...
When the season opens next Monday, Canter's will have a stand selling corned beef and pastrami on the third-base side of the field level at Dodger Stadium. The concessions area...
Just fyi, this is the day that heart surgery is scheduled at Children's Hospital for Davik Teng, the 9-year-old girl from rural Cambodia who was brought to the U.S. by...
Eric is off this week doing his duty as the parent of a pre-college teen, so everybody can take some time to play with their pages for Right of Way....
March 23, 2008
Talk about corrections. Months after finalizing Sara Jane Olson's prison release date, five days after letting her out — but two days after police groups started squawking — the California...
Writing as an alum of the Long Beach Press-Telegram, author and journalist Dennis McDougal bemoans the paper's downgrade in a Sunday Opinion piece for the LAT: In most parts of...
March 21, 2008
In his blog on the Times website, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar says that one of the most common perceptions of him when he played basketball — that he was angry a lot...
Once around: Child advocate and former L.A. first lady Nancy Daly Riordan guests with Laurel Erickson on a special edition of KNBC News Conference, airing Saturday at 4 pm. Councilman...
The celebrity chaser who revealed that Britney Spears tips the paparazzi where she's going to be has sued X-17, alleging that three of the agency's photographers beat him up. Alison...
MaryKaye Schilling is leaving to return to New York, according to an abrupt memo from the newly assigned editor helping with management issues on the L.A. Times features side. From:...
More planning commission patronage Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa appointed Fabian Nuñez aide Ricardo Lara to the city planning commission, which is mostly interesting because he recently dropped out of the Assembly...
Remember a few weeks back when LAO posted the news on Associated Press muscling up its entertainment and celebrity overage out of the Los Angeles bureau? That announcement, a month...
March 20, 2008
The former Kathleen Soliah was released this week from the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla after serving six years. Nabbed after two decades in hiding, she pleaded guilty in...
Demolition didn't take long. A crew took down the scaffolding yesterday, leaving a bare lot at the corner of Gayley and Lindbrook where the newest, most modern single-screen in Westwood...
Foreign Editor Marjorie Miller marked the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war with a "well done" message to the Iraqi nationals who help staff the Los Angeles Times bureau in...
Tribune CEO Sam Zell just sent all the "partners" — his title for the employees who put up the money for him to buy the company — a note acknowledging...
Andrew Kamenetzky, half of the brotherly duo that travels with the Lakers and covers the team every day for their L.A. Times-owned blog, was denied access last night to the...
The body of Alexander Merman, 35, was found shot to death in his Montana Avenue apartment last night. Over the weekend, aspiring actress Juliana Maureen Redding, 21, was found in...
The common link is the Los Angeles Press Club. Shearer, the actor and host of a popular KCRW show, will emcee the club's June 21 awards dinner at the Biltmore...
Sam Zell's new company endured a $78 million loss in the fourth quarter of 2007 compared to a a profit of $233 million in the same quarter a year earlier....
As we suggested yesterday in Payback time. Became official at 11 am....
Alan Miller was a charter member of the investigative team in the Times Washington bureau and won his Pulitzer in 2003 for stories on problems with the military aircraft so...
Villaraigosa takes a furlough day The mayor asked other employees to do it, so today he goes off the books and will lose $858.26 in gross pay. He still has...
March 19, 2008
Rip Rense attended last week's Los Angeles Herald Examiner reunion, but he found it too surreal and disorienting to see his old colleagues — and editor Jim Bellows — 19...
Scene: Detectives Deland and Gallardo drive to Malibu to give Celeste the bad news: her husband died in the restroom of a North Hollywood theater, the Vermouth. Murdered — while...
Steve Oney's piece from last June about Iraq war casualty Chris Leon is a National Magazine Awards finalist in profile writing. He shares the category with stories in The...
Chief William Bratton has scheduled an 11 am press conference tomorrow with State Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas, the candidate for county Supervisor. They don't officially label it an endorsement event. But...
Well, just a new name. Jamie Court has abandoned the snooze-inducing Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights in favor of...ta dah...Consumer Watchdog.org. Broadcasters everywhere will no doubt applaud the switch....
The Los Angeles City Council voted 10-5 this morning to stop work on the annexation application of the heavily lobbied Las Lomas project in Newhall Pass. Rick Orlov and Kerry...
Note to KTLA: the TV station that Sam Zell's Tribune company owns in South Florida is moving in with the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel newspaper. Zell has said the company would...
Explaining the homicide jump With 93 murders so far compared to 69 last year, the LAPD took the step of analyzing each and announcing that racial animosity is not to...
March 18, 2008
Chief Bratton gave his side of the SWAT report controversy, and talked about having women in the unit, this afternoon on "Patt Morrison" on KPCC. (Audio.) Mayor Villaraigosa was also...
The English-born writer of science fiction died in Sri Lanka, his home since 1956. NYT, BBC, AP...
The headline above is the first line of Dr. Mauricio Heilbron Jr.'s Op-Ed piece in today's Long Beach Press-Telegram. The boy is the 11-year-old who was cut down Sunday night...
Longtime L.A. Times pop critic Robert Hilburn has signed with ModernTimes/Rodale to do a "deeply personal and highly opinionated memoir" of his decades covering the music scene. From the flackage:...
Director Anthony Minghella dies after surgery The Oscar winner, who directed "The English Patient," "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and "Cold Mountain," died this morning in a London hospital of complications...
March 17, 2008
Mark over at LA Biz Observed hopped quickly on the death today of Roland Arnall, founder of subprime loan giant Ameriquest. Arnall has been a major money guy for Republicans...
New U.S. Attorney Thomas O’Brien redistributed the 17 lawyers in the public integrity unit in Los Angeles among the major fraud and organized crime sections, the Recorder reports. The San...
David Willman of the L.A. Times Washington bureau is no longer on the buyout list, he confirms. (I previously termed it that he "withdrew," but that's saying more than I...
Tracing the hip-hop wars In another of his periodic investigative pieces on the murders of hip-hop stars, Chuck Philips says there is evidence that the beating of Tupac Shakur in...
The Downtown News' Jon Regardie saw some news in Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa repeating to Charlie Rose the company line that will he run next year for a second term. In...
March 16, 2008
An LA Observed reader emailed to alert me to the big news out of the Federal Reserve and to wonder why his hometown paper wasn't on it: Lead story...
KNBC Channel 4 has tapped David Markland, a "city captain" at LA Metblogs, to write a couple of items a day under the California Faultline banner. He will focus on...
The Dodgers manager, looking dapper at the Great Wall. (Now picture Tommy Lasorda.) Josh Rawitch has a report on the Dodgers' day around Beijing and the media who joined the...
Councilman Tony Cardenas told Controller Laura Chick Friday to "get out of my face." DN LAT reporter Martha Groves describes in first-person detail (plus slideshow) the ordeal of recovering...
For last week's reunion of Los Angeles Herald Examiner alums, organizer Alex Ben Block, columnist for Hollywood Today.net, and Josh Kleinbaum, managing editor of interactive for the Los Angeles Newspaper...
March 14, 2008
Higher trash fees on City Hall agenda The last hike was unpopular but went through, so Mayor Villaraigosa has directed city budget experts to consider another raise — to $38...
March 13, 2008
Mark Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks owner and media-savvy blogger, writes that the rush by respected publishers to re-brand their content as coming from bloggers "is easily one of the many...
Every so often, one of the local media outlets returns to the theme of "The Valley, it's not so bad" and pretends the concept itself isn't kind of old. Today...
Oscar Medrano Jr., 47, was picked up by sheriff's deputies at his Gardena jewelry store on suspicion of molesting a 14-year-old girl. No charges filed as yet. Worth noting, I...
Journalists turned out at the Beverly Hilton Hotel for a press conference where the Girls Gone Wild founder again ranted about being in jail for most of a year. "We...
Along with the story on 22-year-old escort Ashley Dupre's life and some quotes from her beyond the MySpace page, today's New York Times also reconstructs how its reporters got on...
Elizabeth Hill announced Thursday she will retire from her "dream job" as Legislative Analyst at the end of the year. "It's time for a new chapter in my life," said...
"I am ecstatic with no-bullshit excitement and pride in joining The Tribune Company," writes Lee Abrams, hired from XM Satellite Radio. He calls news and information "the NEW Rock n...
Ron Kaye, editor of the Daily News, delivers an homage on the paper's Op-Ed page to Jim Bellows, the editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner when Kaye was there....
In-N-Out's traffic snarls The line backups at In-N-Out stands have been a fact of L.A. life for years, especially for nearby businesses and residences. But it finally hits the press....
March 12, 2008
Journalist Sharon Waxman is happy with her new silver Prius, except there are so many around that look alike. Today at Trader Joe's, she threw her bags in, plopped down...
Looks like it's down to Villaraigosa cousin and labor favorite John Perez. Arturo Chavez, an aide to Sen. Gil Cedillo, and Ricardo Lara, an aide to Speaker Fabian Núñez, have...
Here's a YouTube video of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, at UCLA yesterday, declining to make an endorsement in the presidential race but saying nicer things about Barack Obama. Of...
A San Marino home has about a million bees buzzing around it — in the walls and in the house — and honey is oozing out of the walls in...
Eric Estrin selected two winners who have never met for the LA Observed Script Project t-shirt this week. Bill Braunstein was new to Los Angeles in 1985 when the Ross...
How NYT got the Spitzer story And kept it quiet. NY Observer From Tuesday Howard Berman gets foreign affairs Keeper of LA's saints Columnist blogs his firing Antonio likes the...
March 11, 2008
Two days ago, Dodger Thoughts blogger Jon Weisman signed up as a YouTube user and posted footage of Dodger farmhand Clayton Kershaw throwing one spring training pitch — strike three...
Rep. Howard Berman, in his 13th term, today was officially named chairman of the House committee on foreign affairs, replacing the late Tom Lantos. Originally a supporter of the Iraq...
The Los Angeles Times has lost more subscribers in the past four years than any U.S. newspaper and it isn't even close. Editor & Publisher compared 2007 circulation to 2003...
Last weekend's New York Times did a nice spread on J. Michael Walker and his one-of-a-kind Los Angeles book, "All the Saints of the City of the Angels: Seeking the...
Wes Hughes, a former editor at various levels of the Los Angeles Times, was a city editor and columnist at the San Bernardino Sun until last week's layoffs. In the...
Twelve U.S. journalists from ethnic media have been selected to take part in a week-long program, "Immigration: Reporting the Full Story," put on March 16-23 by USC Annenberg's Institute for...
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa enjoyed the show front and, um, center, at the Martin Schoeller exhibition opening reception at ACE Gallery in Beverly Hills. Captured by Glitterati Magazine and commented upon...
Paul Oberjuerge was writing his column for the San Bernardino Sun when he got the call. They were "eliminating the position of sports columnist for the Inland group.” These days,...
CNNMoney.com did a little web photo feature on where successful website startups such as Craigslist began. In the case of Digg, it was Kevin Rose's apartment at 3255 Sawtelle Blvd.,...
In his first visit to the Wall Street Journal’s D.C. bureau, new owner Rupert Murdoch told staffers that he would put more resources into Washington coverage and take on the...
Latest round of Chick v. Cardenas Exchange of letters yesterday afternoon with City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo over gang programs. WitnessLA Jane Usher email invites suits against the city The president...
March 10, 2008
The latest entry on the Los Angeles Times politics blog comes from a new — but no longer unexpected — source. It's credited not to one of the Times' bloggers...
That audio of O.J. Simpson hollering at sports memorabilia collectors in a Las Vegas hotel last year was worth $165,000 to TMZ.com, reports The Smoking Gun today. TMZ reportedly bought...
Ed Padgett at the Los Angeles Times Pressmens blog posted the news on Friday: 31 employees out, most in Orange County, some at the downtown L.A. printing plant. Just a...
The best political contest of the year in Los Angeles, by far, is the showdown between Councilman Bernard Parks and State Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas to be anointed the next Los...
Jane Galbraith is leaving as director of communications for Councilman Tom LaBonge after six years to work in the public affairs group at the Department of Water and Power. She...
Turf fight over gangs Controller Chick and Councilman Cardenas are still at odds over who should oversee the anti-gang funds available to the city. "I say to them -- because...
March 09, 2008
What did they charge to see a silent movie in 1923, a quarter? At UCLA's Royce Hall this afternoon, many in the nearly full house paid $25 to see Harold...
Tad Daley, a writing fellow with International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, rides on weekends with Los Angeles Wheelmen, Santa Monica Critical Mass and the South Bay Cruisers....
The documentary Citizen McCaw opened Friday night to a sell-out crowd of 2,200, reportedly including Wendy McCaw's sister, said to have remarked that she loved the film. Afterward, the crowd...
March 08, 2008
The new website created and bankrolled by Liz Smith, Lesley Stahl, Peggy Noonan, Mary Wells and Joni Evans went live today. Backed by $1 million and a fulltime staff of...
Couple of bad links fixed Sports columnist Paul Oberjuerge, science writer Elise Kleeman and former LAT editor Wes Hughes are among the staffers out of jobs in this week's round...
March 07, 2008
My LA Observed commentary on KCRW today talks about the scene that awaits Lindsay Lohan when she reports to the Los Angeles County morgue for her four hours of mandatory...
Donna Barstow takes some pics and blogs her thoughts about the Department of Water and Power....
Certain eyes popped wide open when the Times reported last week that Nancy Daly Riordan, the ex-mayor's ex-wife, had sold her Malibu home for a whopping $68 million. Even for...
Staffers at the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, already reeling from firings yesterday, have been told to show up today: "Please arrange your schedule to meet here at the Tribune in...
Tyler Green at Modern Art Notes has the memo and the explanation from spokesman Ron Hartwig that staff reductions are a result of new CEO James Wood bringing the Getty...
Associate Editor Leo Wolinsky had handled page one duties through several of the recent editorships at the Los Angeles Times. For the first time in his 30-year career at the...
An editorial in today's Long Beach Press-Telegram admits to challenges ahead, but says some of the fears about the paper's future have been overblown. Excerpt: The issue of the restructuring...
Other deadlines intervene today. But check out Mark Lacter's Friday morning headlines at LA Biz Observed....
March 06, 2008
You've read about the story, now here's the invitation. Tomorrow night's event for City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo was put together, reports David Zahniser in the Times, by Ken Spiker and...
After losing four sports staffers last week at the Daily News, the sports editor who doubles as writer of the paper's successful Kings blog had to ask for volunteers to...
Ten newsroom positions will be eliminated from Pasadena to Whittier "before the day is out," says ex-staffer Gary Scott at his blog. Other departments are losing key people as well....
NPR's board of directors says that Ken Stern is leaving by "mutual agreement." The memo from chairman Dennis Haarsager follows:...
Her years in Los Angeles taught Nancy Rommelmann, an ex-New Yorker, that no one is more provincial than New Yorkers. So she isn't surprised that Manhattan's publishing industry and the...
Long Beach resident and LA Observed reader Ron Schweitzer sent a letter to the Press-Telegram explaining why the latest cuts there pushed him into becoming an L.A. Times buyer. His...
One reporter each at the Pasadena Star-News and San Gabriel Valley Tribune so far, says former LANGland editor and reporter Gary Scott. More expected at the Inland Empire properties, he...
Slope slides down to the street, knocks out power and pretty much screws traffic in that part of Westwood. LAT Also: Commuting isn't fun on Pacific Coast Highway either....
Times sports columnist (and former editor of the section) Bill Dwyre gave a nice shout out in today's column to laid-off sports staffers at the rival Daily News: Finally, a...
LAPD addresses big jump in homicides Murder in Los Angeles is up 27% so far this year. "One death is one too many, but we think it's a bit of...
March 05, 2008
As Mayor Napolitano leaves the Brentwood party with Celeste, her husband is gagging on an unwanted mouth full of gnarly Scottish peat in the men's room of a North Hollywood...
Mayor Villaraigosa may have missed the Texas party for Hillary Clinton after Steve Lopez came gunning for him, but His Honor looks like he had a pretty good time last...
The Anthony Pellicano trial jury was seated today. The government's opening statement is set to begin tomorrow at 8 am. The prosecution's official witness list, unsealed today, has 127 names...
The Bay Guardian won its predatory pricing lawsuit against the SF Weekly, receiving about $15 million in trebled damages. Longtime BAG owner Bruce Brugmann had accused the New Times boys...
Veteran Times reporter Henry Weinstein will be on KCRW's Which Way, L.A.? tonight at 7 pm talking with host Warren Olney about the effects of buyouts at the LAT. Weinstein...
One is that Speaker Bass is related to State Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas, reports Shane Goldmacher of the Sacramento Bee. She also went to Hamilton High, same as Rep. Howard Berman,...
Harrison Sheppard is returning to the Woodland Hills office, where he will do a mix of editing and reporting, the Sacramento Bee's Capitol Alert says. Sheppard went up to Sacramento...
Mark Lacter and I were just on "Airtalk" talking with Larry Mantle about the buyouts at the Times and other local papers. You can hear it in the archives at...
Pellicano trial begins today Although the case has not lived up to its billing as Hollywood's biggest scandal in decades, it still will offer "plenty of star power and plot...
March 04, 2008
It's been a while since LA Observed readers first met math-challenged weather babe Jackie Johnson. If you have always craved just a little bit more, the CBS2/KCAL website has what...
Assemblywoman Nell Soto, the 81 year-old Democrat from the San Gabriel Valley, hasn't been in Sacramento since at least September. She has been out ill. She also hasn't filed the...
This is the unofficial list going around the Los Angeles Times newsroom of staffers who applied for the buyout, whether nudged or not. Some applications may be declined, in theory,...
Celeste Fremon is expected to guest on "Patt Morrison" on KPCC at the top of the 2 pm hour, to talk about the fake Margaret B. Jones "memoir" and what...
Dance critic Lewis Segal got the tap on the shoulder. His position is being eliminated, Sasha Anawalt writes: In a city where dance riddles the inner sanctums of churches, temples,...
Madness has swept KCRW and they're letting me host Politics of Culture today at 2:30 pm — a half-hour of live radio on the blurred lines between journalism and blogging...
From yesterday Margaret B. Jones' whopper MediaNews on 'negative watch' 'Citizen McCaw' premieres Friday The week in sports Past 24 hours on LAO 2 days of posts Rising football...
Three Pulitzer winners from the John Carroll-Dean Baquet era turned in papers by yesterday's deadline, I'm told. Many other veteran reporters and editors have decided to call it quits. I'll...
She's Margaret Seltzer, she went to preppy Campbell Hall, and she never ran drugs for the Bloods in South L.A., she confessed to the New York Times. The publisher of...
No print edition, just online, and not much more ambitious than the mix already posted at the Anschutz media empire's obscure Los Angeles site — AP wires and generic stuff...
March 03, 2008
Alumni of the late Los Angeles Herald Examiner, as they called it toward the end, are gathering March 13 at the L.A. Press Club. The paper closed 19 years ago...
Emmy winning writer, director, producer and blogger Ken Levine will do the post-game honors on KABC 790 AM this season. Levine has done play-by-play gigs for the Padres, Mariners and...
News and politics did well in the LATimes.com stats for February, so maybe there's hope yet. Politics blog Top of the Ticket led the pack of in-house blogs in February...
The documentary on Wendy McCaw's wreckage in Santa Barbara premieres Friday night up there. Filmmaker Sam Tyler, who will speak after the showing, says they thought about calling it "Will...
From the weekend Disappointed in Antonio Who's leaving Daily News Long Beach columnist whiffs Tales of County Jail All weekend posts Mayor cuts short his latest trip for Clinton...
March 02, 2008
My weekend reading hit upon two fair, non-whiny examples of backlash against paparazzi and their nearly as notorious kin, those who snap celebs on cell phone cameras. Mary-Louise Parker, in...
In the course of advising Los Angeles what it needs to become a super-city like London, New York or Shanghai, Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne (in the Sunday magazine)...
In his first column since the newspaper he has headlined for 30 years was decimated, "Mr. Press-Telegram" Tom Hennessey took a deep breath and railed at the horrible injustice of...Sam...
The Paper Trail, blog of the Daily News newsroom guild, names names and posts tributes to the staff who departed Friday. Included in the toll are Lisa Friedman, the paper's...
The newspaper based in Monterey Park was hit with damages, penalties and interest in the class-action suit won by reporters and other staffers last year. They had alleged long hours...
