Weekly archive
January 11 - January 17, 2009
Saturday, Jan. 17
Here's a shortcut to all of my posts this week, in order with a brief summary of each. Plus: Mark Lacter, Native Intelligence, Bill Boyarsky, Jenny Burman, Veronique de Turenne...
Friday, Jan. 16
Can't say I expected to read an eloquent tribute to the printed newspaper from John H. Taylor, an Episcopal priest and the longtime executive director of the Richard Nixon Library...
Furnell Chatman guests on KPCC's Off-Ramp to talk about leaving KNBC Channel 4 after 35 years and moving back to New Orleans. I'm told he also shares quite a personal...
Former Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona was found guilty on one count of witness tampering and not guilty on five other charges that led to his departure from elected office....
An airline pilot uses his 40 years experience to bring his stricken jetliner down safely in the Hudson River, and the governor of New York dismisses it as "a...
Thursday, Jan. 15
Anonymous LAPD cop "Jack Dunphy" says that officers were told not to wear helmets while working the line at last Saturday's pro-Palestinian rally in Westwood — Dunphy says commanders thought...
Variety columnist Brian Lowry is now blogging about television at the trade's new BLTv — "Good TV; reasonable prices." He posts that the current TV critics tour feels more pointless...
After two years of negotiations, the Long Beach Press Telegram and the SoCal Media Guild have agreed on a contract that includes a one-year moratorium on layoffs. The covered journalists...
A scenario as imagined by Joe Flint, the former WSJ, Entertainment Weekly and Variety reporter who is now director of industry programs at the Paley Center for Media. It helps...
Alan Mittelstaedt resigned last month as an editor at the Los Angeles Daily Journal. I hadn't seen him express his thoughts about the legal daily — until now. In response...
Of course the zaftig outfielder who forgot how to hit after the Dodgers made him their highest-paid player ever still has $22 million coming to him. Actually, Jones forgot how...
A memo in the newsroom today says pay raises are suspended at the Daily News. It comes amid gossip about furloughs, pay cuts and other draconian steps to stop the...
Entravision has replaced the popular-in-some-quarters FM station with regional Mexican rhythmic and cumbia music. Michael Schneider at Franklin Avenue blogs some details, and a posting at the station website says...
KNBC plans to air Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's State of the State speech live at 10 a.m. The station's Mekahlo Medina says they will post text messages from viewers on the...
Those supposedly secret reader survey panels convened by the Los Angeles Times to provide feedback on proposed changes — thanks for the posts, guys — are no more. An email...
Scott Timberg, who has started freelancing for the New York Times and others since being laid off last year by the L.A. Times Calendar section, has fired up a blog....
Matthew Fleischer worked at the LA Weekly for two years until being laid off and writes that "the second-largest paper in Los Angeles suffered two of the most disastrous years...
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger delivers his sixth State of the State address at 10 a.m., and it has to be all bad news. Rough & Tumble Tribune and the Washington...
Wednesday, Jan. 14
Syd Lovelace and Booda on a paddleboard off Will Rogers State Beach this evening, with Catalina in the background. "Syd and Booda (who is a rescue dog) are Venice residents...
That's the conclusion of David Westphal, who writes at USC's Online Journalism Review that the Knight Foundation's effort to seed the creation of local news operations across the U.S. received...
Democratic and Republican consultants with a lot of experience in Los Angeles — and in California more generally — have formed a new firm to work on ballot measures. LFM...
Anti-Zionist protesters blocking the entrance to the Israeli consulate on Wilshire Boulevard today broke up after LAPD chief William Bratton showed up and intervened. The Jewish Journal posted video and...
Jeffrey Katzenberg and other Motion Picture & Television Fund officials just revealed plans to close the acute-care hospital and long-term care residence at the home in Woodland Hills. About 100...
Pasadena plans to tear out 43 mature shade trees along Colorado Boulevard, Lake and Los Robles and replace them with shadeless, soulless fan palms (yuck) and gingkos. The ficus trees...
City Council President Eric Garcetti announced this morning that actor Ricardo Montalbán died today at home in his district, surrounded by family. Montalban was 88, according to Garcetti, who made...
CityBeat and film critic Andy Klein parted ways yesterday, say sources close to the weekly and to Klein. He continues apparently with KPCC's FilmWeek segment and "Off-Ramp." This follows last...
Los Angeles is going to be lousy with its absentee news moguls this month. Dean Singleton is coming in for a meeting of his suits on the 23rd — no...
Good story on the transformation of a former Bob's Big Boy on Valley Boulevard in Alhambra into the popular Noodle World — the kind of local Column One the...
Kevin McCollister has been sharing his gorgeous photographs of Los Angeles for a few years in elegantly wordless blog entries at the Jimson Weed Gazette. Tuesday's post, however, was all...
Los Angeles Magazine executive editor Mary Melton — "in the name of science and post-holiday boredom" — is following the Gwyenth Paltrow starvation diet all week and blogging about it....
Tuesday, Jan. 13
It's been a little over a month since I stumbled upon Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's social network sites and posted about the mayor's search for a new media director. They've been...
The New York Times is a forming a team of seven reporters from several desks to ramp up its coverage of environmental issues and news. The team includes former L.A....
Invitation-only forums and salons hosted by media outlets are becoming more common. The L.A. Times has one tonight to talk about the Obama transition, with an eclectic mix of speakers...
LAFD inspector Dennis Archie was arrested and accused of taking a $500 bribe from a board and care facility operator. L.A. Now So-called moderates on the Screen Actors Guild...
Author J. Michael Walker didn't mind that three brochures for local arts institutions — REDCAT, the L.A. Art Show and the Eli and Edythe Broad Stage — tumbled out his...
Monday, Jan. 12
The Los Angeles production of "Wicked" closed Sunday after 791 performances (and 12 previews) at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. Variety says the show registered more than 1.8 million admissions...
Former president Richard Nixon began his memoir with the line "I was born in the house my father built." Well, in 1959 his mother told the Los Angeles Times he...
Author, reporter, columnist and blogger Gustavo Arellano is now the host of Four O'Clock Tuesdays with Gustavo Arellano every, yes, Tuesday at 4 p.m., on KPFK. The show's focus is...
Samantha Geimer, who was 13 when director Roman Polanski had his way with her in Jack Nicholson's hot tub back in 1977, filed a formal request today that the legal...
Channel 4 plans to air a special about itself this Friday night and again on Super Bowl Sunday. Here's a blog preview from Franklin Avenue: Paul Moyer and Colleen Williams...
KTLA reporter-blogger Eric Spillman calls President George W. Bush's session with the media today "the most interesting of his Presidency. President Bush is not known for public self-examination, but in...
Americans who watch TV don't watch the Golden Globes any more, even if the newspapers, blogs and celebrity cable channels continue to insist they are a big thing. An average...
Jm Farber wrote for the South Bay Daily Breeze for 16 years, serving as the paper's theater and arts critic. He was let go today, according to Culture Monster....
An internal memo seems to indicate the LA Weekly is falling into the mode of obsessing about page views over content. We learn that music is by far the site's...
The street sale price of the Los Angeles Times went up to 75 cents (from 50) all over town today, judging by my email....
If anyone remembers the 2009 Golden Globes, it will be for "Slumdog Millionaire" and Kate Winslet. Variety, NYT, LAT, winners list "It's a completely meaningless awards show by a...
Times theater critic Charles McNulty weighs in via blog on the layoff of LA Weekly theater overseer Steven Leigh Morris: The news that Steven Leigh Morris, long-standing theater editor of...
David Lauter, California editor of the L.A. Times, has been replying to readers upset at the latest dropping of Al Martinez' column. Lauter's reply was posted online by the paper,...
Sunday, Jan. 11
Jennifer Baszile, a professor of history at Yale, has written a memoir called "The Black Girl Next Door" that doesn't reflect kindly on her upbringing as an African American girl...
