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Anthony Marquez, the Associated Press bureau chief in Los Angeles since 2003, died on Thursday of complications from cancer. He was 55, the wire service said. The graduate of Cal State Fresno began with AP as a summer intern in the Minneapolis bureau, then he joined the San Francisco bureau as a reporter. The LA bureau that he ran is the second-largest in the nation for AP.
Marquez also had worked for the Mercury News in San Jose and at other Bay Area newspapers. From the AP story:
Unfailingly courteous and with a disarmingly quick wit, Marquez was that rare boss and executive who seemed to have no enemies. Those who spoke highly of him included not only the reporters, photographers and others he hired but the many editors and news directors whose newspapers, websites, and TV and radio stations received news from the AP."Anthony was such an impressive person," said Gary Pruitt, AP president and chief executive officer. "He exemplified the very best of AP: high journalistic standards, impeccable business ethics, treating everyone with respect."
Frank Baker, the AP's California news editor since 2011 and Marquez's chief deputy for five years before that, said Marquez was understated and rock solid.
"Anthony mixed so many great qualities. He was helpful. He was compassionate. He was upbeat. And he sure was funny," Baker said. "I can't recall a time we were together in the same room — and there were hundreds of those times over the years — that we didn't share a glance or a comment that left us both laughing.
Media notes
• At the LA Times: Film editor Marc Bernardin is leaving less than a year after a news release announced his hire. "Today's my last day working at the LA Times. Short, but very, very sweet -- shot through with a bit of bitter," he posted Friday on Twitter. "I've been a professional journalist for 25 years. And working for the LA Times was one of my very best experiences, even when it wasn't."... Also deputy director of graphics Armand Emamdjomeh is jumping to the Washington Post after six years... Senior pop culture writer Lorraine Ali has been named a television critic. "She will work with fellow critic Robert Lloyd and the rest of the television team, headed by editor Sarah Rodman," the LAT says... At least one LA Times print copy was delivered in last week's rain protected in a New Orleans Times-Picayune wrapper... Tronc is emailing pitches for its new Creature Features newsletter, "inspiring pet stories and cute animal news from around the nation" including the LA Times.• First person: LA Times columnist Chris Erskine wrote about his wife's new cancer diagnosis. "And there my wife rests, the woman with the Marlo Thomas eyes and feet like Cinderella. I’d always suspected Posh was a fugitive princess. Like other couples, she and I have had our problems, but now we are a team again. We’ll beat this, baby. No doubts at all." (Added)
• NYT observed: How the New York Times is clawing its way into the future, for Wired by Gabriel Snyder. "Sulzberger, like more than three dozen other executives and journalists I interviewed and shadowed at the Times, is working on the biggest strategic shift in the paper’s 165-year history, and he believes it will strengthen its bottom line, enhance the quality of its journalism, and secure a long and lasting future."
• Journalists be careful: Google has warned a number of prominent journalists, including Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine and Julia Ioffe of The Atlantic, that state-sponsored hackers are attempting to steal their passwords and break into their inboxes. "The fact that all this started right after the election suggests to me that journalists are the next wave to be targeted by state-sponsored hackers in the way that Democrats were during it," said one journalist who got the warning.
• Garcetti observed: A pre-election situationer by Michael Finnegan in the LAT frames Eric Garcetti as lucky to be running for a new term while LA is on a high. "The forces driving voters’ optimism about the city — and easing his path to reelection next month — have little or nothing to do with Garcetti, who became mayor just as the recovery from the Great Recession was taking hold. “He’s pretty darn lucky,” said Christopher Thornberg, a Los Angeles economist. “This city has been in the midst of a renaissance.” Also: KPCC's pre-election set-up.
•Seeing the USA: Los Angeles Magazine editor in chief Mary Melton took Amtrak part of the way back to LA from the National Magazine Awards in NYC and tweeted some of her experiences. Example:
Amtrak dinner w/Mississippi nursing teacher who is optimistic that a more deeply engaged America will emerge if media can reach red states.
— Mary Melton (@MaryMeltonLA) February 10, 2017
• Expanded duties: Randal Archibold, the former Los Angeles Times reporter and New York Times correspondent in Los Angeles, is currently the NYT's deputy sports editor. He's also in NYT house ads as the expert who will join students who sign up for 14 days in Cuba this summer. Cost: $8,190.
•Trump-inspired jobs: The Marshall Project, the Pulitzer-winning non-profit run by former NYT executive editor Bill Keller, is looking to hire a California-based immigration and criminal justice reporter.... The Wrap says it is hiring a reporter to cover the First Amendment under Trump... Flush from its Trump-bump, ProPublica is staffing up to cover the president.
More Trump notes:
Mark Lasswell, who edited op-eds for the Wall Street Journal opinion pages, has left the paper "following tensions over the section drifting in a pro-Donald Trump direction." The Atlantic...Matt Garrahan, the former Financial Times man in LA, was on CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday.... The agony of Sean Spicer in Vanity Fair: Once a well-liked figure among the D.C. press, Spicer’s new role as Trump’s attack dog has people scratching their heads... Stephen Miller gets a profile in the Washington Post as a key adviser to Trump. A current student at Santa Monica High School rebuts Miller's characterizations of the school and its culture. And LA police commissioner and former candidate for mayor Steve Soboroff tweeted Sunday after watching Miller on the morning talk shows: "Watching this Miller kid makes me wanna change my first name."Tweet o' the week:
WH has yet to clarify whether this was directed at 9th Circuit, or Nordstrom …. pic.twitter.com/yxQmPVTZVV
— TJ Sullivan (@TJSullivanLA) February 10, 2017
Also:
Trump really winning respect overseas, eh? pic.twitter.com/rZZmxAlXqR
— Kevin Roderick (@LAObserved) February 10, 2017
Unrandom notes
CNN asked 20 people to talk about the first time they realized they were black. Below. The group includes journalists Don Lemon, Michaela Pereira and Stephanie Elam and TV personality W. Kamau Bell... Amy Chozick of the NYT is on book leave to write a “political memoir about eight years (on and off) covering Hillary Clinton for The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.”... The WashPost wonders if liberals have found their combative new leader in — wait for it — Keith Olbermann?... The Daily Mail will no longer qualify as a "reliable source" for the purposes of Wikipedia citation.
