Inspiring team spirit *

I haven't checked this out, but the source who tipped me has never steered me wrong. The report is that the L.A. Times held a little internal silent auction yesterday to raise money for the United Way. Lunch with editor Jim O'Shea and publisher David Hiller were up for bid, separately. Minimum opening bid was $100 each, and when the sale closed at 6 p.m. the only bid for either was...a hundred bucks. Both lunches were won by Kim McCleary La France, the VP for public affairs whose job includes lunches with the brass and, likely, seeding the United Way campaign. So what this seems to mean is that no one in the company's employ felt motivated to put up any money for lunch with the bosses.

* Strike one: McCleary La France says my formerly perfect tipster erred, and that another Times employee won the lunch with Hiller. She says she bid on the Jim O'Shea lunch on behalf of someone else, and that the silent auction raised $21,000.