About that so-called 'Steve Lopez' blog

For a couple of weeks the Times has been promoting one of its staff blogs more prominently than the others — with a daily box on the California section cover for "Steve Lopez's Bottleneck Blog." Readers are invited to "join the dialogue with Lopez." It's a good roundup of local traffic and parking items, but it seemed funny to me — given the promos — that there was no actual dialogue with the California section columnist. The blog posts themselves are unsigned and sometimes refer to Lopez in the third person. Turns out that while Lopez has written many entries, the Times' new Innovation Editor, Russ Stanton, tells me that some posts have sprung from the keyboard of City Editor Shelby Grad. The blog, says Stanton, is run off the city desk.

"Your inquiry couldn't be more timely," Stanton emails. "We're changing the promo that runs on B1 to reflect the change." They will also make the blog more transparent by saying who writes it.

Easy one: Good roundup, yes, and going to get better I suspect — but not the most informed about Los Angeles streets. The top item on Bottleneck right now links to a YouTube video showing an aerial view of traffic flowing through the Brentwood intersection of Wilshire and San Vicente. The Times poster (whoever it is) couldn't place the only Wilshire intersection with a lush green lawn on one corner and three left-turn lanes feeding onto the boulevard. It's one of a kind — but it is 12 miles from downtown.

5:36 PM Tuesday, February 6 2007 • Link
More by tag: Los Angeles
Email or share:
© 2003-2008   •  About LA Observed  •  Contact the editor
LA Biz Observed
5:16 PM Fri | Federal regulators have issued a cease-and-desist order that requires the Newport Beach-based thrift to raise capital.
12:43 PM Fri | The actor has agreed to pay $660,000 to settle IRS claims that he improperly deducted personal expenses.
Featured bloggers at LA Observed
Deanne Stillman | George Bush compares the "angry left" with the North Vietnamese, but it's the angry right that made McCain cry uncle.
Nancy Rommelmann | This is one time I think the candidate should step down to spend more time with her family. A cursory...
David Rensin | Governor Bob Palin (R/Alaska) AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE, August 29, 2008: Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain today suprised everyone...
Phil Wallace | USC and UCLA both start their football seasons with impressive wins over southern opponents.
Sponsors
Jewish Journal logo
California Wellness Foundation
Playa Vista ad
Premium Blogads

 
Books, Blogs & Events

Get RSS Feeds
of LA Observed
LA Observed publishes several Real Simple Syndication feeds for easy scanning of headlines. If you wish to subscribe to a feed, most popular RSS readers will do it for you. You can also enter the web address from the XML button below or click on a specific feed. For more help with RSS, try here or here.




Add to Google