John Schwada Day

City Council members Bill Rosendahl and Herb Wesson propose: "Resolve, that by adoption of this Resolution, the Los Angeles City Council hereby declares August 12, 2011 as John Schwada Day in the City of Los Angeles." Schwada's contract was not renewed at Fox 11, where he was a longtime politics and investigative reporter. He hasn't taken it quietly.

And a further media note: Longtime USC Annenberg journalism professor Joe Saltzman was named the national Journalism & Mass Communication Teacher of the Year by the Scripps Howard Foundation. By longtime, we mean 44 years. He credits his Alhambra High School journalism teacher, Ted Tashima, who died in March. From the Easy Reader:

In 1955, I was a junior and he found me standing in the hallway crying my eyes out. He asked me what was the matter. I told him that the high school counselor just told me I wasn’t college material and that I should follow in my dad’s footsteps – and become a window cleaner. My dream of being the first person in my family to go to college was over.

Ted was furious and went to see that high school counselor. When he came back, he told me that together, we would work to get me into the best school of journalism on the West Coast – the University of Southern California – and with a scholarship as well. And he made it happen. If it weren’t for Ted, I probably would have ended up a window cleaner.