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Archive by Month
November 30, 2005
Today's Hollywood Reporter is out with the who-makes-what piece of the trade's annual Women in Entertainment issue. Julia Roberts stands atop the actress salary Top...
Today's most-emailed L.A. Times story is the off-lede talker about the U.S. military covertly paying Iraqi newspapers to run propaganda written by American troops. Mark...
I don't know for certain that L.A. Observed's scrutiny played any part, so let's just applaud the Times for making the right call. Mark Kurtich,...
Jon Wiener, the KPFK host and Nation contributing editor, posts an email that left-side historian Mike Davis sent to Susan Brenneman, the deputy op-ed editor...
In another move to save a few bucks, the Times is once again closing the ornate main entrance to its historic building—shutting off public access...
Sacramento columnist George Skelton opted out of the L.A. Times buyout at the last minute. But a more prominent name put himself on the list:...
In the classroom and panel discussions I've been having lately about blogging, someone always asks whether blogs can be believed. I usually give a spiel...
Charles Crumpley, Money Editor at the New Orleans Times Picayune since 2002, starts Jan. 1 as editor of the Los Angeles Business Journal, the staff...
Last night's sold-out show at Staples Center was a homecoming for Paul McCartney, whose current U.S. tour ends tonight. He and Heather Mills own a...
November 29, 2005
L.A. County health director Thomas Garthwaite resigned today in a closed session of the Board of Supervisors. He has accepted a position as chief medical...
Before he edited the L.A. Times Book Review, Steve Wasserman was deputy editor of the paper's op-ed page and Opinion section (and before that was...
Mayor Villaraigosa didn't announce any public events for today, but he was plenty busy. He spoke at the joint swearing-in of new City Council members...
LA Observed has been down much of today due to a "bandwith issue" at the server end. In short, a rush of visitors this morning...
Hollywood will add jobs this year and next, but the overall picture is still cloudy says a report to be released today by the L.A....
November 28, 2005
Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and former L.A. Times columnist and reporter Robert Scheer have been pals a long time—at least since Scheer interviewed the...
LA Weekly Publisher Beth Sestanovich told the staff this morning that the Justice Department gave the okay for New Times to acquire Village Voice Media,...
Author and former state Sen. Tom Hayden had a strong letter in Sunday's Calendar section praising the Times for tough coverage of the Getty. But,...
Nearly a dozen posts made their way onto the blog during the so-called holiday break, including the first (exclusive) list of which familiar names look...
November 27, 2005
Wife-and-husband team Elizabeth Snead and Joel Stratte-McClure used to jointly byline their celebrity gossip dispatches for the Daily News and the other LANG papers. Then...
Like all big newspapers, the Washington Post is stumbling toward an uncertain future, online and off. One of its online experiments is a blog page...
⇒ The Paul Williams-designed Holmby Hills home adjacent to Harvard-Westlake (formerly lived in by Bruce McNall and Ronald O. Perelman) will be saved and moved...
November 26, 2005
Steve Wasserman, the Times book editor until earlier this year, will give his take on the cutbacks at his former paper in the first issue...
LA Observed took note last year when Joie Davidow, co-founder of LA Weekly and the late LA Style, went Roman part-time. Laurie at LA.com points...
Who's leaving and other weekend buzz from inside our local downsizing newspaper: ⇒ Did Publisher Jeffrey Johnson kill an editorial that was tough on General...
Yes, that was campaign consultant, lobbyist and PR company capo Joseph Cerrell in the Times' California section on Friday. He's the force behind a drive...
City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo got a visit at home Friday from tenants facing eviction from the Lincoln Park Garden Apartments in Venice. The Venice Paper...
November 25, 2005
Sports columnist T.J. Simers claimed in Thursday's Times column that he just noticed his paper's month-old, Daily News-citing Lakers blog—and says the Times should have...
In the December issue of The Atlantic, Hanna Rosin is the latest writer to take a look at the Jesus-ization of Hollywood. They sit in...
Slate magazine's senior editor Andy Bowers wrote just before the holiday about switching his four-mile commute to two wheels. It confirmed his bias that Los...
November 22, 2005
The board of directors met today and decided on a split vote to let me start roasting their turkeys a few milliseconds early, provided I...
The discussion board at Chowhound Los Angeles is mulling the news that a simple hamburger at the Westside's venerable Apple Pan has crossed the six...
No perps have been added to the LAPD's Most Wanted list since August 10, at least on the web. Not sure whether that means the...
LARadio.com is marking off the shows that Howard Stern has left on 97.1 FM—that would be fifteen, including today's. The charmingly noir 1947Project is counting...
♦ Alex Padilla on Monday endorsed Eric Garcetti as his successor in the City Council president's chair. Let the record show that on May 27, LAObserved...
November 21, 2005
Would-be blog moguls Roger L. Simon and Charles Johnson have jettisoned the OSM identity they took when they jettisoned Open Source Media, the name that...
To see an earlier side of Arnold Schwarzenegger, check out the video LA.com found of Mr. Universe at Carnival in Brazil talking about how at...
Sunday's Daily News ran a story on the L.A. County Coroner websites that try to match up an identity or relatives to the thousands of...
Larry Southwick probably thought he had gotten lucky when he called the Long Beach animal shelter and was told that, yes, officers had collected his...
Recruits at the LAPD Academy now spend the last four weeks of their seven-month training cycle walking a beat. Forty-three officers have begun patrolling downtown's...
The mayor made his appointments to the board that hears appeals from employees in the city's civil service system. Former United Teachers Los Angeles president...
♦ Curveball was a screwball and the Germans knew it, but President Bush exaggerated his bad info on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction anyway, the Times...
No posting this morning. Check back later today....
November 19, 2005
When the Times chose to stake its biggest website initiative on the dicey notion that Hollywood awards are a year-round obsession of its readers, my...
November 18, 2005
Readers of the TV news website RonFineman.com voted Channel 7's Marc Brown and Michelle Tuzee the best anchors in town. Wasn't close. They beat the...
Robert Scheer's syndicated column, dropped last week by the Times, will appear from now on in the L.A. Alternative. The paper, formerly known as the...
When LAPD motor officer Tyrhone Ragland got to Armanda Renee Donnelly about 4:30 Thursday morning, her Lexus 3000 was off the Santa Monica Freeway...
A jury in the Valley ruled today that Robert Blake is liable for the death of his wife, Bonny Lee Blakely. The ex-actor was ordered...
I don't know whether today's moves are being called layoffs, involuntary buyouts or flat-out firings, but a number of long-time staffers at the Los Angeles...
The L.A. Times plans to relaunch its Sunday magazine Feb. 5 as West. The name has a history at the paper. A previous incarnation of...
Mack Reed at LAVoice.org has a memo about the FAA moving inspectors out of the LAX area to the Valley and Long Beach. They don't...
Robert Scheer will not be heard on today's Left, Right & Center on KCRW. But ScheerNation shouldn't get all protesty and throw up a picket...
Signs went up Thursday night at the fixture on Highland Avenue. There will be a closeout sale, then 34 employees will lose their jobs. The...
♦ Leading with the Getty again. John Walsh, the museum's former director, told Warren Olney (KCRW audio) "the spirit of the place is being undermined" and...
November 17, 2005
I told you early last year about an extraordinary website that presents hundreds of photographs of Los Angeles landmark buildings, giving dates and information on...
Rep. Brad Sherman of Sherman Oaks has been using JDate under the name of "jim2005ofDC,” according to The Hill in Washington. A spokesman for the...
Joining the gossip-fray at Defamer is invitation only, to a point: "We’ll be sending out a first round of invitations to frequent tipsters, assistants, bloggers,...
Valley College student Bay'an Hedayaty says he was just snapping some shots of the Red Line station at Hollywood and Highland for a photography class...
A reader writes: I just called to cancel my subscription to the Times – except for Sundays. And if the new TV Guide, which I...
The new blog collective that yesterday called itself Open Source Media responded today to the accusation that the name was already taken. The explanation is...
At last night's road-show City Council meeting in the old Van Nuys City Hall, some safety improvements to the Valley busway were announced. They mostly...
♦ Yeah, curator Marion True shouldn't have taken that $400,000 loan from two wealthy art collectors right after the Getty acquired their collection. Today's front pages...
November 16, 2005
Former Superior Court Judge Kevin A. Ross lost his seat on the bench today for ethical violations and lying to the state panel that investigates...
Rabbi Steven Tucker of Temple Ramat Zion in Northridge died Nov. 10 in a solo car crash in Yosemite National Park that authorities described as...
Times Editor Dean Baquet follows up the publisher's message with his own announcement. Staffers have until Nov. 25 to decide if they want to take...
This morning's missive to the Times staff from Jeffrey M. Johnson says: "Beginning this week and over the next three weeks, departments will be communicating...
Item 1: Items from five Gawker Inc. blogs, including Defamer, will be featured on Yahoo! News. The Huffington Post already has a deal with Yahoo....
Yesterday's incoming email at the LA Times was lost due to an outage between about 5 pm and 7:30 pm. Will Bob Scheer's fans claim...
When Will Campbell called to drop his subscription after the paper axed his favorite Outdoors section, the handler on the other end accidentally read him...
♦ Reacting to the Times' series on abuses by conservators for the elderly, the Board of Supes formed a task force and an L.A. judge ordered...
KCRW's Warren Olney kept asking for a reason why the Times would shed one of its few recognizable voices, but Andrés Martinez would never specifically...
November 15, 2005
After spinning through all the candidates they really wanted, the Dodgers today hired San Francisco Giants assistant Ned Colletti to be their general manager. The...
It was only last January that ex-Channel 5 anchor Sharon Tay landed a hosting gig at MSNBC. Well, TVNewswer reports today that MSNBC At the...
Bob Sipchen, the editorial architect of the Times' Current section (former Sunday Opinion), is moving back into the newsroom for a role in an as-yet-unannounced...
Times staffers who fear another budget shoe dropping this week (and the rumors are strong about some hammer falling tomorrow) won't be reassured by the...
L.A. Times editorial page editor Andrés Martinez took the unusual step of publishing an editor's note today to explain the paper's decision to drop Robert...
Gary Dretzka of Movie City News knew Brenda You, the L.A. writer who apparently committed suicide over the weekend, and adds some needed texture to...
♦ More cuts are coming within weeks, Times Editor Dean Baquet confirms in a staff story about his shutdown of the Outdoors section (reported here yesterday)...
November 14, 2005
The fledgling blog and advertising network to be launched Wednesday by Los Angeles bloggers Roger L. Simon (the novelist and screenwriter) and Charles Johnson (operator...
Gawker posts this regarding the weekend death of Brenda You, a freelance writer who had the unusual profile of having been a Playboy model, a...
Sources at the Times say the Outdoors staff has just been told the section will put out its final issue on Dec. 6. No word...
The Denver Business Journal says that billionaire Phil Anschutz is on the short list of potential buyers of the 32 Knight Ridder newspapers. For anyone...
Robert Scheer continues his exit tour, tossing rhetorical bomblets at the Times for dropping his syndicated column. Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, posts...
Catching up with a longer-than-usual helping of Monday morsels... ♦ The Times' powerful package on conservator scams was three years in the making: among other things,...
November 13, 2005
Just a few that caught my attention... ⇒The Times launched a four-part investigative series on abuses of the elderly by "professional conservators," looking at every...
Unlikely hero "El Pando" Guillermo Ramirez punched in a goal during the second overtime—at 124:18—to give the Galaxy the championship of Major League Soccer. Final...
November 11, 2005
Bob Scheer's dis-invite from the Times op-ed page resonated all day: ⇒ Email from ex-Timeser David Crook: "Re this line in Scheer's au revoir: 'My...
Final demolition of the historic Ambassador Hotel has been moving ahead somewhat out of view up until now. Crews have cleared the grounds, gutted the...
The "father of modern management" was a professor at Claremont Graduate University from 1971 to 2003. From the L.A. Times obituary: Drucker was called "the...
Author and performance artist Lisa Crystal Carver blogs that she was assaulted last night outside Mondo Records by "lifestyle Satanist" Stanton LaVey and his girlfriend...
New Times editorial chief Michael Lacey flew into John Wayne yesterday and spent several hours with staffers at the OC Weekly, one of the Village...
In an email to friends and supporters, soon-to-be-ex Times columnist Robert Scheer blames Publisher Jeffrey M. Johnson for his ouster from the op-ed page: On...
Today's L.A. Times reports on what the news side calls a "major shake-up" of the paper's op-ed page (detailed here yesterday), leading with the dropping...
♦ Today's Jewish Journal cover features a large noose and the question: Should Tookie Die? Today's front pages New York Times See/Read Washington Post See/Read LA...
The Dodgers are selling off the seats they are pulling out of the stadium for replacement this off-season. You have to take a pair and...
November 10, 2005
The L.A. Alternative Press is going weekly and taking a new name: the L.A. Alternative. The first issue will hit Friday, Dec. 4, according to...
The editorial cartoonist that liberals love to hate, Michael Ramirez, is not part of the new Times op-ed lineup announced today by Editor of the...
The venerable and recently retired Variety columnist began posting yesterday and says that Michael Hiltzik's blog in the L.A. Times inspired him to take the...
Marc Cooper writes in the LA Weekly that the axing of Robert Scheer's syndicated op-ed column amounts to another bad circulation-draining move by the Los...
♦ Remember last week when Nissan denied having made the decision to leave Gardena for Tennessee? At a press event today in Nashville the company will...
November 09, 2005
Former L.A. Times editor and reporter Bob Baker posts at his Newsthinking website that newspaper journalists shouldn't accept their obsolescence quietly. Excerpt: If newspapers are...
A study reported today in Nature suggests it may be possible to give several seconds' warning before a major earthquake hits based on the P...
Everyone has seen the circular Holiday Inn pushed right up beside the 405 at Sunset Boulevard. Time to recalibrate. After renovation inside and out, the...
There's more to add to Monday's item about Tail o' the Pup, which may have to close on San Vicente in West Hollywood. The Pup...
♦ You know how Washington Mutual has been letting anyone take cash from their ATMs for free? Not anymore. ♦ To see whether Jose Huizar eked out...
Voters rejected every one of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's so-called reform measures, as well as the other propositions on Tuesday's ballot. The only one that could...
IN Los Angeles is out with a strong story on the death of two-year-old Sarah Angelina Chavez, six months after she was taken away from...
San Francisco Bay Guardian editor/publisher Bruce B. Brugmann is kicking his campaign against the New Times-Village Voice merger into higher gear. His paper is in...
November 08, 2005
Here's an update to my exclusive post last Friday on the end of Robert Scheer's column on the L.A. Times op-ed page: He went on...
I forgot to include this in the morning roundup: I'll be on KPCC with Kitty Felde this afternoon at 2:30 to talk about Wilshire Boulevard:...
♦ Mayor Villaraigosa will vote today in his new neighborhood in Hancock Park-adjacent, not back in Mount Washington. Meanwhile, don't expect any L.A. Times exit poll...
November 07, 2005
I mentioned in the morning that pinning down newspaper circulation figures is a bear. Now this: Hours after the ABC (via Editor & Publisher) said...
Just days after Michael Jackson referred to wine as "Jesus Juice," Los Angeles-based CBS News producer Bruce Rheins and his wife, actress-writer-producer (and fine art...
Facing a Monday with more bad circulation news and head scratching about the Times' outsized devotion to Hollywood awards hype, Associate Editor John Montorio dispatched...
Posters at Chowhound L.A. picked up the news first, added to by Pat Saperstein at Eating L.A. and Franklin Avenue. The California Crazy-style hot dog...
That was the average weekday circulation for the six months that ended September 30, according to Editor and Publisher. The report from the Audit Bureau...
In addition to this big serving of Monday items, don't miss the late-Friday postings about Bob Scheer, some media moves and a shakeup of the...
Connie Chung and Maury Povich were local TV news fixtures in Los Angeles before going on to better—or at least other—things. Chung came to Channel...
November 06, 2005
The Press-Telegram has sold its downtown Long Beach home of eighty years and will move next summer into a fourteenth-floor newsroom at Arco Center on...
November 05, 2005
...and nothing. Arizona 52-UCLA 14. At least there's still one undefeated football team in town....
Lornamatic needed to lose a guy in a hurry. Starbucks came through....
Patt Morrison reviews Sen. Barbara Boxer's co-written first novel in today's LAT and calls A Time to Run "a passable political thriller of wishful thinking...
The blogger at The Mess That Greenspan Made heard reports that the Hummer dealer in Westlake Village was having big trouble moving inventory. Talk had...
November 04, 2005
Reporter Matt Myerhoff is leaving the L.A. Business Journal to be communications director for Councilman Greig Smith...Lots of newsroom buzz at the Daily News about...
Assistant Managing Editor Janet Clayton has fielded complaints about the depth, breadth and savvy of Times' local political coverage since she became the Metro staff...
Lots of chatter in local media circles these days about the syndicated L.A. Times columnist and KCRW commentator from the left. First, it appears that...
Mickey Kaus has posted a follow to my follow to my original post on his original post about a Halloween night gang fight on the...
♦ A senior Times editor says the paper checked out Mickey Kaus' second-hand report of a big Halloween gang rumble in Brentwood—just a few blocks from...
Since the ad column is filling up with spots aimed at Tuesday's elections, it seems like the right time to remind everyone of the LAObserved...
November 03, 2005
Tuesday's Correction of the Day out of the New York Times (about the non-word trustiness) is riffed on during tonight's 8:30 pm re-airing of the...
Franklin Avenue blogs about an amusing encounter with a 411 operator who didn't know—and wouldn't believe—that the 818 area code is in Los Angeles. Or...
An internal email circulated today at the Nissan offices in Gardena says no decision has been made about relocating to Tennessee. Doesn't seem like many...
Dennis B. Underwood, the CEO and general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California since April, passed away at age 60 after battling...
Mayor Villaraigosa has dispatched city traffic officers to thirteen intersections along the Orange Line route across the Valley. The MTA will also step up its...
In addition to the newsy posts below about Nissan and Chief Bratton, here are some morning nuggets... ♦ The City Council approved an unusual tax-exempt bond...
Mayor Villaraigosa's new police commission overruled LAPD chief William Bratton and decided that a detective who shot an unarmed burglary suspect was in the wrong....
Talk of Nissan departing Los Angeles County appears to be more than talk. Thursday's Times says that the company "is likely to announce as early...
November 02, 2005
The biggest physical change at the Los Angeles Times since the Tribune Company took over has been the clearing out of the former Times Mirror...
On the third commuting day of the Valley busway, an Orange Line bus was hit by a car on Woodman Avenue. They are expecting up...
Because of the anti-Bush protest along Wilshire Boulevard this afternoon and evening, city and UCLA officials are warning of street closures in the Westwood area....
Mickey Kaus reports at Kausfiles that he was told of a large gang fight on Halloween night at the corner of San Vicente and 26th...
Newly announced L.A. Times op-ed columnist Meghan Daum (website) gets the full treatment in today's New York Observer. She owns a home in Echo Park...
♦ A new network city blog launched here Tuesday. Curbed LA, an offshoot of New York's Curbed, says it will "look at the changing face of...
November 01, 2005
If you go to the movies at CityWalk, Beverly Center or the Magic Johnson Theatres, you'll soon get some new entertainment for those nineteen minutes...
With Joel Sappell leaving the Business section to run LATimes.com, the Times needed a new editor to oversee coverage of the business side of studios...
♦ Guess what: all the cameras mounted to catch red-light runners in L.A. were quietly turned off in June. Councilman Dennis Zine spilled the beans. Today's...
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| The high price of gasoline and airline tickets is good news for Disneyland, Universal Studios and other local destinations.
| Allstate has ranked the average frequency of getting in an auto accident in various cities. At least we beat Philly.
| Librarians are some of my personal heroes, providing a beacon of light in a world that often seems hellbent on...
| But please don’t just think of of the victims.
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