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I've been reminded that Norman "Jake" Jacoby, the veteran police reporter for whom the press room at Parker Center is named, was the subject of a lengthy 1986 profile in GQ by Steve Oney. Headline: "The Real Jake." The piece became the basis of an NBC pilot-turned-TV movie called Jake’s M.O. that tried to make drama out of the work of L.A. police reporters. Jacoby was portrayed by Fred Gwynne, the actor who played Judge Haller in My Cousin Vinny and Herman Munster on the the 1960s TV series, "The Munsters" (and who got his start in On the Waterfront). Oney writes that Jacoby, working the police beat for City News Service, coined the names Hillside Strangler and Skid Row Slasher for two of the city's most notorious serial killers and scooped the Times and Herald Examiner on the homicide spree that became known as the The Night Stalker murders. He had spent 15 years at the Herald Examiner and its predecessor papers, leaving in 1967 after the strike that cost the Her-Ex many of its best staffers. Jacoby died last week; the Times carried a skimpy four-graf obit, as I reported on Monday.
Also: Some nice, heartfelt thoughts regarding Dave Barton, another Herald alumnus to pass away in the past week, are being posted here. Barton was a well-liked copy editor on the Times national desk. His slot man, Steve Devol, pays Barton perhaps the highest copy desk tribute: "I never worked with a better headline writer or kinder, wittier person." Services were held today.