♦ Longtime L.A. radio reporter and anchor Hettie Lynne Hurtes is joining KPCC as mid-day anchor. Her film credits include roles in Terminator and Throw Momma from the Train.
♦ Judith Regan finally begins to relocate her publishing company to Century City next month, and she may even arrive herself in June. About that whole L.A. salon notion, she claims to have been misquoted: "I never said I wanted to bring culture to Los Angeles. I said the opposite. I said New Yorkers seem to think there's no culture in Los Angeles, and they're dead wrong."
♦ Members of the Chicano News Media Association last night debated the merits of Gustavo Arellano's OC Weekly feature Ask a Mexican. Arellano defended the column against strong criticism from the Times' Agustin Gurza, with Pilar Marrero of La Opinión somewhere in the middle. Arellano gets the last laugh, though: there's book interest off February's LAT Column One and he's off to New York next week.
♦ Orville Schell will step down as dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley.
♦ Jason Calacanis vs. Alan Meckler in the Wall Street Journal on whether blogs can make money.
♦ Dorsey High School's TruDonion Choir is going to Carnegie Hall.
♦ Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly have sold a history of Los Angeles smog to Overlook. Publisher's Marketplace dubs Smogtown "Fast Food Nation meets City of Quartz."
♦ I can't make it either place tonight, but the PBS special "The New Los Angeles" is being screened with a reception featuring Mayor Villaraigosa and Council President Garcetti at Paramount studios. And the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles is holding a reception for new president Rory Cunningham at the newest Wilshire Boulevard entry on the National Register of Historic Places, the former Security Bank near La Brea designed by Morgan, Walls & Clements.