Morning Buzz

Morning Buzz: Wednesday 8.25.10

Is the county Department of Children and Family Services hiding child deaths, plus Obama's pitch crashes Brown's website, Fox's bipartisan donations in California, CBS' bad week, the new THR and more. Inside after the jump.

  • Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said Tuesday that he suspects the Department of Children and Family Services has failed to acknowledge some recent child deaths tied to abuse or neglect, inaccurately leading the public to believe that the number of children dying under such circumstances is falling. LAT, ZevWeb
  • Los Angeles Times reporters Jeff Gottlieb and Ruben Vives spoke to faculty and students at USC Annenberg and said their Bell stories began with a tip from the DA's office about the city's high salaries. Neon Tommy
  • Supervisor Mike Antonovich and Downtown News editor Jon Regardie guest on Off The Presses Radio, 10 a.m. on the web on L.A. Talk Radio. OTPR
  • The Board of Supervisors raised the property tax rate the maximum allowed to help offset the rising cost of emergency and trauma care in Los Angeles County, while overall property values in the county dropped again. Press-Telegram, DN
  • Political rhetoric vs. reality: Among the 492,000 retired government workers receiving checks from the state’s Public Employees’ Retirement System, the average monthly benefit is $2,188, and 78 percent receive $3,000 a month or less. Ventura Star
  • President Obama's email appeal for Jerry Brown yesterday caused the candidate's website to crash. LAT, Calbuzz
  • The Coalition of L.A. City Unions and its six unions did not join the EAA in agreeing for its members to contribute to health care benefits in exchange for fewer furlough days. LAT, DN
  • Fox Group, a division of News Corp.'s U.S. subsidiary, has donated more than $1.2 million to California candidates and causes since 2001, many of them Democrats, state campaign finance records show. California Watch
  • Local officials are resisting a bill in Sacramento that would lower the fine for rolling right turns to $219 from $450. Dan Walters
  • Last week "CBS Evening News" recorded its lowest total viewer rating in nearly 20 years. NYT
  • The Hollywood Reporter's more tabloidy behavior under Janice Min is riling people in Hollywood, says Sharon Waxman. The Wrap
  • Entertainment journalist Gina Piccalo, formerly at the L.A. Times and a contributor to Los Angeles Magazine, becomes a senior writer in the west coast bureau of The Daily Beast. Fishbowl LA
  • The Mark Taper Forum's new season includes performers Jane Fonda, John Lithgow and Olympia Dukakis and plays by Moisés Kaufman, Lithgow and Morris Panych, plus works by Lanford Wilson and Theresa Rebeck.
  • Mark Frauenfelder, author of "Made By Hand: Searching for Meaning a Throwaway World," guests with fill-in host David Lazarus on "Airtalk" at 11:40 a.m. on KPCC.
  • Producer/director Jay Roach talks about "Dinner for Schmucks" with Elvis Mitchell on "The Treatment" at 2:30 p.m. on KCRW.
  • The 99 Cent Chef takes his video tour through L.A hot dog joints to Earlez Grille on Crenshaw Boulevard.

More by Kevin Roderick:
Standing up to Harvey Weinstein
The Media
LA Times gets a top editor with nothing but questions
LA Observed Notes: Harvey Weinstein stripped bare
LA Observed Notes: Photos of the homeless, photos that found homes
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Thursday news and notes
A little bit of mid-week reading
A few links from a few different places
Let's talk about anything but the weather
A few links from here and there
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Morning Buzz: Wednesday 4.16.14


 

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