Back at Variety after seven years at the L.A. Times, television columnist Brian Lowry is happy to discover "they've painted the place." Over that time, he says, entertainment coverage has changed for the worse. There's a lot more of it, but he complains that journalists are out of touch because they don't consume the same media as their readers.

Venture into any major metropolitan newsroom and you'll likely find CNN running non-stop, which is all editors see during those hours when far more of their readers are watching "Dr. Phil" or "Wheel of Fortune." If the top brass get home in time to catch a little TV before sacking out, they'll generally tune in "Larry King," not "Survivor" or "7th Heaven"....

As a result, mainstream news outlets tend to approach show business as if it were a foreign bureau -- drawing little distinction between the tribal customs of Hollywood and that wacky Uzbekistan.

Lowry chides his ex-employer for a recent story on Disney and says that "morning TV Jack o' Lanterns like KTLA's Sam Rubin and KTTV's Dorothy Lucey have simply graduated from lifting stories out of the trades to alternately reading from the trades and the tabloids."

His column "Tuning In" will run Wednesdays in Variety (columnists link here). At the LAT, Robert Lloyd -- formerly of LAWeekly -- is reporting on television but the paper is apparently still seeking a replacement for retired columnist Howard Rosenberg.