LA Observed: First thing Monday, 1.16.06

First thing Monday, 1.16.06

Kevin Roderick • Bio • Email

Forum The House that Jack Kent Cooke Built might be no more, air rights are hot again downtown (and so is Richard Meruelo), Tad Friend expounds on Los Angeles car chases...plus Jack Abramoff's career as a movie producer, an expose of the film rating board, "The Runner" lives, why Channel 7 was off the air and a new media blog from PBS. And the front pages, of course, plus more.

Selected posts from the past week, in case you missed them:

Gail Goldberg is L.A.'s new top planner
Where the Holy Spirit lives in HiFi
Ed Pyle turns off the mike at KNX
UFW tries to get out ahead of Times, with series reactions and more
Desiree Horton, self-proclaimed chopper chick
Whale slaughter in Santa Monica Bay
LAT loses Morgan, adds Amy Tan and Cokie Roberts
New committees at City Hall were here first
Chris Douridas bails out
Dutton's North Hollywood to close

Browse 4,600 LA Observed posts by date or topic

Turn the page for the morning roundup:

Today's front pages

New York Times See/Read
Washington Post See/Read
LA Times See/Read
Daily News See/Read
Daily Breeze See/Read
Press-Telegram See/Read
Register See/Read
Star-News Read
Variety Read
Hwd Reporter Read
La Opinión Read

Slate: Today's Papers

♦ Faithful Central Bible church, owner of the former Great Western Forum in Inglewood, wants to redevelop the arena, possibly with housing and a shopping center. It's the top story in the L.A. Business Journal, along with a look at how the transfer of air rights downtown has become hot again, especially over the convention center.

♦ Downtown land king and Antonio funder Richard Meruelo gives an interview about his family, his development plans and Villaraigosa to the Downtown News. The DTN's Leslee Komaiko also writes up the new Roy's at 8th and Figueroa.

♦ Tad Friend's Letter from California in this week's New Yorker is about our fascination with televised car chases. It's not online, but Friend claims in a web-only interview that "Someone drives away from the cops in Los Angeles County about fifteen times a day—much more often than anywhere else in the country."

♦ Jack Abramoff had a brief fling as a movie producer, Michael Hiltzik recalls.

♦ This Film Is Not Yet Rated, the documentary screening this month at Sundance that exposes names and other secrets of the movie rating board and the ratings appeal board, gets a long David Halbfinger piece in the New York Times.

♦ Yahoo! is bringing the cancelled ABC show "The Runner" online, and Variety says "it could be one of the biggest entertainment events ever on the Internet."

♦ Channel 7 was off the air for three hours Sunday due to a power failure on Mt. Wilson.

♦ Beaches in Torrance, Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach were closed by a spill of raw sewage.

♦ Bidding is on for the historic Barlow Hospital property in Elysian Park.

♦ Mark Glaser, a former columnist for the Online Journalism Review and tech writer for the L.A. Times, will be doing a new blog for PBS called MediaShift. It launches Wednesday.