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Grab of the LA Times front-page Sunday headline on Trump. They weren't alone.
Our occasional (but becoming more regular) column of media and politics notes, with other news and observations. From multiple sources and the LA Observed in-box.
At the top
Debate night: The first Clinton-Trump debate is at 6 p.m. Monday, moderated by NBC's Lester Holt from Hofstra University. Pundits think it might be the most watched political campaign event ever aired in the U.S., with a possible audience of over 100 million. Here's how you can watch... Nate Silver: Where The Race Stands Heading Into The First Debate... Dylan Byers/Politico: NBC looks to Lester Holt for debate win after 2016 mishaps... The debate is Lester Holt's moment, says NPR's David Folkenflik... How Holt is getting ready, from Brian Stelter at CNN... Mary McNamara in the LA Times: Why TV news needs to pull itself together for the Trump-Clinton presidential debates... Margaret Sullivan in the WashPost: Why you should watch even if you’ve made up your mind... Holt, by the way, is a registered Republican but that doesn't stop Trump from fooling his followers by saying Holt is a Democrat... The Trump campaign bought up the Snapchat national ad filter for debate night, going after millennials.
Newspapers against Trump: The LA Times news headline on Sunday's story by Michael Finnegan: Scope of Trump's falsehoods unprecedented for a modern presidential candidate. The paper also endorsed Clinton on the editorial page: "We can elect an experienced, thoughtful and deeply knowledgeable public servant or a thin-skinned demagogue who is unqualified and unsuited to be president...Electing Trump could be catastrophic for the nation." The New York Times last week called out Trump's record of casually lying about facts, and this weekend also ran the opinion side's endorsement of Clinton and argued why Trump should not be president: it all goes back to his made-up fearmongering about Mexican rapists invading the U.S.
From that moment of combustion, it became clear that Mr. Trump’s views were matters of dangerous impulse and cynical pandering rather than thoughtful politics...Whatever his gyrations, Mr. Trump always does make clear where his heart lies — with the anti-immigrant, nativist and racist signals that he scurrilously employed to build his base...
Bluster, savage mockery of those who challenge him, degrading comments about women, mendacity, crude generalizations about nations and religions. Our presidents are role models for generations of our children. Is this the example we want for them?
Vin Scully's final day at the stadium: The Dodgers clinched the National League West on a Charlie Culberson walk-off home run in the 10th inning, ending a long emotional weekend send-off for Vin Scully. You can find stories all over the place, including a special section within Sunday's LA Times. I've been more heavily engaged on Twitter. Selected reading: Jim Murray's 1999 column on Scully as the greatest Dodger of all time... LA Times reporter Hecter Becerra on learning English from Vin growing up in Boyle Heights... Meet Vin's successor Joe Davis.
After the game:
All for you, #VIN🎙. https://t.co/whd02EBBpk
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) September 26, 2016
Hollywood versus reality: Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a bill sought by Hollywood that requires IMDb to remove accurate ages from profiles if requested by a paid subscriber. SAG-AFTRA and other Hollywood interests pushed this attack on Internet speech instead of actually doing something about age discrimination.
A new thing to worry about: LA journalist Vince Beiser on the coming world shortage of sand. CBC, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
Media notes
Jane Pauley will succeed Charles Osgood as host of "CBS Sunday Morning," the network announced Sunday... In Los Angeles, Kris Knutsen (pictured) of KTLA has moved over to Fox 11 with a big promotion as VP and News Director. For now Kerry Brace is acting assistant news director at Channel 5... Jann Wenner has decided to sell 49 percent of Rolling Stone magazine and its digital assets to BandLab Technologies, a Singapore-based social-networking site for musicians and fans... The final days of Roger Ailes' reign at Fox by Sarah Ellison in the November Vanity Fair... NPR this week is running voices from Studs Terkel's 1974 book, "Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day And How They Feel About What They Do."... Ashleigh Banfield anchored her last "CNN Legal View." Cancelled... Everything you need to know about Angelina Jolie’s divorce lawyer, Laura Wasser, per Slate... Hot media lawyer of the moment Charles Harder on clients Hulk Hogan, Melania Trump, Roger Ailes and more, in THR: "I'm anything but the enemy of a free press. I believe very strongly in a free press. But I don't believe in a reckless press. The First Amendment isn't unlimited."
Also: Inside NBC 4's "insane new doppler weather radar truck," at KPCC Off-Ramp... Boom: A Journal of California celebrates its new issue under editor Jason Sexton with a forum on prison reform this week... Apartments are going up at the former address of the Daily News in Woodland Hills... Slate, now 20 years old, reflects on the value of taking the long view and not chasing digital media trends.
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Around the Timeses
Dean Baquet in Slate on the difference between making cuts as editor of the New York Times and refusing to make them as editor of the Los Angeles Times: "To be perfectly blunt, I didn’t trust the ownership of the L.A. Times” That was in the Tribune ownership years... A film adaptation of the LA Times' recent "Framed" series is being shopped around with Julia Roberts attached to play PTA mom Kelli Peters... KPCC reporter Ben Bergman's tweet regarding the LAT's latest subscription push: "I don't want to say you're devaluing the brand -- but 8 cents a week?"... Former LAT editor Barbara Thomas takes over as adviser to the Occidental College weekly student newspaper... An LA Times news video about a fatal car crash at USC used footage of UCLA. I guess that Tronc video revolution has a ways to go.
Politics notes
Fact-checking: Donald Trump’s Week of Misrepresentations, Exaggerations and Half-Truths in Politico... Hillary Clinton Struggles Most With Truth About Herself... James Fallows: How many CEOs of the Fortune 100 largest companies in the United States have made donations to Trump? Zero... Senator Ted Cruz has been renting his donor list to the Trump campaign for months, for payment, says Politico's Shane Goldmacher... The Seven Broken Guardrails of Democracy, shattered by the rise of Donald Trump, per David Frum in The Atlantic... David Cay Johnston, the New York journalist and author of "The Making of Donald Trump,” chats about the candidate with Truthdig's Robert Scheer.
Name brands weigh in: Bruce Springsteen says of Trump "the republic is under siege by a moron, basically. The whole thing is tragic...a tragedy for our democracy"... Roger Angell of the New Yorker endorses Clinton, citing years of Trump transgressions... Garrison Keillor in the Washington Post: "Every New Yorker knows...that the biggest con job since the Trojan horse is taking place in our midst."
Some politics is local: The Janice Hahn-Steve Napolitano race for county supervisor is a real fight, Abby Sewell of the LAT observes... Trump mega-donor Geoff Palmer is also LA's most controversial developer, Peter Dreier writes in the American Prospect... Ex City Hall official Cecilia Estolano in The Planning Report: Why New Affordable Housing Draws the Short Straw in Los Angeles... The CalMatters guide to California's 17 state ballot propositions... Saving the West is a new "website and community portal that will educate the public, develop a community of change-makers, and elevate partner organizations and thought leaders who are already making a difference."
People are talking about...
Golfer Arnold Palmer has died at age 87... Councilman David Ryu appeared to say that he actually believes that Los Angeles will have no human-driven cars or trucks by 2035. Not just that public transit will be driverless, but the whole city, meaning all income levels, in all neighborhoods, whether they want it or not. Let's be nice and call it doubtful. WSJ's Chris Mims: It will be years before the first autonomous car actually goes anywhere. Also: a discussion at KPCC Airtalk... A plan for turning a former rail yard next to the Los Angeles River known as Parcel G2 into park space, wetlands and other amenities could cost more than $252 million, city analysts said... The wife of ABC 7 meteorologist Dallas Raines was arrested and charged with with assaulting their daughter. Danielle Raines pleaded not guilty... The troubled past and questionable benefits of Hollywood’s oldest awards show for kids: The Young Artist Awards. LAT... What the urbanist and writer Jane Jacobs got so right about cities—and what she got wrong.
Media people doing stuff
David Kennerly captured George W. Bush and Michelle Obama at the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (right)... LA Times sports editor Angel Rodriguez writes as a Cuban American on what Jose Fernandez, the star Miami Marlins pitcher who was killed Sunday morning in a boating crash, meant to the Cuban community... Dan Rather launches a new show on Sirius Radio on Tuesday... Winners of the News and Documentary Emmy Awards, led by PBS with 14 trophies... "60 Minutes" correspondent Bill Whitaker talks about making the move from the CBS bureau in Los Angeles... Former LA reporter Anita Chabria is the Sacramento Bee reporter who got video of a police shooting up there released... USC Annenberg student Giovanni Moujaes has a byline in The Guardian on the Camarillo farm where field workers will get overtime... Ted Johnson of Variety recorded his 100th PopPolitics podcast. In this episode: That “Between Two Ferns” clip with Hillary Clinton shattered the series' one-day viewership records, and as of Sunday had 45 million views... Where Anthony Bourdain ate, drank and stayed on his recent trip to Los Angeles... Ann Brenoff of the Huffington Post on 10 reasons why older people still use Yahoo Mail.
Place
Lots of new attention to LA jails: Lisa Ling's report on This Is Life aired Sunday night... A new academic study from UCLA shows that more money is spent to lock up residents of Lancaster than any other local place... And KCRW is currently running a recurring series of jail stories.
Los Angeles-raised Olympic runner Kate Grace (right), who ran for the U.S. in the 800-meter finals in Rio, was interviewed by her mother, Kathy Smith, for a podcast... The Soberanes Fire — which continues to burn throughout California’s Monterey County — is the most expensive in the United States’ history, with costs topping $208.4 million. Pacific Standard... Students at St. Genevieve High School in Panorama City are helping produce a documentary on former First Lady Rosalynn Carter and are due to return Monday from Plains, Georgia... The Los Angeles County Fair's run for 2016 ended on Sunday at the fairgrounds in Pomona... Johnny Depp's five penthouses in the Eastern Columbia building on Broadway... Loyola Marymount University celebrated $13 million in gifts from animation pioneer Walter Lantz and his foundation with an art exhibition called “Woody Woodpecker and the Avant-Garde."
Looking ahead: The Great LA Walk on Monday will reveal plans for the 11th annual walk to be held November 19... The Lone Pine Film Festival opens Oct. 6 in the Eastern Sierra.
A tad bit of sports: The LA Rams won again, 37-32 over Tampa Bay. The Rams are 2-1 to start the season for the first time since 2006... Kenny Washington broke the modern NFL color barrier as an African-American player with the Rams one year before Jackie Robinson played for the Brooklyn Dodgers... Former Clippers first-round pick Darius Miles is bankrupt... A nice little story: Pasadena's Clairbourn School is naming a batting cage after longtime physical education instructor and baseball coach John Paciorek, the only major league baseball player to end his career batting 1.000 (with more than two appearances at the plate.)
Selected tweets
I snuck a weather report into the newsletter. COLD at Hofstra in the AM, but ☀️ day ahead, possible ☔️ post debate https://t.co/4BBp4XG8jx pic.twitter.com/0vxM4Ne8Z8
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) September 26, 2016
I just got the news at about 8:45 that Arnold had passed. I was shocked to hear that we lost a great friend—and… https://t.co/MLtCJR2Jxe
— Jack Nicklaus (@jacknicklaus) September 26, 2016
Thanks Arnold for your friendship, counsel and a lot of laughs. Your philanthropy and humility are part of your legend.
— Tiger Woods (@TigerWoods) September 26, 2016
Full of emotion as Vin announces his last Dodger Stadium telecast. We've grown up with him. He's our City's constant through major changes.
— Larry Mantle (@LarryMantle) September 25, 2016
Everyone in the press box capturing the moment #VinScullyDay @CBSLA @CBSLAPeter pic.twitter.com/wpAbUFQsgW
— Ken Koller (@code20photog) September 24, 2016
Reporting for jury duty and reminded not to bring weapons, alcoholic beverages, or tank tops. Yikes! Is that what court is like now?
— Chris Nichols (@ChrisNicholsLA) September 22, 2016
