Former L.A. Times reporter Anne-Marie O'Connor's book on the Adele Bloch-Bauer painting lands, Louise Roug returns from Denmark, paidContent sells, Sam Rubin reups plus a name for Aaron Sorkin's HBO newsroom and more.
The Dodgers announcer on golf, books and why he can't retire at age 84 in an interesting interview in Golf Digest.
Editor Rob Eshman calls the Encino State Historic Park threatened with closure his personal retreat growing up in the neighborhood.
The best hope for newspapers online is a temporary, narrow anti-trust exemption to let publishers collude on a web pay wall, says a former reporter now at UCLA Law School.
He shows up at the Lakers training gym going up against Rick Fox, and at the LAPD asking then-Chief Bernard Parks for a detective job, in this 2001 video spoof.
The blogger at Babes of NPR on Tumblr doesn't require that the photo subjects actually work for NPR. Any association with public radio will do.
Artillery founder Tulsa Kinney has posted her interview in the magazine with Mike Kelley, possibly the last interview with the artist who apparently killed himself at home in South Pasadena earlier this week.
Jefrey Katzenberg, Berman-Sherman, Prop. 8 and a reporter moves back to the LA City Hall beat.
The restored "Final Curtain" screened to an appreciative audience last month at Slamdance, where the two men got to talk about Wood.
In the last presidential election, Tribune Company boss Sam Zell's most prominent statement about politics — other than "it's unAmerican not to like pussy" — was that his preferred candidate would be "anybody but Clinton."
Jon Weisman's "outlet for dealing psychologically with the Los Angeles Dodgers and baseball" has left ESPN for life on its own.
In the long legal fight over Sam Zell's dubious use of employee funds to acquire control of Tribune, the good guys have won, more or less.
Mister Los Angeles, getting ready for his 63rd season in the Dodgers press box, is the local sports broadcasters' choice for best radio play by play. Oh, you think?
KCET's weekly news show "SoCal Connected" will receive this year's Public Service Award from the Los Angeles Press Club for exposing "lavish and out of control spending at the Los Angeles Housing Authority.
Since taking over as editor of Los Angeles in 2009, Mary Melton has "continued to push the publication beyond its former Westside comfort zone into the far corners of our megalopolis," says The Frying Pan News, the city and politics website from the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy.
Geraldine Baum's farewell note to the Times newsroom reminds you what a collegial family a newspaper is to its inhabitants
OC Weekly editor Gustavo Arellano's new book, "Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America," was just praised by Publishers Weekly as one of the top cookbooks of the spring crop. That would be nicer for the author if it were a cookbook.
After 42 years (28 of them in Los Angeles), George Lewis' last day at work at NBC was today, not yesterday.
Former Orange County Register reporter Thanhha Lai "spent 15 years grinding away at a sprawling novel she could never quite get right. So, five years ago, she turned her creative energies to a verse novel about a single year in her childhood as a Vietnamese émigré."
It's unclear whether this was in the works when Russ Stanton stepped down as editor of the Los Angeles Times in December.
George Lewis, the venerable NBC News correspondent in Los Angeles, is hanging up his microphone on January 31. What's he doing today, on his last day in the field? Covering the Oscar nominations.
"It's been 40 years since I took a vow of poverty and became a newspaperman," Dennis McCarthy writes in his column announcing he will retire from the Daily News on January 31.
The board of directors of the Los Angeles Press Club selected CBS2/KCAL9 investigative reporter David Goldstein for this year's Joseph M. Quinn Memorial Award for journalistic achievement and distinction.
Those of you who remember Dean E. Murphy from his days reporting around town for the Los Angeles Times might want to take note of the piece he has in the Modern Love column in Sunday's New York Times.
This morning at 9 a.m., Councilman Tom LaBonge and others will gather at the Caltrans building in Downtown to celebrate the first use of Loyd Sigman's SigAlert system.
Curt Sandoval of Channel 7 tops Daily News columnist Tom Hoffarth's annual list of the top 10 sports anchors and reporters on Los angeles television. A local female reporter leads his bottom ten list.
Cheech Marin will be the first guest on the new Gerald Rivera show that debuts Monday at 10 a.m.
The longtime Business Week correspondent in Hollywood is leaving Bloomberg BusinessWeek to be the Los Angeles bureau chief for Reuters.
If he didn’t work at The Economist, Andreas Kluth "would still be precisely the type of cosmopolitan his magazine would want as a reader," Andrés Martinez writes for Zócalo Public Square.
The Pacifica station builds around Truthdig Radio and also announces a new backup generator on Mount Wilson to guard against outages.
The Southern TV chef known for her Krispy Kreme doughnut bread pudding and similar recipes went on "Today" to explain that she was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes three years ago.
Pioneering and wildly popular Los Angeles-based blog Boing Boing will take down all content temporarily on Wednesday, Jan. 18 to protest the proposed Protect IP Act and Stop Online Piracy Act pending in Congress.
Just to close the circle in a story we reported earlier.

John Miller, the TV reporter who came into the LAPD with William Bratton and left to work in counter-terrorism in Washington, is now at CBS News. He does a story on bomb-sniffing dogs at LAX.

The Wrap just announced it has created the position of Executive Editor and filled it with Lisa Fung, most recently the online editor for arts and entertainment at the Los Angeles Times website.

The reigning Mister Los Angeles will be the subject of the last bobblehead giveaway of the coming season at Dodger Stadium.
Stodder, you may recall, reported to federal prison authorities last February to serve a term for his part in the Fleishman-Hillard episode that roiled City Hall a few years ago.

Being attacked these days isn’t the result of saying something badly, "it’s the result of saying anything at all," Los Angeles Times op-ed columnist Meghan Daum writes in a long essay on the instant commentary (and abuse) culture so prevalent online, including and perhaps especially at LATImes.com.

Tony Blankley, the former Reagan speechwriter and press secretary to Newt Gingrich in Congress who was the conservative presence on KCRW's Left, Right and Center, died Saturday after battling stomach cancer.
Eve Arnold was one of the first female photojournalists to join the Magnum Photos agency, in 1951. She did a book of her photos of Marilyn Monroe.
They had a cake yesterday at the Los Angeles bureau of the Associated Press for special correspondent Linda Deutsch.
The Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens doesn't honor very many L.A. journalists with an exhibition, so it's notable that they will mount a show for Al Martinez this spring.
Charles McNulty's year-end lookbacks "demonstrated anew [the paper's] curiously constricted view of the importance of the other LAT — LA theater."
Steve Chiotakis has host "Marketplace Morning Report" since 2008. He will be the afternoon news anchor during "All Things Considered."

Email from Angeli Caffe says that Evan Kleiman's Melrose Avenue Italian trattoria will stay open until Jan. 13, instead of closing after the meals of Jan. 8 as previously announced.

Cartoonist and satirist Lalo Alcaraz has relaunched Pocho, his news y satire site, to target Latinos nationwide. Bylines include Barney Asada (get it?) and posts from Alcaraz, including his review of 2011 in cartoons.
The owner of Angeli Caffe got a little emotional with host Lisa Napoli last night on KCRW.
Losses have been mounting, and Kleiman informed her staff that she can no longer cover the restaurant's bills after 27 years.
Twenty two years after the Herald Examiner folded, its final edition papers over a new pizzeria.
The guys at the KTLA Morning News had some fun the other day making new intern Irene bring them coffee on the air. Then anchor Megan Henderson stepped in.

The Herman Cain sexual harassment allegations (and the Anthony Weiner frolics some months earlier) provide fresh material for the January profile.
Bethania Palma Markus was until recently a reporter for the LANG papers east of L.A.
Heikes is the former LA weekly editor. Read the memo on the new Sacto reporter.
On this morning's show, the weatherman and his colleagues made light of him storming off a live camera the other day.
Neil Saavedra, the KFI/AM 640 marketing director, will host the new Saturday afternoon show that's due to start Jan. 7.
A roundup for a holiday week.
Video: KTLA's morning weatherman stalks off camera after his segment is cut.
Patrick O'Connor posts on his blog that "This week's cartoon is my last print cartoon for the LA Weekly. I've been on staff since January of 2009 and it's been...
he Los Angeles Times has tapped Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and columnist David Horsey to revamp the Top of the Ticket politics blog with cartoons and commentary.
Dan Walters, the venerable political presence in Sacramento, is the latest holdout to fall.
I can't imagine that Channel 2 weathercaster Jackie Johnson could be too happy at how the station's website arranges its photo galleries.
The station's longtime producer, voice and spokeswoman has a note on the KCRW members blog.
The author and Vanity Fair contributing editor has died of cancer at a hospital in Houston, the magazine announced.
Time's Person of the Year cover was designed by Shepard Fairey from a Ted Soqui photograph of an Occupy LA protester in Downtown.
Shock and dismay in the Burbank newsroom over News Director Vicky Burns deciding to let reporter and sometime-anchor Jennifer Bjorklund go.
In an Occupy video of the Nov. 30 LAPD raid outside City Hall, City News Service reporter Calvin Milam is observed being thrown to the ground and arrested after he crosses (outbound) through the police skirmish line.
Top aide to Mayor Villaraigosa heard the shots and the screams, and a local photojournalist takes the money shot of the gunman lying wounded.
The longtime talk radio host takes over mornings from Peter Tilden, paired with Terri-Rae Elmer, until this week a fixture at KFI.
Anyone who has spent much time around new media and blogs in the past ten years, especially in Los Angeles, had read or heard Xeni Jardin.
The Los Angeles chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists will honor these local journalists.
Artist Gaelan Kelly draws what public radio reporters and hosts look like in his head, based on their voices.
Bill Fulton, a well-known writer on California affairs and the nitty gritty of urban planning before and since he became an elected official in Ventura, is moving away largely because he is losing his eyesight to retinitis pigmentosa.
"I'm so proud," she told co-host Steve Edwards during the live feed of the ceremony on "Good Day L.A."
Jim Romenesko contacted Jasna Hodzic after her photo of campus police Lt. John Pike using pepper spray on passive students hit the web.
Arellano moves up from managing editor after the resignation, effective Dec. 2, of editor Ted Kissell.
Tom Petruno, the longtime markets columnist for the Los Angeles Times, said back in September that he would be leaving the paper right around now to try out some other pursuits.
The co-host of the Korean-language Prime News on Los Angeles-area TV channel LA 18 was found dead in her Koreatown apartment last Monday after not reporting to work.
Newsman-turned-artist Bill Lagattuta's latest project appears to be photographs behind the scenes of Channel 2 anchor Kent Shocknek at work.
Dick Adler, who used to write the cheeky Page Two feature at the old Herald Examiner, and more recently a book reviewer and blogger, died on Nov. 11.
Jim Romenesko's first post at the new website is titled "How I ended up leaving Poynter."
Lowering expectations on Natalie Wood case, tearing down the 6th Street bridge, media notes and a local sports death.
Few events in a young activist’s life, says the historian and author, are "as memorably disturbing as the first time you look into cop’s eyes a few anxious inches from your face and find only robotic murderous hatred staring back at you."
Food blogger and list-maker Sarah Gim went to bed the other night with several years' worth of Jonathan Gold's essential restaurants lists from the LA Weekly.
The L.A. Press Club will bestow its President's Award on Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein next June, almost on the 40th anniversary of the Watergate break-in they covered as Washington Post reporters.
Lefty icon Paul Krassner and conservative culture warrior Andrew Breitbart actually got together by mutual assent to discuss their respective world views.
Before Border Grill, City, the Too Hot Tamales and Street — and way before "Top Chef Masters" — chefs Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken had a game-changing little dive on Melrose called City Cafe.
It's dining editor Pete Wells, according to an internal announcement at the New York Times.
On Nov. 5, ESPN Senior VP Joan Lynch woke up in her home to find a front tire of her vehicle slashed. This is notable for two reasons.
During today's "To The Point" on KCRW and across the country, host Warren Olney read a comment regarding the controversy over his Friday show.
La Opinión political columnist Pilar Marrero has reactivated her blog with a post about Latino immigrants as a sleeping giant in U.S. politics.
We unveiled a new format today for the weekly LA Observed commentary on KCRW.
Lindsay Lohan, Guy Crowder, John Cage, Edward Headington and more.
New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik talks about his new book, "The Table Comes First: Family, France and the Meaning of Food," with producer-director Ed Zwick on Thursday night.
Former Press-Telegram executive editor has died, plus more news items.
The Los Angeles novelist and sister of Steve Jobs breaks her media silence on his death.
Making ready for the coming week, with Jim Ladd, Zev Yaroslavsky, Steve Lopez, Dawn Hudson and more.
James Rainey will no longer write a media column for the Los Angeles Times, but will continue to cover the media as a reporter for the arts and entertainment desk. Read the memo.
Frank Buckley of Channel 5 says his idea for an international thriller called "Portofino" is being made by JC Chandor, the director of "Margin Call."
The familiar names keep falling in L.A. radio.
Patrick Kevin Day, the deputy editor of The Hollywood Reporter's website, is leaving after just two months to return to the Los Angeles Times as a senior web producer. A...
Ladd tells the Register's Gary Lycan that he was stunned to be told he was laid off.
Legendary Los Angeles radio personality Jim Ladd has reportedly been dropped at KLOS (95.5 FM.)
Caruso, the editor of Los Angeles magazine between 1995 and 1997, was named Oct. 19 as editor-in-chief of Smithsonian.
The longtime L.A. sports figure has been laid off.
Roger L. Simon's mostly politics and media operation is morphing from the L.A.-based Pajamas brand into PJ Media, as he explains.
Marcia Parker, Patch.com's West Coast editorial director, sent this note out to the other local Patchies about staffing for the mixed Spanish-English news sites.
KCET producer Karen Foshay Kolesnikow and friends made this video as a school fundraiser.
Heikes announced to the staff and his freelance writers today that he is stepping down as editor of the LA Weekly.
Former radio reporter Joel Bellman, now the communications deputy for Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, remembers in a piece for KPCC how radio legend Norman Corwin became his mentor.
Carolina Garcia, the editor of the Daily News, will now be the executive editor for the Daily Breeze and the Press-Telegram in Long Beach as well.
Another nice ticket offer for LA Observed visitors.
The note to the staff from Daily News editor Carolina Garcia doesn't make clear if this is downsizing, but it's being taken that way.
The magazine posts a 2009 interview with its former columnist and an appreciation from editor John Lehrer.
"The best radio writer-producer-director in the whole history of radio," said longtime friend Ray Bradbury.
Plunging earnings and a stream of executive defections "have set tongues wagging."
Staples announcer David Courtney tweets his excitement for tonight's Kings opener.
Schickel has a revealing excerpt of her forthcoming memoir online at Sensitive Skin magazine.
Rancic, the longtime host of various E! Entertainment shows and recently the co-host of the Style Network reality series "Giuliana and Bill," went on NBC's Today this morning to talk about her treatment for breast cancer.
Miller, a former TV newsman who came to the LAPD from New York with then-chief William Bratton, then became a national security official, is returning to the news business.
It has become almost traditional for Ken Auletta to weigh in at length in the New Yorker on major media figures, and Jill Abramson certainly qualifies.
It wasn't quite like when Jacob Sobroff ran into Huell Howser in that Downtown park. This was pre-arranged, but fun nonetheless.
The Los Angeles Kings began the NHL season with two games in Europe, which meant a first time overseas for Rich Hammond, the traveling beat writer who the Kings employ.
Michaels, Sam Zell's right hand at Tribune until last fall and that New York Times story about his sexcapades and frat boy mentality, was arrested early Friday morning near Cincinnati and allegedly failed three field sobriety tests.
Louise Roug Bokkenheuser, the former Los Angeles Times staff writer, is now host of a foreign affairs radio show in Denmark.
Pretty good month for Los Angeles in the print and web pages of the Atlantic, leading with Kate Bolick's cover story on what's happening to marriage now that men are on the decline.
Korean broadcaster TVK24 did a feature story on Jewish Journal editor Rob Eshman's garden and cooking for the Sukkot holiday.
Lorraine Ali is the new pop music editor for the Los Angeles Times, where she began writing for the longtime pop music editor Robert Hilburn.
As of 1:43 p.m., Blackberries in L.A. are texting and beeping again. But it was tense there for awhile.
Lisa Napoli, the public radio veteran who stepped out of the rat race a few years back to live in Bhutan, recently began hosting All Things Considered every afternoon on KCRW. That made her a cross-town commuter.
In Sunday's New York Times, it was hard to miss the bylines that were once among the top-billed names at the Los Angeles Times — plus an ad for Jim Newton's book on Eisenhower.
James Rainey visits the less appealing side of Steve Jobs, plus biographer Walter Isaacson on the late Apple co-founder.
Tony Ortega, the editor of the Village Voice, is speaking today at his alma mater, Cal State Fullerton
Lawsuits by LAPD officers piling up, City Hall and Occupy L.A., Michael Ovitz, Hank Williams Jr., Gregg Miller, Ed Ruscha and drinks with Mexico's consul general in L.A.
In her last story before leaving the Daily Journal for Warren Olney's team at KCRW, staff writer Anna Scott details lucrative outside consulting by Michael Gennaco's county-funded Office of Independent Review.
On Monday, the Register's general manager, Michael E. Henry, was named interim publisher.
Linda Immediato, the editor-in-chief at Pasadena magazine and former deputy at Angeleno, is moving over to Los Angeles as senior editor.
Harold Hayes was the editor of Esquire magazine during its heyday at the birth of New Journalism in the 1960s, and for three years in the 1980s he was the editor here of California magazine.
Your loved ones will immediately read from your dull eyes that you don’t love them, never will again.
Diana Marcum, a freelancer for the Times since 2010, is joining the staff as Fresno correspondent while the agriculture writer is leaving for Reuters.
On- and off-ramps serving Sunset Boulevard at the 405 freeway will start closing Friday for 14-day periods of rebuilding. It's the other shoe falling from the earlier demolition of half...
Lolita Lopez is a Harvard graduate and former sports anchor and reporter at WPIX. Also: Shane Goldmacher to leave LAT.
An editor and a reporter pack up to leave the legal paper, plus VVM layoffs and a Pulitzer winner to co-produce a Suge Knight doc.
Rooney has been on "60 Minutes" since 1978 and this weekend's bit will be his 1097th essay for the show.
The former Los Angeles Times op-ed columnist talks about the post-civil rights generation of African Americans in Los Angeles and her new book, "Black Talk, Blue Thoughts, and Walking the Color Line: Dispatches from a Black Journalista."
Don Barrett is hanging up his virtual microphone after 15 years chronicling the radio community in Southern California.
Marcos Villatoro, the author and former KPFK host who lives in the Valley, made a short video for PBS on the sorry state of the American garage sale.
Nyad got out of the water at about 8 a.m. Pacific time, after swimming 67 nautical miles from her starting point in Cuba.
There was a bit of extra buzz this year due to the participation of former television journalist Bill Lagattuta.
Diana Nyad ran into some Portguese Man-of-War and endured several stings, but her team says she is still swimming toward Florida and gaining strength.
Extreme swimmer and KCRW host Diana Nyad is trying again tonight to swim from Havana to the coast of Florida.
Jacob Adelman leaving AP for Bloomberg, Cecilia Vega joining ABC News here.
Steve Carlston is the new president and general manager of NBC4 Los Angeles. he comes from the CBS stations in Salt Lake City.
Finke says she's gone until October, then blasts rival Sharon Waxman.
A bit over a month since Mark Heisler was excused as the Los Angeles Times' NBA columnist, his byline showed up on a story in the New York Times on Mikhail Marinovich. A few days before the LAT ran a story.
Officially, Jack Klunder is now publisher of the Los Angeles News Group’s metro division.
The daughter of former Vice President Walter Mondale died of brain cancer.
To go with her first story this week in the print Hollywood Reporter, former City Hall reporter Tina Daunt has also joined the staff as the trade's contributing editor for politics.
Maria Shriver makes her return to journalism by interviewing philanthropist Wallis Annenberg in the new issue of Los Angeles. Plus: 50 local women who are game changers.
After years using the paper's website to push Republican talking points, Malcolm will take his blog to Investors Business Daily.
This makes Sam Sifton the editor more or less over most California reporting
Josh Rawitch, the Dodgers' vice president of communications, is moving up in the standings by taking the position of senior vice president for communications with the first-place Arizona Diamondbacks.
His ethics commentary has aired on KNX radio for 14 years.
CBS 2 announced today that Diaz will leave after this Sunday's 9/11 special "to produce projects under her own banner."
The founding producer of "Left, Right & Center" and first co-producer of "Which Way, LA?" has been with KCRW since volunteering in 1983.
Another bill to ease CEQA, ignoring City Hall audits, speculation on Yaroslavsky and more.
Fred Mamoun was an L.A. Press Club journalist of the year in June.
The spiders are out in L.A., plus remembering 9/11 at KPCC.
Nice blog post on Ruslan Salei, the former Ducks player who died today in the Russia plane crash, of the L.A. Times.

Posted September 7, 2011 5:45 PM

Afternoon media notes

It's hot in the media tent in Simi Valley, plus more.

Posted September 7, 2011 1:15 PM

Baquet gets a top job at NYT

Dean Baquet, whose tenure as editor of the Los Angeles Times ended over his refusal to make deep budget cuts, was named today as the managing editor for news of the New York Times.

Posted September 6, 2011 1:22 PM

Journo couple competes, writes columns about it

Dan Evans, the editor of the Times Community News papers in the foothills, and Donna Evans, the editor of La Canada Flintridge Patch, are married and their publications compete for news and readers. They just want you to know that.

Posted September 5, 2011 2:23 PM

Farewell email from LAT 40-year man and soccer writer

Grahame L. Jones, the Los Angeles Times' longtime soccer writer, was among the last of the 40-year newsroom presences. He began on the news side as a reporter and editor...

Posted September 2, 2011 12:38 PM

Jewish Journal names a president and a publisher

Tribe Media Corp, the parent of the Jewish Journal weekly, announced that David Suissa is joining as president

Posted September 2, 2011 9:28 AM

National correspondent signs off at LAT

Add Faye Fiore, a national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times based in Washington, to the list of those taking the paper up on the offer to leave this week.

Posted September 1, 2011 12:20 PM

Daragahi, Petruno, Jones latest names to leave L.A. Times

A marquee foreign correspondent, the markets columnist and the soccer writer are moving on, while talk heats up about a rival L.A. news operation.

Posted September 1, 2011 1:45 AM

Magic Johnson announces grandson on Twitter

He's actually Magic's second grandchild.

Posted August 30, 2011 10:21 PM

Obamajam coming back to L.A.

President Obama will be in West Hollywood on Sept. 26 for two entertainment-themed fundraisers. The return of Obamajam will be on a Monday night.

Posted August 30, 2011 8:44 PM

Dean of L.A. Times Washington bureau to retire

Richard Cooper goes back to the 1960s at the Los Angeles Times, for much of the time the key deputy in the Washington bureau who held things together on big national stories and crises.

Posted August 29, 2011 4:09 PM

Warren Olney takes a few questions

Warren usually asks the questions of his guests on To the Point and Which Way, L.A.?, his long-running shows on KCRW.

Posted August 27, 2011 7:57 PM

Vin Scully announces he will return next season

The Los Angeles corner of Twitter (and my email box) just lit up with the news.

Posted August 26, 2011 9:03 PM

Afternoon media notes

No deal for Freedom newspapers, Contessa Brewer out, Jon Huntsman on, NYT visits LA. and more.

Posted August 25, 2011 2:35 PM

Slate lays off media writer Jack Shafer

Shafer was part of the original team that launched Slate with Michael Kinsley in 1996.

Posted August 24, 2011 5:55 PM

Steve Jobs resigns as Apple CEO *

"I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you."

Posted August 24, 2011 3:44 PM

Romenesko to semi-retire from media aggregating

He will give up his full-time employee status and post part-time for Poynter, do some tweeting and launch JimRomenesko.com in January. Poynter will rename its site Romenesko+.

Posted August 24, 2011 1:40 PM

Q: Where's Bill Lagattuta? A: Frogtown

The former CBS News correspondent and local TV newsman in Los Angeles is now painting and sculpting at a studio in Elysian Valley.

Posted August 23, 2011 10:42 PM

Reporter threw up after witnessing subway killing

Todd Martens posts at Tumblr that it was pretty jarring to watch a dispute on the Red Line rapidly escalate to a fatal stabbing. His report of Friday night's incident,...

Posted August 22, 2011 2:36 PM

Deborah Clark the new EP at Marketplace

As executive producer of the Marketplace franchise, Deborah Clark will oversee editorial content of Marketplace Morning Report, Marketplace, Marketplace Money, and Marketplace Tech Report.

Posted August 22, 2011 9:20 AM

Local journo picks a bone over Vegas water tale

Emily Green reported and wrote (and apparently went through editing hell to finally publish) a long seres in the Las Vegas Sun on a big Nevada water grab. And she's miffed to find a lot of parallels between her reporting and a chapter on Nevada in "The Ripple Effect" by Alex Prud’homme.

Posted August 22, 2011 2:00 AM

L.A. Times writer sees killing on Red Line

Pop music staffer Todd Martens was in the subway in Hollywood last night when he witnessed a man stab another man, then flee the scene. It was more complicated than...

Posted August 20, 2011 4:13 PM

Huffington returns to 'Left, Right & Center'

Arianna Huffington will be in her old spot on the left of KCRW's "Left, Right & Center" panel for this afternoon's show.

Posted August 19, 2011 12:56 PM

Lede o' the day

From Al Martinez in his Daily News column.

Posted August 19, 2011 12:07 PM

George Ramos memorial draws a crowd *

I'm told there was a packed house last night at American Legion Post 804 in East Los Angeles to honor the life of journalist George Ramos.

Posted August 18, 2011 6:20 PM

'Ask a Mexican' the play debuts next week in NYC

Gustavo Arellano, creator of the Ask a Mexican! column syndicated out of the OC Weekly, writes today that "I've been sitting on this announcement for months, partly because I fully expected it to fall through."

Posted August 15, 2011 10:45 PM

LAT in dispute with photog David Strick over copyright

Longtime Hollywood photographer David Strick is suing the Times and Tribune for using his photos 500 times.

Posted August 12, 2011 12:34 PM

KNBC names weekend anchors

Former CNN Business News correspondent Stephanie Elam will join Robert Kovacik at 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. on Channel 4.

Posted August 11, 2011 3:52 PM

Jake Tapper's advice for young campaign reporters

The ABC News Senior White House Correspondent gives tips to the new army of virgin journalists that will be spun by national campaign machines before it ends in 2012.

Posted August 11, 2011 9:41 AM

With Nyad at sea: 'Her constant moans were discomforting'

Diana Nyad was almost 24 hours into her Cuba to Florida swim and losing the battle with the Gulf Stream. An inside look.

Posted August 11, 2011 1:10 AM

Barbara Davidson on photo of Somalian mother

L.A. Times photographer Barbara Davidson comments at the paper's photo blog on the stunning image she shot of a refugee and her child. It ran last week on the front...

Posted August 11, 2011 12:55 AM

WSJ reporter to be next Villaraigosa press secretary

Peter Sanders, the Wall Street Journal's former aerospace writer in Los Angeles, begins Monday.

Posted August 10, 2011 12:58 PM

Science writer Thomas Maugh retiring from L.A. Times

The current wave of departures from the Los Angeles Times newsroom isn't nearly over.

Posted August 9, 2011 9:40 PM

The Wrap links Rutten firing to errors

Mis-attribution of quote on anonymous political novel is cited.

Posted August 9, 2011 1:20 PM

John Schwada Day

City Council members Bill Rosendahl and Herb Wesson propose that Friday be John Schwada Day in the city of Los Angeles. Plus: Joe Saltzman.

Posted August 9, 2011 12:30 PM

New Yorker's Susan Orlean moving to L.A., without chickens

Many of her 173,000 followers on Twitter want to know about the animals.

Posted August 8, 2011 11:07 PM

Diana Nyad ends Cuba to Florida swim

Nyad was vomiting when she was pulled onto her support boat at 12:45 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday.

Posted August 8, 2011 10:37 PM

How Jonathan Gold came to call for ban on shark fins

His brother Mark, the head of Heal the Bay, says that he asked the LA Weekly food writer for this weekend's op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times. Getting it done was more of a struggle.

Posted August 8, 2011 11:48 AM

Los Angeles Review of Books picks up axed LAT writers

Susan Salter Reynolds and Richard Rayner will continue the book columns that the Los Angeles Times recently dropped in its cost-cutting of freelancers.

Posted August 7, 2011 9:31 PM

Diana Nyad is in the water, swimming toward Florida

Nyad, the KCRW columnist and extreme swimmer, played "Reveille" on a bugle then at 4:45 p.m. L.A. time plunged into a Havana marina to begin swimming from Cuba to Florida.

Posted August 7, 2011 8:21 PM

KNBC wins big at the Emmys

Channel 4 took home 13 awards at last night's local Emmys, including a sweep of all three regularly scheduled newscast categories. The Governors Award went to FOX11 anchor Christine Devine...

Posted August 7, 2011 12:10 PM

Mark Heisler's last day at the L.A. Times

The paper's award-winning pro basketball writer sent along this write-up of his experience going into the Times to check out after 32 years in Sports.

Posted August 5, 2011 10:49 AM

Catching up: Media notes

Did the L.A. Times' Barbara Davidson lock up another Pulitzer with yesterday's front-page photo of a Somali mother and child in a Kenyan refugee camp?

Posted August 4, 2011 7:08 PM

KNBC moves 'concern' Latino media group

Demoting one or two Latino anchors may be a coincidence; but "demoting five in the past year raises suspicions," writes Julio Moran of Latino Journalists of California to KNBC's boss. Read the letter.

Posted August 4, 2011 12:46 AM

Scott Pelley in town to anchor CBS News

Actually, he's in town to appear at the TCA press tour.

Posted August 3, 2011 10:36 AM

LAT makes big hire a week after layoffs

There's some newsroom grumbling over timing.

Posted August 3, 2011 8:07 AM

Sam Zell to lecture on ethics

No, this is serious. Really.

Posted August 2, 2011 1:27 PM

Another casualty at the LAT

Baghdad Bureau Manager Salar Jaff was among those let go last week.

Posted August 2, 2011 9:37 AM

LAT writer learns of her layoff by email in the Arctic

Environment reporter Margot Roosevelt's note to the newsroom tells the story. Plus another exit, and Tim Rutten's KCRW appearance.

Posted July 30, 2011 1:32 AM

Tim Rutten on 'Which Way, L.A.?'

The veteran LAT columnist talks to Warren Olney about being laid off.

Posted July 28, 2011 3:22 PM

More local media transitions

In addition to the newsroom turmoil at the Los Angeles Times, a couple of other transitions to note today. Tina Dupuy is leaving Fishbowl LA — voluntarily! — after three...

Posted July 27, 2011 6:58 PM

Here's a classy LAT farewell note

One of the Los Angeles Times newsroom veterans who found today that she was laid off is Jane Engle, an assistant editor in Travel who has written a lot for the Travel section.

Posted July 27, 2011 6:47 PM

KNBC makes an anchor change at 6 p.m. *

Ana Garcia is moving back to the investigative team full-time. The new 6 p.m. anchor on Channel 4 is Lucy Noland, recently imported from Houston. She starts tonight.

Posted July 25, 2011 3:12 PM

Visiting blogger remembers George Ramos

After the Rodney King verdict riots in 1992, George Ramos wrote a first-person piece in the L.A. Times that began "Los Angeles, you broke my heart. And I'm not sure I'll love you again."

Posted July 25, 2011 1:20 AM

George Ramos, journalist was 63

The body of Ramos, the former L.A. Times staff writer and editor, was found in his Morro Bay home after he did not respond to calls from colleagues at CalCoastNews.com.

Posted July 24, 2011 1:43 PM

Barry Minkow saga ends again

The con man has been sentenced back to prison, and his journalist partner in short-selling stock on companies they "exposed" does PR for the city of Costa Mesa.

Posted July 22, 2011 9:18 AM

Why one journalist won't buy another Mac *

Dan Gillmor typically buys a new computer every year, and loves his MacBook Air.

Posted July 21, 2011 2:56 PM

Alex Chadwick documentary to air on KCRW

After Alex Chadwick lost his job at NPR, then his wife to cancer, he and a friend who also was facing a personal crisis went rafting through Cataract Canyon in Utah. The radio documentary that resulted debuts Friday on KCRW, and there's a twist to the story.

Posted July 20, 2011 5:25 PM

Deadline intros Facebook game in cahoots with Paramount

Nikki Finke watchers are having a fun time with this morning's news that she's flacking a Hollywood-themed Facebook game with Paramount Digital Entertainment.

Posted July 19, 2011 10:57 AM

Schwada has a few words to say

Veteran TV reporter John Schwada has posted on Facebook about his firing by Fox 11. He's not happy about it.

Posted July 19, 2011 8:22 AM

Diana Nyad getting ready to try again

The KCRW commentator is in Florida with her team, checking weather and training to try again to swim from Cuba to the U.S. mainland.

Posted July 18, 2011 10:35 PM

Michael Jackson back on radio for two days

The reigning radio talk host in Los Angeles for a couple of decades until conservative talk took over the AM dial sits in for Patt Morrison on KPCC on Monday and Tuesday.

Posted July 17, 2011 11:51 PM

John Schwada's contract not renewed by Fox 11

Political and investigative reporter John Schwada has been with the Channel 11 a long time, and last month picked up the L.A. Press Club's Joseph M. Quinn Award for journalistic excellence.

Posted July 15, 2011 9:21 AM

LA Weekly writer to ghost Riordan's memoir

Patrick Range McDonald, a staff writer at the Weekly, has been tapped to co-write the memoir of former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan.

Posted July 14, 2011 9:43 PM

Countdown to Carmageddon, the trailer

I'm the reporter-narrator on a UCLA-produced program on the 405 closure that's airing as a special edition of "SoCal Connected" on KCET, Wednesday at 8 p.m. and Friday at 9:30 p.m. Here's the trailer.

Posted July 12, 2011 6:38 PM

Peggy Kaus, late-blooming politics blogger was 88

She was the mother of political writer and former U.S. Senate candidate Mickey Kaus and the widow of the late California Supreme Court Justice Otto Kaus.

Posted July 11, 2011 11:50 PM

Zooey Deschanel vs. Patt Morrison

L.A. Times columnist Patt Morrison's blog quip the other day that actress Zooey Deschanel is a "snobby cow" for daring to diss an ugly corner of Downtown has elicited a big response — from Deschanel.

Posted July 11, 2011 11:35 PM

LAT names deputy chief in Washington

Bob Drogin, a longtime foreign and national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, will be the deputy in Washington. Read the memo.

Posted July 11, 2011 4:10 PM

Journalist asks public for a little help with ideas

L.A. Times Metro features editor Nita Lelyveld is returning to local reporting and posted a request on the city desk's public Twitter account.

Posted July 7, 2011 9:02 AM

Fradkins follow the California coast

Author and long-ago L.A. Times enviro reporter Philip L. Fradkin and his photographer son, Alex L. Fradkin, walked the eleven-hundred miles of California coast and have married their words and images in “The Left Coast."

Posted July 5, 2011 10:16 PM

SoCal journalist has head start on walk across America

Former Daily Pilot photographer Kent Treptow is walking across the United States with his dog Hanna.

Posted July 5, 2011 9:59 PM

Maria Shriver files for divorce

Shriver's filing in Los Angeles Superior Court cites irreconcilable differences and seeks shared custody with ex-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of their two sons.

Posted July 1, 2011 4:38 PM

Jonathan Gold branches out

In the new issue of the Wall Street Journal Magazine, the LA Weekly's Jonathan Gold escapes from the San Gabriel Valley's Asian dives he frequents to profile the Copenhagen restaurant just voted the best in the world for the second year in a row.

Posted June 29, 2011 9:39 PM

L.A. Times folds Brand X

Brand X, the Times' somewhat youthier culture and events publication, is ceasing publication with today's issue.

Posted June 29, 2011 9:22 PM

LA Weekly picks a music editor

Ben Westhoff, a New Yorker who has written for the Village Voice, NPR, Pitchfork, Spin and XXL has been named the LA Weekly's music editor.

Posted June 28, 2011 10:11 PM

Press Club names its journos of the year *

Here are the L.A. Press Club's journalists of the year from Sunday night's awards banquet.

Posted June 27, 2011 12:40 AM

NYT media on TMZ, Breitbart

New York Times media reporters have takes this weekend on two L.A.-based fixtures on the current media scene.

Posted June 26, 2011 7:35 PM

Couple of notable hires for The Wrap

The Wrap is bringing in Fred Schruers as a senior writer and Lucas Shaw, a recent Columbia grad, as media writer.

Posted June 24, 2011 9:05 AM

Continuing the conversation on L.A. theater

Here's a report by Los Angeles theater types who aren't fans of the Center Theater Group model.

Posted June 23, 2011 11:10 PM

Chuck Philips wants his retraction back

Philips, whose story about an attack on Tupac Shakur, was "fully retracted" by the L.A. Times in 2008, says new information corroborates his original story.

Posted June 22, 2011 11:44 AM

Daily News loses city editor...to Kuwait

John Miller and his wife are moving to Kuwait to teach, per today's memo from Executive Editor Carolina Garcia.

Posted June 21, 2011 6:25 PM

LAT creates new beat: local research and intellectual trends

Metro reporter Scott Gold will focus on stories about "the scientific and technological breakthroughs of the modern era" — and also earthquakes. The challenge of the beat will be to...

Posted June 21, 2011 6:19 PM

Rob Long on writing, 'Cheers'

Nice interview by The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf with Rob Long, the Emmy-winning writer on "Cheers" who lives in Venice, does his weekly Martini Shot column for KCRW and continues to write for TV.

Posted June 20, 2011 11:31 PM

Elvis Mitchell on LACMA film: Expand, not redefine

Mitchell tells IndieWire's Dana Harris that in his new role as curator for the Film Independent/Los Angeles County Museum of Art film series, "The first thing I want to do is not alienate people who have been coming to LACMA to see movies.

Posted June 17, 2011 10:56 AM

Harcourt actually moving to KCSN *

For some reason the initial news this morning was that longtime KCRW music force Nic Harcourt was leaving the station where he used to be music director (he still hosted a weekend show) to concentrate on work at MTV. Now comes a release from KCSN.

Posted June 17, 2011 10:31 AM

Mayoral candidates in the house at Los Angeles party

Los Angeles magazine gathered quite a crowd Wednesday night in the lobby of 5900 Wilshire, the tall office tower across from LACMA that the magazine shares with Variety, the New York Times and other media outlets.

Posted June 17, 2011 12:20 AM

Elvis Mitchell to run LACMA film program

Anne Thompson notes that Mitchell lands on his feet again, but she suggests the museum be aware of issues with his "skills as an administrator/manager/organizer."

Posted June 16, 2011 10:04 AM

Finke makes the day interesting (again)

In the small world of the Hollywood trades, Tuesday began with the former L.A. Times advertising exec Lynne Segall quitting MMC to become publisher and senior VP of The Hollywood Reporter. Then Nikki Finke posted a 1,300 word screed against Segall.

Posted June 14, 2011 10:50 PM

Ex-LAT publisher now saves Utah from Playboy

Mark Willes, the CEO who lost Times Mirror (and the Los Angeles Times) to Tribune, says NBC's "The Playboy Club" won't air on his LDS television channel.

Posted June 14, 2011 10:51 AM

LA Times rehires David Willman in Washington *

Willman, a Pulitzer winner for the paper in 2001, is the author of the recent "The Mirage Man," about the suspected perpetrator of anthrax attacks that killed five. Read the memo.

Posted June 12, 2011 11:05 PM

LAPD's Mary Grady leaves the force

Today was the last day for longtime Los Angeles Police Department media relations spokeswoman Mary Grady.

Posted June 10, 2011 4:05 PM

Allen Levy, CBS producer was 59

Levy was working for CBS Newspath out of Los Angeles covering the Arizona wildfires when he failed to show up this morning to produce a live shot for "The Early Show." He was found dead in his hotel room, apparently of natural causes.

Posted June 9, 2011 8:48 PM

Patt Morrison goes far afield

Patt Morrison will do her KPCC show on Thursday live from the United Nations in New York. Here's the guest list.

Posted June 8, 2011 9:15 PM

How about red-light paint ball guns?

KPCC's John Rabe seems a little perturbed that the police commission has overruled the LAPD staff and voted to discontinue the red-light cameras that spew out dubious tickets at 32 intersections around Los Angeles. It's moire about L.A. drivers though.

Posted June 8, 2011 12:20 PM

Huffington now employs about 1,300 journalists

The number of full-time journalists that Arianna Huffington now oversees is more than the staffs of the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post. Still, all's not well in the merger of Huffington and AOL.

Posted June 7, 2011 12:26 PM

Pelley debuts on CBS Evening News, without Weiner

Scott Pelley took the anchor chair on the CBS network's flagship news program tonight, and the only real suspense was how would his show cover the Anthony Weiner sex scandal.

Posted June 6, 2011 10:54 PM

Breitbart shoots...he scores

Andrew Breitbart, the Westside-based conservative activist and website mogul, doesn't always hit the targets he aims for on the left. On Monday, though, he leveled New York Rep. Anthony Weiner with a clean check.

Posted June 6, 2011 9:57 PM

Los Angeles magazine gearing up for its 50th birthday

I guess things are looking up financially for Los Angeles magazine, after winning a couple of National Magazine Awards last month.

Posted June 6, 2011 12:57 AM

Living in West Adams as the neighborhood changes

Jennifer Ferro, the general manager of KCRW, writes at Zocalo about changes in her neighborhood near Western Avenue and Washington Boulevard.

Posted June 5, 2011 11:55 PM

How the NYT editor turnover came about

Bill Keller started talking to Jill Abramson last summer about taking his place, says Gabriel Sherman in New York Magazine.

Posted June 2, 2011 10:36 PM

Covering Mexico is hard, drugs and all

A sold-out house came to MOCA to hear five journalists talk about the challenges of covering Mexico.

Posted June 2, 2011 10:27 PM

An alternative diet plate

The anonymous blogger at Ruth Bourdain has customized the government's new dietary plate to his/her own foodie taste.

Posted June 2, 2011 10:17 PM

Sky Daniels to run KCSN in the Valley *

KCSN, the FM station from Cal State Northridge, has a new program director. Sky Daniels, formerly of the late KMET and other stations, has also been a label executive at...

Posted June 2, 2011 9:11 AM

Abramson to be new editor of New York Times

Biller Keller steps down effective Sept. 6. Dean Baquet, the former L.A. Times editor, will succeed Abramson as managing editor.

Posted June 2, 2011 8:18 AM

NYT Magazine on Bill Simmons

Los Angeles-based Bill Simmons is "the most prominent sportswriter in America," this Sunday's New York Times Magazine says in a profile pegged to Simmons getting a ton of ESPN cash to headline his own website.

Posted June 1, 2011 4:23 PM

LAT names Roberts as pop critic

Randall Roberts is moving over to fill the pop critic spot at the Los Angeles Times that was vacated recently by Ann Powers. Read the memo.

Posted June 1, 2011 4:08 PM

Freelancer admits she talks too much

In one of Salon.com's Mortifying Disclosures features, Los Angeles journalist Taffy Brodesser-Akner reveals herself to be a blabbermouth who doesn't listen enough. Her description, not mine.

Posted May 31, 2011 9:59 PM

French journalist tortured in Bahrain

Nazeeha Saeed, the Bahrain correspondent of France 24 and Radio Monte Carlo Doualiya, was summoned to a police station, blindfolded, beaten on her back and feet with flexible plastic tubing and questioned about her reports.

Posted May 30, 2011 11:17 PM

James Kang, media manager at CBS LA *

At the end of the news at 11, Channel 2 anchor Pat Harvey's voice was thick with emotion as she announced the unexpected death of colleague James Kang.

Posted May 27, 2011 11:55 PM

Jaime Chambers swims from Alcatraz to land

KTLA reporter Jaime Chambers does the swim in 38 minutes.

Posted May 25, 2011 11:19 PM

One local Nieman Fellow gets the call

Journalists love being tapped by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard.

Posted May 24, 2011 9:43 AM

KCET to air benefit for Japan relief

KCET is devoting the 8 to 11 p.m. block on Tuesday night to a live show raising money for Japan. All proceeds will go to tsunami and quake relief efforts...

Posted May 23, 2011 3:02 PM

New editor in the Valley

The San Fernando Valley Business Journal has a new editor. Plus: The story of ValSurf, and the band She Wants Revenge really loves the Valley.

Posted May 23, 2011 12:34 PM

L.A. journalist turned Cincy blogger

Gordon Smith, the former Los Angeles bureau chief for Copley News Service, resigned last year as chief spokesman for the local ACLU to movie with his wife to a farm...

Posted May 22, 2011 11:26 PM

Pete Noyes and "The Big News" on KNXT

A little follow to Saturday's post about the Channel 2 alumni who are burning up Facebook.

Posted May 22, 2011 9:59 PM

Channel 2 alumni flock to Facebook

If you worked at Channel 2 in Los Angeles any time back to "The Big News" years with Jerry Dunphy and Bill Stout, there's a Facebook group you might like.

Posted May 21, 2011 12:35 PM

When LeDuff met the mother of Arnold's secret son

Charlie LeDuff, then at the New York Times, remembers Mildred Baena as well-endowed but not much of a cook. It's the backstory that's amusing, however.

Posted May 18, 2011 10:20 PM

Daily Journal has openings again

Editor David Houston announced another exit with a pitch to come use his paper as a steppingstone. Read the memo to staff.

Posted May 18, 2011 12:37 AM

Iran releases missing Al Jazeera reporter

Dorothy Parvaz called her fiancee tonight from safety in Doha, Qatar. The first words she said to him were: "I'm so sorry."

Posted May 17, 2011 10:44 PM

Reporter recalls investigating Arnold's groping for the LAT

Tracy Weber details getting some of Schwarzenegger's victims to talk days before the election in 2003, but wonders if it mattered.

Posted May 17, 2011 10:22 PM

Hunting for Osama in the Hollywood Hills

Funny, I didn't realize Pakistan's terrain is chapparal.

Posted May 17, 2011 4:08 PM

Cooking with Julia and Suzanne

Channels 2 and 9 reporter Suzanne Marques blogs that she's been reading Julia Child's autobiography — and woke up Sunday morning with an insatiable craving to make Julia's Boeuf Bourguignon recipe that had a starring role in the movie "Julia and Julia." So she did.

Posted May 16, 2011 10:25 PM

American media gradually leaving Tijuana behind

Reporting on Tijuana is not as dangerous as it looks, says TijuanaPress.com co-founder Vicente Calderón, but it's still like covering a conflict zone.

Posted May 16, 2011 6:25 PM

Jim Lehrer leaving the anchor chair at PBS NewsHour

Lehrer will continue to appear on Friday broadcasts, moderating the weekly analysis of Mark Shields and David Brooks.

Posted May 12, 2011 9:27 AM

'Los Angeles' wins two Ellies tonight

Los Angeles wins the American Society of Magazine Editors award for feature writing and general excellence by a specialty magazine.

Posted May 9, 2011 9:32 PM

Schwarzenegger, Shriver announce they are separated

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver released a statement tonight saying they are living apart "while we work on the future of our relationship."

Posted May 9, 2011 9:04 PM

Times re-embraces City-County bureau

The City-County bureau concept is coming back again, with longtime staff writer Rich Connell in charge.

Posted May 9, 2011 4:41 PM

David Hume Kennerly gives oral history of Nixon years

David Hume Kennerly won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972 (at age 25) for his combat photography of the Vietnam War and was at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles the night in June, 1968 that Robert F. Kennedy was shot.

Posted May 7, 2011 5:38 PM

City parking officers targeting media cars

About 600 photographers, reporters and others pay $100 a year for a permit that is supposed to allow them to park at expired meters and in preferential parking zones while covering news

Posted May 7, 2011 12:22 PM

James Beard honors for Kuh, Gold

Patric Kuh of Los Angeles magazine and Jonathan Gold of LA Weekly are the top local winners of the James Beard Foundation media awards.

Posted May 7, 2011 11:37 AM

LA Times publisher named CEO of Tribune

Eddy Hartenstein remains publisher of Los Angeles Times Media Group, but has appointed former Times executive Kathy Thomson as president and chief operating officer of the paper.

Posted May 6, 2011 9:39 AM

Soboroff gets feisty with Larry Mantle

It's not very often that you hear a guest on KPCC's "Airtalk" get almost snarky with host Larry Mantle, but these are desperate times at Dodger Stadium.

Posted May 5, 2011 5:51 PM

Curbed editor leaves for Daily News

Dakota Smith took over as Curbed LA editor in 2007 and guided the site to must-read status with a lot of original reporting.

Posted May 3, 2011 12:17 PM

Press-Telegram axes sports, photo and features desks

Those functions will move from the unionized Long Beach daily paper to the non-union sister paper the Daily Breeze.

Posted May 2, 2011 9:31 PM

Pasta making 101, courtesy of L.A. journo

Greg Critser is a Pasadena author who, in his magazine days, edited several top L.A. journalists. He's also enough of a cook that Science 2.0 put up some instructional videos of Critser making pasta.

Posted May 2, 2011 8:56 AM

Lara Logan talks about the night she thought she'd die

The CBS News correspondent who was attacked in Cairo's Tahrir Square tells the New York Times that she was surrounded by 200-300 men who tore at her clothes, beat her and "for an extended period of time, they raped me with their hands."

Posted April 28, 2011 2:22 PM

City services may be slow, but this is ridiculous

KPCC's John Rabe spots an amusing misspelling in a press release from the Coalition of LA City Unions.

Posted April 27, 2011 11:12 AM

Elvis Mitchell and Movieline break up after a short affair

Mitchell joined in January and now is out. Nikki Finke and Anne Thompson report different reasons.

Posted April 25, 2011 12:25 AM

Exciting day of mistaken identity for L.A. journo *

Photojournalist Jonathan Alcorn and a news crew shooting a story on paparazzi for Bloomberg News were stopped near Sunset Plaza this afternoon (presumably by sheriff's deputies), ordered to the ground and treated as felony suspects.

Posted April 21, 2011 2:56 PM

Alycia Lane, many others win Murrow awards

Channel 4 morning anchor Alycia Lane just tweeted her good news.

Posted April 21, 2011 12:05 PM

Jose Rios promoted at Fox, out as Channel 11 news director

Rios, the VP and news director at Fox 11, has been named vice president of digital news applications at parent Fox Television Stations.

Posted April 20, 2011 1:20 PM

Tim Hetherington, photog and director of 'Restrepo' killed in Libya *

Hetherington's photos from Afghanistan for Vanity Fair and others formed the basis for the Oscar-nominated documentary Restrepo, which he directed which his long-time journalistic collaborator Sebastian Junger.

Posted April 20, 2011 12:29 PM

End of the line for Joel Pett cartoons in Sunday LAT

The L.A. Times opinion page has canceled the Sunday roundup of editorial cartoons that Joel Pett has done for six years-plus.

Posted April 20, 2011 1:37 AM

Los Angeles Times wins two Pulitzer Prizes: Bell and feature photography *

The Times' staff gets the public service medal for uncovering the corruption scandal in the city of Bell, and photographer Barbara Davidson wins for her images of the victims of gang violence in Los Angeles.

Posted April 18, 2011 12:07 PM

Geoff Miller, Los Angeles Magazine co-founder and editor was 74 *

Geoff Miller was the first editor of Los Angeles, starting in 1960 when it was called The Prompter, and in 1990 became the magazine's publisher. He died Saturday at home in L.A.

Posted April 16, 2011 11:55 PM

Friday quick links

No Dodger Stadium arrests, Trutanich endorses Hahn, former Daily News editor dies and public radio stations raise money for Japan. Plus more.

Posted April 15, 2011 8:13 AM

Playboy's top editor moving to L.A.

That means both editorial director Jimmy Jellinek and deputy editor Stephen Randall will be working out of the Playboy offices in Glendale.

Posted April 14, 2011 7:57 PM

Reporters drive toward the radiation

L.A. Times Seoul bureau chief John Glionna, his driver, interpreter and another reporter rolled up the windows in an SUV, closed the vents and drove toward the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Posted April 14, 2011 7:45 PM

Connelly, Tina Fey debut at the top of L.A. bestseller lists

Michael Connelly's newest, "The Fifth Witness," arrives at number one on the fiction hardcover list for Southern California independent bookstores. Tina Fey tops nonfiction books with "Bossypants."

Posted April 13, 2011 7:55 PM

Sidney Harman, Newsweek owner was 92

Sidney Harman died last night in Washington of complications from acute myeloid leukemia, a disease he was diagnosed with a month ago.

Posted April 13, 2011 7:26 AM

Another exit from LAT's entertainment staff

John Lippman, editor of the Company Town report, is moving his family to New Hampshire to work at a small newspaper that isn't on the web in a town that's not obsessed with Hollywood.

Posted April 11, 2011 9:35 AM

Looking ahead to the State of the City

Mayor Villaraigosa will return to an old theme in this week's State of the City speech, plus Joe Scott retires.

Posted April 10, 2011 11:44 PM

Dennis McCarthy picks winners for a book

Daily News columnist Dennis McCarthy writes "when I arrived at the Daily News 30 years ago this month, I had dark hair, a flat stomach, and the stamina to chase stories all day and night. Five thousand plus columns later, what's left of the hair is white, I've got a pot belly, and need a nap after lunch."

Posted April 10, 2011 11:05 PM

MTA begins transit blog in Spanish

Metro's blog The Source has become in 18 months one of the MTA's main ways of exciting the base of L.A. transit enthusiasts and responding to rail critics. Now the...

Posted April 10, 2011 10:30 PM

Conversations with Almena Lomax, journalist

BNill Boyarsky remembers the founder of the Los Angeles Tribune.

Posted April 8, 2011 6:59 PM

Friday desk clearing

Clearing out the backlog, with more to come.

Posted April 8, 2011 6:41 PM

NBC's Richard Engel to get Daniel Pearl Award

Richard Engel, the NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent, will receive the L.A. Press Club's 2011 Daniel Pearl Award for Courage and Integrity on June 26th at the Millennium Biltmore.

Posted April 8, 2011 12:15 AM

Catching up after a few days semi-offline

L.A. sits out trend on nonwhite children, more Grim Sleeper victims, Abby Sunderland's book, LACMA partners with New York Times, Nikki Finke plans her return and more.

Posted April 7, 2011 1:21 AM

LA Observed contributors read, write and sell

Nancy Rommelmann in town to read and sign her novel, plus Gary Leonard and Deanne Stillman.

Posted April 7, 2011 12:50 AM

Glenn Beck too nutty for Fox News

David Folkenflik's piece for All Things Considered on NPR thing put a different sparkle on the story.

Posted April 6, 2011 11:57 PM

Los Angeles mag nominated for three Ellies

Our friends at Los Angeles are up for three National Magazine Awards: general excellence, leisure interests and Ben Ehrenreich in feature writing for his piece on dying in L.A. David...

Posted April 5, 2011 11:20 PM

Monday spring break notes

Laurie Pike out as Style Editor at Los Angeles magazine, Rick Orlov's Tipoffs and more media and politics notes. Plus a programming note.

Posted April 4, 2011 12:45 AM

Even from her sick bed, Hollywood's 'Crazy Nikki' is controversial

Entertainment blogger Nikki Finke may be on medical leave, but a post she put up — then took down — has prompted renewed talk of "Crazy Nikki" and "Hollywood’s leading internet terrorist."

Posted April 4, 2011 12:16 AM

Charlie Sheen's fail: how bad was it?

The mainstream media sent real critics to the Charlie Sheen tour's opening night in Detroit, for whatever reason. It didn't take their experience to know it went very, very badly. But better tonight in Chicago.

Posted April 3, 2011 10:10 PM

Katie Couric leaving CBS anchor chair, AP reports

A network executive, "who spoke on condition of anonymity because Couric has not officially announced her plans," reported the move to Associated Press on Sunday night,

Posted April 3, 2011 9:43 PM

Saturday desk clearing

Mayor Villaraigosa's negotiated deal with the FPPC to pay a $42,000 fine over not reporting free tickets "highlights the need for that agency to clarify its regulations," says Laurie Levinson of Loyola law school. Plus more

Posted April 2, 2011 1:58 PM

Al Martinez on the passing of his daughter

Veteran L.A. journalist and author Al Martinez has been keeping readers up to date on his daughter Cinthia's cancer in his Daily News columns.

Posted April 1, 2011 1:21 PM

Mattingly undefeated as Dodgers manager *

Today at Dodger Stadium, all was sunshine and warm breezes. Plus a media note.

Posted March 31, 2011 11:49 PM

Five minutes of newsroom applause for NYT returnees

Former Libyan captives Anthony Shadid, Stephen Farrell, Lynsey Addario and Tyler Hicks were feted by their colleagues today.

Posted March 31, 2011 2:44 PM

Deadline hires from USA Today

David Lieberman, senior media reporter at USA Today, will join Deadline.com as Executive Editor on April 11.

Posted March 28, 2011 12:33 PM

LAT names new Washington bureau chief, local editor

David Lauter is moving to be Tribune Washington bureau chief, and Ashley Dunn takes over as California editor of the Los Angeles Times — basically the point editor on all local, regional and state coverage. Read the memos.

Posted March 28, 2011 12:20 PM

Weekend news and notes

Smithsonian withdraws bid for historic murals, LAUSD's Deasy won't take $55,000 raise, a City Hall exit, art and books notes and a local media obituary.

Posted March 27, 2011 5:43 PM

LAT's Bell reporter was the son of her nanny *

Ruben Vives, once illegal, got a green card and a college job at the L.A. Times. Then he got his chance at being a reporter.

Posted March 24, 2011 5:42 PM

New general manager at KMEX

Alberto Mier y Terán has been named Vice President and General Manager of Univision's Spanish-language Channel 34.

Posted March 22, 2011 11:00 PM

Dowie loses another round

The imprisoned former Fleishman-Hillard executive and Daily News editor lost an appeal that sought to require his former employer to pick up some legal bills.

Posted March 22, 2011 10:19 PM

Freed NYT staffers were roughed up while in Libyan hands

Anthony Shadid, Tyler Hicks, Lynsey Addario and Stephen Farrell were kept tied and often handcuffed while held by pro-government forces in Libya, before being transferred to Tripoli and released today.

Posted March 21, 2011 11:32 PM

Four NYT journalists released by Libya

Reporters Anthony Shadid and Stephen Farrell and photographers Tyler Hicks and Lynsey Addario were released Monday into the custody of Turkish diplomats.

Posted March 21, 2011 7:51 AM

Pat Casey, TV news director was 54

Pat Casey, the former managing editor at Channel 2 in Los Angeles, died Saturday in Cincinnati after a year-long battle with brain cancer.

Posted March 20, 2011 2:27 PM

It's print journalism's awards season

Bunch of awards for journalists handed out today.

Posted March 18, 2011 7:10 PM

One NYT photographer to be released, Gadhafi son says *

It sounds as if the four missing New York Times journalists are in the hands of the Libyan armed forces.

Posted March 18, 2011 12:09 AM

Frank Buckley blogs about the trip to Japan

Channel 5's morning anchor explains how he came to be sent to cover the Japan disaster on short notice — and why he and his crew, producer Toni Molle and photographer Mike McGregor, came back so soon.

Posted March 17, 2011 11:20 PM

Husband of NYT photographer missing in Libya makes appeal *

Lynsey Addario (almost off-camera, on left) and Tyler Hicks (on the right, in the glasses) are the two New York Times photographers missing in Libya. This photo by Reuters...

Posted March 17, 2011 6:37 PM

Hollywood Reporter traded coverage with Summit Entertainment, Finke says *

Nikki Finke alleges at Deadline Hollywood that The Hollywood Reporter "deleted embarrassing information about Summit Entertainment principals from a financial story about the studio's refinancing in order to 'horse-trade' it for the cover story interview with Jodie Foster that appears in this week's print edition.

Posted March 17, 2011 4:15 PM

What if California politics were more like 'Glee?'

A cartoon by Donna Barstow featuring J. Brown, Lady Lockyer and the new cool kids.

Posted March 16, 2011 10:41 PM

KTLA's Frank Buckley returns from Japan, gets checked for radiation *

Channel 5's morning anchor flew into LAX tonight and tweeted there's a new addition to the customs procedure: a radiation wand.

Posted March 16, 2011 7:34 PM

Four NYT journalists missing in Libya *

The New York Times says the Libyan government is helping try to locate the four: two reporters and two photographers.

Posted March 16, 2011 11:47 AM

Reporter posts AOL 'request' to be nicer to movie *

File this in the corner of your mind where you're a least a little concerned about editorial standards at the new AOL.

Posted March 15, 2011 10:25 PM

Remembering '60s figure Owsley Stanley III *

L.A. food writer and author Charles Perry writes about his former roommate in a Visiting Blogger post for LA Observed — and insists he did not turn on the former LSD designer.

Posted March 15, 2011 1:35 PM

Late-night talk show host to get in mayor's race

Kevin James, who does midnight to 3 a.m. on KRLA, is throwing his microphone in the 2013 race for mayor in Los Angeles.

Posted March 15, 2011 12:19 PM

KCET says enough viewers are hanging in

Ratings are down by half compared to a year ago and donations by former members have also dropped off, but KCET chief executive Al Jerome says that the station's broadcast...

Posted March 14, 2011 9:54 PM

LA Weekly admits it reached on Lara Logan *

Blogger Simone Wilson concedes she didn't know whether CBS' Logan was raped by crowd in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

Posted March 14, 2011 9:45 PM

John Montorio surfaces with Huffington Post *

John Montorio, the former features editor at the Los Angeles Times, will be named the top features editor of the newly AOL-ized Huffington Post.

Posted March 14, 2011 1:18 AM

Republican lawmakers fear John and Ken, Jon and Jon

As Gov. Jerry Brown and the Democrats go looking for Republican votes to pass a state budget, one of the political realities they face is that elected Republicans in California fear being picked on by KFI's afternoon talk hosts, John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou.

Posted March 14, 2011 12:55 AM

Laid-off LAT editor counts her recession blessings

Ann Brenoff writes on the L.A. Times op-ed page that "without question, the recession changed my life for the better."

Posted March 14, 2011 12:43 AM

Friday news and notes

Tsunami coverage, Mel Gibson, Arianna Huffington, book notes and more.

Posted March 11, 2011 12:25 PM

Chris Schauble moves up the dial to Channel 5

Channel 4 reporter and anchor Chris Schauble is leaving KNBC to be a morning anchor on KTLA.

Posted March 10, 2011 9:37 AM

David Broder, politics writer was 81 *

David S. Broder, 81, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post often called the dean of the Washington press corps, died Wednesday in Arlington, Va. of complications from diabetes.

Posted March 9, 2011 9:59 AM

Afternoon news and notes

New web editor at LA Weekly, candidates for mayor file papers, more media and politics notes.

Posted March 7, 2011 6:09 PM

Departing LAT reporter cites 'hostile work conditions'

Resignation email from Calendar's Maria Elena Fernandez says 'I cannot work under these hostile work conditions anymore."

Posted March 4, 2011 11:54 AM

Suzanne Rico is letting her hair down

The former Channel 2 anchor is blogging about being unemployed, seeing the world, getting older and quitting Botox. Plus her annoying former co-anchor.

Posted March 4, 2011 12:15 AM

Media notes

Bert Fields, Maria Elena Fernandez, Charlie Sheen and Amy Wallace, Lesley McKenzie and more.

Posted March 3, 2011 11:00 PM

Variety names its TV editor

Andrew Wallenstein moves from paidContent to be television editor at Variety.

Posted March 1, 2011 12:25 PM

A conversation with Tarantino's collaborator

KCRW's Elvis Mitchell has re-edited and posted a conversation with the late Sally Menke.

Posted February 28, 2011 11:25 PM

Laurel Erickson back on the air in L.A.

I missed that longtime KNBC reporter (and the ex-anchor of "News Conference") Laurel Erickson returned to the local air waves last month as the correspondent on an episode of KCET's "SoCal Connected." She also has a piece this week.

Posted February 28, 2011 10:53 PM

The Wrap uses Bert Fields to respond to Finke *

Fields dismisses cease and desist letter and says that Nikki Finke and company have engaged in trade libel and unfair competition.

Posted February 28, 2011 9:47 PM

Selden Ring award to the LAT's Bell team

The Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting from the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism comes with a $35,000 prize.

Posted February 28, 2011 1:15 PM

Weekend desk-clearing: L.A. people

Jeremy Bernard, Darryl Morden, Cardinal Mahony and more.

Posted February 26, 2011 5:10 PM

Academy pulls Deadline's credential over Finke's leaks

Nikki Finke says that the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences this morning pulled her film editor Mike Fleming's backstage press credential to cover Sunday's Oscars, citing Deadline's reporting of spoilers about the show.

Posted February 26, 2011 3:14 PM

David Poland goes nuclear on Finke *

Reacting apparently to Nikki Finke posting details of Sunday's Oscar telecast, Hollywood blogger David Poland has posted a "Crazy Nikki" rant that's aggressive even for him — and also says that motion picture academy president Tom Sherak should be fired "if he continues to feed her any information."

Posted February 25, 2011 6:35 PM

Finke story on the Today Show? *

An NBC source says that "Today" will do a pre-Oscars piece about (or with?) Deadline's Nikki Finke in the 7:30 a.m. half-hour on Friday's show.

Posted February 25, 2011 12:45 AM

Kit Rachlis named editor of The American Prospect

The former editor of Los Angeles magazine and the LA Weekly starts April 18 at the progressive policy/politics magazine based in Washington, DC.

Posted February 24, 2011 8:22 AM

Finke unloads on The Wrap with post, lawyer letter *

Deadline's Nikki Finke has publicly called out The Wrap for taking her content, and reports that a "cease-and-desist" letter was sent from her corporate overseer to Sharon Waxman and her board of directors

Posted February 23, 2011 6:05 PM

Mark Kriski set to return to TV on Monday

Kriski has been missing from the "KTLA Morning News" since early November while fighting an infection that led to pneumonia.

Posted February 23, 2011 3:58 PM

KNBC's Paul Johnson gets a freeway

Part of the 55 freeway in Orange County is now the Paul Johnson Memorial Freeway.

Posted February 23, 2011 2:22 PM

Channel 2 gets inside the mummified babies story *

KCBS had a good story at 11 p.m. tonight showing the valises, 1930s newspapers and silk wrappings that contained those two mummified newborns found in a Westlake area apartment last year.

Posted February 22, 2011 11:55 PM

Emanuel elected mayor of Chicago

Rahm Emanuel, the former White House Chief of Staff and brother of Ari and Zeke, avoided a runoff by drawing 55% despite the presence of five other candidates.

Posted February 22, 2011 9:23 PM

They still talk about Alycia Lane in Philly

Larry Mendte, a former news anchor in Philadelphia, is interesting here in L.A. pretty much only because he was the colleague who criminally snooped in co-anchor Alycia Lane's email.

Posted February 22, 2011 3:25 PM

Ruben Salazar files to be opened a little *

Mistakes were made by deputies at the East Los Angeles riot in 1970 at which newsman Ruben Salazar was killed, but there's no surviving evidence that Salazar was targeted, says a report by the sheriff department's Office of Independent Review.

Posted February 22, 2011 1:37 AM

Holiday weekend news and notes

Politics and media notes, plus obituaries.

Posted February 21, 2011 11:30 PM

Polk Award for LAT's Bell coverage

The Los Angeles Times picked up this year's Polk in local reporting for those stories on corruption in the city of Bell.

Posted February 21, 2011 10:45 PM

Yes, Earl Spencer lives here now

After a couple of journos recently spotted Britain's Charles Spencer, the brother of the late Princess Diana, in Arianna Huffington's living room in Brentwood, the question went out on Twitter: what's he doing here? Now we know.

Posted February 21, 2011 7:50 PM

New arts and culture editor at LA Weekly

LA Weekly editor Drex Heikes told the staff this afternoon that the paper's new arts and culture editor will be Zachary Pincus-Roth.

Posted February 21, 2011 7:22 PM

Critic Ann Powers leaves L.A. Times for NPR

Powers, the LAT's pop music critic since coming from Blender in 2006, will join NPR Music and switch to contributor status at the Times.

Posted February 18, 2011 4:40 PM

Serene Branson goes national

The KCBS reporter who suffered the on-air "complex migraine" was on CBS' The Early Show today, again saying she's fine.

Posted February 18, 2011 9:21 AM

Afternoon news and notes

Veteran firefighter battling for his life, Jerry West statue unveiled and the mayor's stadium committee meets.

Posted February 17, 2011 6:47 PM

John Stodder signs off for a little while

John Stodder, the other former Fleishman-Hillard executive convicted a few years ago, reports to federal prison authorities tomorrow. He posts a farewell note on Facebook.

Posted February 17, 2011 5:31 PM

Serene Branson: Docs say it was a migraine *

Channel 2 reporter Serene Branson will tell anchor Pat Harvey tonight at 11 that her on-air incident at Sunday's Grammys has been blamed on a migraine that mimicked stroke symptoms.

Posted February 17, 2011 5:15 PM

Meet the 'heroes of early Scientology reporting'

L. Ron Hubbard in 1950; crowd at Dianetics seminar in L.A. the same year. The Daily Awl has posted a story today revisiting and giving credit to the ground-breaking 1990...

Posted February 16, 2011 2:36 PM

Ridley-Thomas hires from LAT

Lisa Richardson, an L.A. Times editorial writer from 2006 until recently, has joined the staff of Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas as Senior Deputy for Communications.

Posted February 16, 2011 11:43 AM

NYU journo resigns over flippant Lara Logan tweets

Nir Rosen joked that the sexual assaults on CBS chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan "would have been funny" if they happened to Anderson Cooper. Also, a Salon writer blasts LA Weekly.

Posted February 16, 2011 9:25 AM

Quick media hire of note

Sara Catania, the talented L.A. journalist who conceived and wrote our Run On blog about preparing to compete in the 2009 Los Angeles Marathon, is the new Web Editorial Director at KNBC Channel 4.

Posted February 15, 2011 11:10 PM

CBS' Lara Logan sexually assaulted in Tahrir Square, network announces *

CBS correspondent Lara Logan is back home in an undisclosed U.S. hospital after being beaten and sexually assaulted in Cairo's Tahrir Square last Friday.

Posted February 15, 2011 1:25 PM

Sam Rubin loses it on air over 'Crusty Buttocks'

On today's "KTLA's Morning News," Sam Rubin couldn't get all the way through a report on the new paper towel dispensers in the Channel 5 mens room without cracking up. Click the link to watch the video over there. Tribune's vertical video player doesn't embed well here.

Posted February 15, 2011 1:13 PM

Another stroke doc: Branson should have gone to hospital

The NYT quotes a stroke specialist who suspects, in the footage of Serene Branson that aired live on the Channel 2 news here Sunday night, that we saw rare and medically valuable video of an ischemic stroke as it is happening.

Posted February 15, 2011 12:46 PM

Anchors read statement about Branson on the news

Monday night on the news, the anchors for CBS 2 and KCAL 9 addressed reporter Serene Branson's "health-related problems" during Sunday's Grammys report.

Posted February 15, 2011 12:15 AM

The lowdown on Arianna Huffington's adviser and right-hand

We mean Kenneth Lerer, the former AOL and Microsoft official — and ex-Democratic campaign strategist — who helped launch the Huffington Post and remains as chairman.

Posted February 14, 2011 5:35 PM

CBS takes down Serene Branson videos

CBS has put in a copyright claim to get YouTube to take down all the videos it can find of Channel 2 reporter Serene Branson's on-air medical event last night.

Posted February 14, 2011 5:15 PM

Concern for Channel 2's Serene Branson **

Serene Branson's report from the Grammys Sunday night went awry soon after Paul Magers threw to her live.

Posted February 14, 2011 1:23 AM

Potluck dinner with Lisa Napoli

The longtime public radio journalist's weekly potluck dinners were featured in the Los Angeles Times.

Posted February 14, 2011 12:20 AM

LAT loses managing editor for online

Sean Gallagher, the editor in charge of the online product at the L.A. Times since late 2009, is leaving the paper for the United Kingdom.

Posted February 11, 2011 10:17 PM

New editorial writers at the Los Angeles Times

Carla Hall has already joined the editorial board on the second floor, and Sandra Hernandez will be starting shortly.

Posted February 11, 2011 5:58 PM

The Daily either does or doesn't run photo of Nikki Finke *

She says it's not her, and The Daily doesn't sound all that convinced, but they run it anyway.

Posted February 10, 2011 9:38 AM

'Law & Order: Los Angeles' kills off WSJ reporter

Real-life Wall Street Journal reporter Amy Chozick pulled a shift as an extra on L&O:LA and ends up with blood on her face. Hat tip to Movie City News....

Posted February 9, 2011 3:12 PM

Columnist honesty

Steve Lopez's lead on tomorrow's column: "What do 'tea party' beauty queen Sarah Palin and U2 guitarist the Edge have in common? Nothing..."

Posted February 8, 2011 6:48 PM

First look at AOL as HuffPost, via Kara Swisher

Kara Swisher of the Wall Street Journal posted the page, as well as scoring a video interview with Arianna Huffington and AOL's Tim Armstrong before the announcement on Sunday...

Posted February 7, 2011 2:02 AM

Jack Popejoy, honored radio news anchor was 63

Popejoy, winner of 27 Golden Mikes, died Saturday of cancer.

Posted February 6, 2011 11:32 PM

How Hefner got his groove back

In the New York Times Sunday Magazine, Charles McGrath looks at the business empire and physical presence of Playboy's Hugh Hefner and says he looks pretty good for a guy who will turn 85 in April and was thought by many to be a dinosaur long ago.

Posted February 6, 2011 12:29 AM

At home with Benedikt Taschen

The German book publisher who lives in (and below) the Chemosphere house in the Studio City hills is profiled today by the Wall Street Journal. Just like the scavengers in...

Posted February 4, 2011 9:03 AM

Dowie reports to prison on Friday

Doug Dowie is the former Daily News managing editor who was convicted of mail fraud and other charges as head of the Fleishman-Hillard PR office in Los Angeles during the administration of then-mayor James Hahn.

Posted February 3, 2011 9:55 PM

KNBC lottery winner funds USC journo scholarship

Jacki Wells Cisneros and her husband have put $1 million into a scholarship fund at the USC Annenberg School of Communications and Journalism, her alma mater.

Posted February 2, 2011 4:27 PM

Bratton's company snags a journalist

Former LAPD chief and repatriated New Yorker William Bratton has been in town this week, presumably taking care of business at Kroll International. Meanwhile, the security's firm Los Angeles office,...

Posted February 2, 2011 1:05 PM

Murdoch's 'The Daily' to hit iPads on Wednesday

These are some of the Los Angeles-based journalists involved, plus some pre-reactions from New Media observers.

Posted February 1, 2011 11:24 PM

News from Egypt through the night

Al Jazeera live stream and blog BBC | NYT | LAT | CNN Tweets early Tuesday from on the ground in Egypt: Al Jazeera correspondent Dan Nolan: A BIG thank...

Posted February 1, 2011 12:57 AM

Blogger's home burglary makes the 11 o'clock news

That messy break-in we told you about Friday — at the home of food blogger Barbara Hansen — is the subject of a story coming tonight at 11 p.m. on Channel 2. Why isn't so clear.

Posted January 31, 2011 9:39 PM

Hilburn sells bio of Johnny Cash as seminal rock artist

Little, Brown and Company has bought world rights to "In Search of Johnny Cash," an exploration of the singer's life by former L.A. Times music critic Robert Hilburn that is promised to go beyond previous works.

Posted January 31, 2011 2:59 PM

Food blogger writes about burglary that stole her appetite

Police told Barbara Hansen that the burglars who ransacked her place were pros, but the destruction seems needlessly vicious.

Posted January 28, 2011 3:28 PM

In case you wondered where Keith Olbermann spent the SOTU

Instead of national face time on MSNBC, the liberal ranter spent this State of the Union speech live-tweeting on Twitter.

Posted January 25, 2011 8:56 PM

Q&A with arts writer Jori Finkel

Finkel, the arts writer at the L.A. Times, took some questions in the green room at Zocalo Public Square.

Posted January 24, 2011 11:20 PM

KNBC and Fox 11 have a good night at the Golden Mike awards

KNBC, KTTV, KNX, KFI and Regis Philbin win the top honors at tonight's Golden Mike banquet.

Posted January 22, 2011 10:07 PM

The Pearl Project: 27 involved in Daniel Pearl's murder, half still free

The Pearl Project was formed by fellow journalists and Georgetown University students to investigate the 2002 killing in Pakistan of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter raised in Los Angeles.

Posted January 20, 2011 1:19 AM

Hollywood journo describes path to the Peace Corps

Angelina Jolie is to blame, says Sean Smith, the Entertainment Weekly bureau chief in L.A. who quit last week to serve in the Peace Corps.

Posted January 19, 2011 9:31 AM

Angelenos among '50 Most Powerful People in Food'

The Daily Meal's list is more than a lazy tally of hot chefs of the moment; the 50 include corporate and government officials, journalists and others who shape the food business.

Posted January 18, 2011 4:13 PM

Sargent Shriver dies at 95 *

Sargent Shriver, a close confidante of brother-in-law John F. Kennedy and first director of the Peace Corps, died today in Bethesda, Maryland. Also: Dale Fetherling, Tom Ferguson.

Posted January 18, 2011 1:55 PM

Both L.A.-based Coopers writing about sex now

L.A. writer Natasha Vargas-Cooper has created a cultural stir with her piece in The Atlantic on the effect that easily available amateur web porn is having on sex between real...

Posted January 17, 2011 11:53 PM

Kay Mills, writer was 69

Kay Mills, the former Los Angeles Times editorial writer who authored five books, died Thursday at age 69.

Posted January 14, 2011 7:56 PM

From the Hollywood beat to the Peace Corps in Africa

Sean Smith is leaving as Los Angeles bureau chief of Entertainment Weekly to serve overseas in the Peace Corps.

Posted January 14, 2011 4:27 PM

McCourt case ruling now final

Jamie McCourt, who gets substantial ammunition to argue that she remains co-owner of the Dodgers, also shared the same room today as Roz Wyman, the former City Council member who played a key role in bringing the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles.

Posted January 14, 2011 2:23 PM

Anchor shakeup at Telemundo's KVEA-52

Ana Patricia Candiani will be the new 6 p.m. weekday anchor on KVEA starting Jan 31, forcing other moves in the lineup.

Posted January 13, 2011 11:49 PM

Local media tweet o' the day?

From Channel2's irrepressible Jackie Johnson.

Posted January 12, 2011 10:46 PM

Elvis Mitchell gets a consolation gig

Elvis Mitchell, the longtime print film writer and critic who hosts "The Treatment" on KCRW, has signed on as co-chief film critic (with ex-Salon critic Stephanie Zacharek ) for the expanding Movieline.

Posted January 12, 2011 4:27 PM

Havrilesky does the memoir

Los Angeles writer Heather Havrilesky, staff critic on film and TV at Rupert Murtdoch's forthcoming iPad news site, has a new memoir out, "Disaster Preparedness."

Posted January 11, 2011 6:06 PM

Report: Huffington escorted off plane for Blackberry abuse

Arianna Huffington was escorted by Port Authority police off United Flight 7118 at La Guardia after refusing to turn off her Blackberry, according to a report by Gawker's Valleywag.

Posted January 10, 2011 11:18 AM

Jennifer Gould finds new family on Facebook

She posts on Twitter: "Ok, so i DIDNT win $300mil lottery, but I DID just win a new family! This #Adoptee found #biological family!"

Posted January 7, 2011 6:58 PM

Dowie, Stodder lose appeals in Fleishman-Hillard case

Doug Dowie, the former power broker as head of the Fleishman-Hillard PR office in Los Angeles during the mayoral administration of Jim Hahn, has been ordered to report to federal prison on Feb. 4. Same for John Stodder, his underling at Fleishman, the LAT says.

Posted January 7, 2011 6:33 PM

Bell reporters Gottlieb and Vives to be honored

The L.A. Press Club is creating a Public Service in Journalism award and giving the first one to Jeff Gottlieb and Ruben Vives, the lead reporters in last year's Los Angeles Times . stories on corruption in the city of Bell.

Posted January 6, 2011 8:01 PM

NPR's top news VP leaves over Juan Williams firing

Ellen Weiss resigns as Senior Vice President for News as part of internal review into the firing of Fox News commentator.

Posted January 6, 2011 12:49 PM

L.A.'s black politics, the nut grafs

The Root looks at the history, who's in power now and some reasons why black clout is declining.

Posted January 5, 2011 5:57 PM

Now SPJ announces its officers for the year

A couple of days ago it was the L.A. Press Club, now the Los Angeles chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists reports its election results.

Posted January 5, 2011 1:55 PM

TV critics begin their winter marathon *

This is the time of year when television reporters and critics descend on Los Angeles to receive the same canned pitching on shows.

Posted January 5, 2011 1:40 PM

KTLA's Mark Kriski still hospitalized

Channel 5 reporter Eric Spillman blogs that Kriski, the morning guy at KTLA, is once again hoping to be released from the hospital soon.

Posted January 4, 2011 9:42 PM

L.A. Press Club elects new board members

New to the board of directors of the Los Angeles Press Club: Tony Castro, Daily News; Eric Leonard, KFI News; Martha Sarabia, La Opinion and Sharon Waxman, The Wrap.

Posted January 3, 2011 11:46 PM

Changing of the guard at 'Left, Right & Center'

The on-air lineup remains the same at KCRW's Friday afternoon stalwart, but producer Sarah Spitz is giving up the chair after 15 years of wrangling topics, guest hosts and sometimes difficult personalities.

Posted December 31, 2010 6:01 PM

Thursday notes

Riordan to close two restaurants, Zine recuses over girlfriend, Yvonne Burke and Matt Toledo get state appointments and is Hollywood L.A. neighborhood of the year?

Posted December 30, 2010 11:58 PM

Big day for KTLA's Elizabeth Espinosa

Channel 5 reporter Elizabeth Espinosa began the day standing beside I-5 in the shivering Grapevine area talking about — and tweeting about — the cold weather. Then she popped out some other news.

Posted December 30, 2010 1:15 PM

Gary Leonard, Patt to talk Kodachrome

Photographer Gary Leonard will be a guest of Patt Morrison's during the 1 p.m. hour coming up on KPCC (89.3 FM) to talk about the demise of Kodachrome film.

Posted December 30, 2010 12:54 PM

Jonathan Gold: Red Medicine panicked, looks 'second-rate'

Gold suspects that the dude at Red Medicine knows it was dumb to turn away L.A. Times reviewer S. Irene Virbila and compound his error by posting her picture on the web.

Posted December 30, 2010 1:34 AM

Wednesday news and notes

I thought my daughter's snowed-in-at-Heathrow story was bad enough: eight days late coming home and missing Christmas. But the experience of UC Irvine professor Ngugi wa Thiong’o was even...

Posted December 29, 2010 9:57 PM

So that's why they call it a duopoly

Channel 2 and 9 weathercaster Evelyn Taft is certainly working a full shift today.

Posted December 27, 2010 5:21 PM

Monday notes

Oscar ballots go out, the falling murder rate, new execs at KCET and more.

Posted December 27, 2010 4:35 PM

Troy Anderson exits the county beat

Anderson covered the county Hall of Administration for the Daily News and its sister papers for about a decade.

Posted December 27, 2010 4:15 PM

How many BBC reporters does it take to start a car?

Two, apparently, when one of them is David Willis of the BBC's Los Angeles bureau.

Posted December 27, 2010 10:55 AM

Virbila gets in a little dig

L.A. Times restaurant critic Sherry Virbila has tweeted a pretty good response to that dust-up with the co-owner of Red Medicine, the Beverly Hills restaurant that refused her service in a hissy fit over past reviews.

Posted December 24, 2010 6:18 PM

Media melee at the Polo Lounge

KNBC reporter Robert Kovacik was attacked last night at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel by a drunk man who had been bothering Lisa Vanderpump, the star of "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills."

Posted December 24, 2010 2:15 PM

Walt Mossberg's best and worst of 2010

The Wall Street Journal tech columnist talks about the best and worst products he reviewed during the year.

Posted December 24, 2010 9:55 AM

Thursday late notes

S. Ireve Virbila, Patrick O'Connor, Brian Lowry, Ryan Kavanaugh, David Kipen and more.

Posted December 23, 2010 11:58 PM

'SoCal Connected' wins Columbia's duPont Award

KCET's weekly news show racked up another honor, a silver baton from the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards in broadcast journalism. Plus an Alicia Patterson fellowship winner.

Posted December 22, 2010 1:14 PM

Beverly Hills restaurateur outs LAT's Irene Virbila *

For some reason, co-owner Noah Ellis of the recently opened Red Medicine in Beverly Hills didn't want L.A. Times restaurant critic S. Irene Virbila to critique his restaurant.

Posted December 22, 2010 12:15 PM

Mike Tetreault, letters editor was 66

Mike Tetreault was the longtime letters editor at the Daily News. He died last night after a long battle with cancer.

Posted December 20, 2010 12:20 PM

Breeze columnist John Bogert has cancer, daughter writes

The youngest daughter of Daily Breeze columnist John Bogert took to her dad's paper to fill in readers on his health after an operation discovered late-stage colon cancer.

Posted December 20, 2010 10:10 AM

Who really created the Disney Hall Xmas sing-along?

Actor, writer and KCRW personality Harry Shearer takes issue with the L.A. Times' recent depiction of how Disney Hall's popular "Twelve Days of Christmas" pop-up sing-along number came about.

Posted December 20, 2010 1:21 AM

Breakfast with Larry King at Nate 'n Al's

King wants to name the successor to Vin Scully as Dodgers' voice.

Posted December 15, 2010 12:10 AM

Hugh Hefner accepts historical honor

Tonight at the Los Angeles City Historical Society's annual dinner, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner accepted an award from the group for his help preserving the Hollywood sign and open space on nearby Cahuenga Peak.

Posted December 14, 2010 11:22 PM

Another day, another Patch site

Today brings word of a new Patch news site in the Belmont Shore-Naples area of Long Beach, edited by a former L.A. Times reporter.

Posted December 13, 2010 11:16 PM

Finke: Speier hasn't parted ways

Michael Speier is no longer Nikki Finke's managing editor at Deadline, just three months after he hired on to much Finkeian fanfare. But he hasn't completely left either, she emails.

Posted December 13, 2010 10:42 PM

Weekend media shorts

Michael Speier departs Deadline.com and other media notes.

Posted December 13, 2010 1:03 AM

Revising history: Eisenhower's most famous speech

Jim Newton, soon to debut as an op-ed columnist for the L.A. Times, writes in this week's New Yorker about the discovery of some long-lost papers that change what is known about President Dwight Eisenhower's 1961 speech warning of the rise of an American "military-industrial complex."

Posted December 12, 2010 8:26 PM

One thumb way down on 'The Tourist'

Sam Rubin of KTLA takes to Twitter to say how much he dislikes the new Angelina Jolie vehicle.

Posted December 9, 2010 9:41 PM

IndieWire grabs new editor in chief from Variety

Dana Harris has been at Variety for nearly 11 years.

Posted December 9, 2010 9:33 PM

Mark Kriski back in hospital

Tonight his friend and KTLA colleague Jennifer Gould posted on Twitter that Kriski has been forced back into the hospital for treatment of pneumonia.

Posted December 7, 2010 11:15 PM

Lu Parker changes job titles

KTLA reporter Lu Parker is shifting to "special feature correspondent," a move that she says will let her work on stories "that inspire and represent residents in Los Angeles." She...

Posted December 6, 2010 2:44 PM

Columnist gets medically stoned for journalism

For Al Martinez' front-page column in today's Daily News, he nibbles on the medical marijuana cookie he brought home for his daughter's cancer nausea.

Posted December 6, 2010 2:05 PM

Figment: a new website for young writers and readers

Figment.com, launched today, is "an experiment in online literature, a free platform for young people to read and write fiction, both on their computers and on their cellphones."

Posted December 6, 2010 12:13 PM

Hibberd to blog about TV for Entertainment Weekly

James Hibberd has been television editor at the Hollywood Reporter. He gets a gracious send-off in a memo to the staff this evening from editorial director Janice Min.

Posted November 30, 2010 7:54 PM

Reporter watches parking cops impound his car

The Santa Monica Mirror's Slav Kandyba found out the hard way that unpaid parking tickets can be a bummer in Los Angeles.

Posted November 29, 2010 10:43 PM

Which City Hall tree do you prefer?

The official Christmas tree in the rotunda, or the pressroom tree?

Posted November 29, 2010 10:25 PM

Catching up

Back from some holiday travel and going through the piles on my desk.

Posted November 29, 2010 7:39 AM

8-Ball Welfare Foundation helps journalists in need

I didn't know it was started by the Los Angeles Press Club after the closure in 1954 of the original L.A. Daily News.

Posted November 28, 2010 10:35 PM

Book-loving columnist converts to the Kindle

The LAT's Michael Hiltzik explains his conversion

Posted November 28, 2010 9:38 PM

Meghan Daum lives to tell about being 'off'

The LAT columnist spent 11 harrowing days in the hospital with typhus, which she apparently picked up in her Pasadena backyard.

Posted November 25, 2010 4:53 PM

ABC moves correspondent to L.A.

David Wright has been tapped to moves from ABC’s Washington bureau to Los Angeles, where he will join correspondents Mike Von Fremd and Abbie Boudreau,

Posted November 22, 2010 9:48 AM

'School Pride' comes to Los Angeles

Jacob Soboroff, who made all those great videos for LA Observed a few years ago, is now co-host of "School Pride" airing Friday nights on NBC. The show did a makeover at Hollenbeck Middle School last week and will do LACES this week.

Posted November 21, 2010 11:50 PM

Courts spokesman Parachini fired, perhaps over TMZ

Allan Parachini, the former journalist who has been spokesman for the Los Angeles County Superior Court for eight years, says he was fired because his bosses wanted him to block the media from getting access to salary and spending information. But they blamed his ties to TMZ.

Posted November 19, 2010 8:23 AM

Tom Christie moves on from LA Weekly

Christie, the senior features editor, was (I believe) the last of the pre-New Times mainstay editors still with the LA Weekly.

Posted November 18, 2010 4:24 PM

PEN's LitFest winners

Members and fans of PEN Center USA gathered tonight at the Beverly Hills Hotel to give out the organization's 2010 Literary Awards. The journalism winner is Mary Melton, the editor...

Posted November 17, 2010 9:58 PM

Gustavo Arellano vs. Tom Tancredo on immigration *

The OC Weekly's Gustavo Arellano went verbally toe to toe last night in Denver with immigration critic and former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo.

Posted November 17, 2010 12:34 AM

Farewell to an unfinished garden

Journalist and blogger about gardens and water policy Emily Green writes about leaving her garden in the city for a new challenge in the foothills, "half the house and twice the land...and has sandy loam instead of clay."

Posted November 12, 2010 5:16 PM

Stardom is coming back for Louis Zamperini

The Wall Street Journal gives over almost its entire Friday Journal section front today to Laura Hillenbrand's upcoming biography of Louis Zamerpini, the 93-year-old war hero and star Olympic athlete of the 1930s who grew up in the South Bay and lives in the Hollywood Hills.

Posted November 12, 2010 2:02 PM

ProPublica gets the story and the spin memo

ProPublica reporter Robin Fields, a former L.A. Times investigative reporter, landed a major project this morning on the morass that the federal kidney dialysis program has become.

Posted November 9, 2010 10:44 PM

Journalists with guns

This is the second in a very random and occasional series, the first having featured KCAL TV reporter Suzanne Marques at the shooting range. In heels.

Posted November 9, 2010 10:25 PM

Monday media notes + LAO on KCRW

Author and LA Observed contributor Denise Hamilton is now writing a column on perfume for the Los Angeles Times magazine. Former Los Angeles Times columnist Tina Daunt will write...

Posted November 8, 2010 6:02 PM

Journalist vs. neighbor

L.A. Times music writer Todd Martens blogs at Tumblr about a battle of wills with his neighbor over parking — and ultimately having the guy's girlfriend's car towed away.

Posted November 8, 2010 12:03 AM

LAT farewell note analyzed for style, content

Dan Neil's farewell email when he left the Los Angeles Times for the Wall Street Journal last Febuary gets a thorough parsing at Lifehacker.

Posted November 5, 2010 4:45 PM

Friday media notes

The Internet has surpassed TV as the biggest source of political news for Californians under 35, the PPIC finds. LAT critic Christopher Hawthorne looks at how Tuesday's election results...

Posted November 5, 2010 8:45 AM

New publisher at Los Angeles Magazine

Erika Anderson has been named the new publisher of Los Angeles

Posted November 2, 2010 6:48 PM

Joe Frank to make live appearance

Public radio spoken-word icon Joe Frank will make a rare public appearance at a KCRW event on Nov. 13.

Posted November 2, 2010 1:25 PM

Maria Shriver prepares for life after Sacramento

Today's Washington Post checks in on California First Lady Maria Shriver, starting at this year's Women's Conference in Long Beach, and pronounces her a little testy -- and also a force to be reckoned with..

Posted November 2, 2010 1:15 PM

Jim Newton gets Op-Ed local government column

Jim Newton, the former editorial page editor at the Los Angeles Times, is about finished with his biography of President Dwight Eisenhower and will be coming back to the paper with an Op-Ed column starting in December, just in time for the city election cycle to ramp up.

Posted November 1, 2010 5:05 PM

Wolinsky pushed out at Variety

Leo Wolinskly, the former Los Angeles Times executive editor who joined Daily Variety as editor late last last year, has been let go.

Posted November 1, 2010 4:54 PM

Political scribe opts to join the non-voting majority

Joe Mathews is sitting this one out, he writes in a piece called Your Vote Doesn't Count at Zocalo's website.

Posted November 1, 2010 12:15 PM

Media and Hollywood group ankles Yamashiro

After 11 years, the monthly gathering of media and Hollywood types started by TV writer Scott Kaufer, blogger Mickey Kaus and journalist-author Steve Oney is leaving Yamashiro.

Posted October 29, 2010 9:49 AM

Jonathan Gold softens on Paula Deen *

In an open letter he posted at the LA Weekly's food blog, Jonathan Gold never quite apologizes to Paula Deen for blasting her selection as Rose Parade grand marshal. But he does explain how his words came to be printed, and allows that "our mutual friends say that you are delightful."

Posted October 29, 2010 9:26 AM

Paula Deen in Rose Parade doesn't please Jonathan Gold

The Rose Parade's choice of food author and TV host Paula Deen as grand marshal gives LA Weekly food critic Jonathan Gold indigestion.

Posted October 27, 2010 9:48 AM

Glendale has good taste in books

The city of Glendale's choice for this year's One City/One Book reading selection is Los Angeles Noir, the collection edited by LA Observed author Denise Hamilton. She will be the...

Posted October 26, 2010 11:46 PM

LA Observed on KCRW: Lu Parker, activist

My column tonight on KCRW comments on the L.A. Times giving KTLA reporter Lu Parker a pass on probing questions about her animal activism.

Posted October 25, 2010 6:06 PM

Tribune acts late Friday again: Michaels done as CEO

As expected, Randy Michaels has resigned as CEO of the Tribune Company and L.A. Times Publisher Eddy Hartenstein is part of the replacement team.

Posted October 22, 2010 4:24 PM

Diana Nyad back in town: no swim this year

KCRW commentator Diana Nyad had to make the difficult call last week and postpone her plans to swim from Cuba to Florida.

Posted October 22, 2010 12:55 PM

Lu Parker opens up, but isn't asked very much

KTLA reporter Lu Parker decided to finally talk to the media a little about her high profile as the girlfriend of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The Times sent over Calendar reporter Greg Braxton, but it appears from the story they didn't talk about very much.

Posted October 21, 2010 5:59 PM

And in tonight's food news...

My favorite tweet of the day, from former New York Times restaurant critic (and author) Frank Bruni.

Posted October 21, 2010 12:26 AM

Bob Guccione, Penthouse founder was 79

Guccione, the onetime New Jersey artist who gave the world Penthouse, the movie "Caligula" and the late Omni magazine, died Wednesday in Plano, Texas after a long battle with cancer.

Posted October 21, 2010 12:12 AM

Can't do any worse than the McCourts

With the McCourts wearing out their civic welcome, Councilwoman Janice Hahn's public ownership idea being possibly the worst idea in the history of municipal ideas, and a certain ex-jock in the market to buy something, artist Stuart Rapeport has a suggestion for a new owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Posted October 20, 2010 4:28 PM

Magic Johnson sells his Starbucks too

A day after selling his 4.5% share of the Lakers to L.A. billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, Magic Johnson reportedly has divested his interest in 105 Starbucks franchises.

Posted October 19, 2010 11:21 PM

Wooden, Kemp and Jon Weisman

ESPN's Dodger Thoughts blogger, Jon Weisman, ties together his adoration of John Wooden, his mixed feelings on the play of Matt Kemp since becoming Rihanna's boyfriend and some self-reflection on his life into a readable closer on the Dodgers season.

Posted October 18, 2010 12:40 AM

Abrams resigns from Tribune. Note timing.

It's late Friday afternoon, and Tribune CEO Randy Michaels sent a note to the far-flung Sam Zell empire notifying everyone that Lee Abrams era at Tribune is over.

Posted October 15, 2010 4:31 PM

L.A. Times adds two film writers

Rebecca Keegan and Nicole Sperling are joining the L.A. Times movie staff, writing for print and online. Read the memo.

Posted October 15, 2010 11:22 AM

Bruce Lisker's story on '48 Hours'

The show's Bruce Lisker segment airs Saturday night.

Posted October 14, 2010 9:35 AM

Couple of LAT scribes up for National Book Awards

Barbara Demick and Megan Stack, who are both staff correspondents in the Los Angeles Times Beijing bureau, have each picked up nominations in the non-fiction category of the National Book Awards

Posted October 13, 2010 3:23 PM

James Franco options 'Holy Land'

James Franco apparently read D.J. Waldie's memoir about growing up in the Lakewood suburbs while the actor was at UCLA. Now Franco has optioned "Holy Land" for a possible movie.

Posted October 12, 2010 1:41 PM

Marjorie Miller leaves L.A. Times for AP in Mexico

Marjorie Miller, the former Los Angeles Times foreign editor and correspondent who since 2008 has been an editorial writer, will move to Mexico City as Latin America and Caribbean Editor for the Associated Press.

Posted October 11, 2010 9:33 AM

NYT's writer talks about Tribune frat boy story

David Carr writes in today's The Media Equation column about the increasing lack of distinction between web and print news outlets. His thinking was prompted in part by the swift and strong reaction to his piece last week on the adolescent culture at the top of the Tribune Company.

Posted October 11, 2010 12:57 AM

LA Stage Times debuts

The website formerly known as LAStageBlog — itself an outgrowth of LA Stage magazine — is now bigger, better and design-ier.

Posted October 8, 2010 5:28 PM

Coming and going at IndieWire

Anne Thompson becomes editor-at-large, Todd McCarthy ankles for the Hollywood Reporter.

Posted October 7, 2010 9:58 PM

Mr. Page Six is L.A. bound

Richard Johnson, the editor of the New York Post gossip page for nearly 25 years, is leaving Page Six for a new gig with News Corp. in Los Angeles.

Posted October 7, 2010 12:01 AM

Hiltzik's stroll through Pom's 'World of Science'

Times Business columnist Michael Hiltzik today takes off from the FTC's recent complaint against the health and goodness claims made on behalf of Pom Wonderful, the pomegranate juice marketed like...

Posted October 6, 2010 5:48 PM

David Carr on Tribune's bad boys, the early response

Media reporter David Carr's takeout in the New York Times on Tribune's boorish corporate culture under Randy Michaels and Sam Zell is the kind of story that gets media types across the country tweeting late into the night.

Posted October 5, 2010 11:52 PM

Tribune memo tries to kill NYT messenger on sex culture

Tribune Company chief Randy Michaels rushed out a memo to all the properties tonight trying to shoot down a New York Times column posted tonight by David Carr. The column alleges boorish behavior by Michaels and friends at Tribune.

Posted October 5, 2010 9:20 PM

Howard Kurtz leaves Post for Daily Beast

Even the Washington Post's looongtime media writer has been seduced by the siren call of online fame and riches. Kurtz will be the Washington bureau chief for the Daily Beast.

Posted October 5, 2010 6:14 PM

Deli's sandwiches no longer a work of Art *

Art Ginsburg is leaving Art's Deli to his children, but look who reported the story for AOL Patch.

Posted October 3, 2010 11:37 PM

Scully love (and L.A. love) at Sports Illustrated

Stylish blogger Joe Posnanski came to town and spent a little time with Vin Scully at the stadium, and more time listening on the radio as he rode around Los Angeles, and spins out a a nice piece exploring the origins and meaning of L.A. culture's most enduring relationship.

Posted October 1, 2010 12:51 PM

Ruth Reichl lands at Random House

Ruth Reichl, the longtime California-based food writer and editor before moving to the New York Times and Gourmet, has been named an editor-at-large of Random House.

Posted September 30, 2010 1:02 PM

Washington reporter leaves frustrated by Obama, media

Ken Silverstein, the Washington editor and blogger for Harpers who used to be an investigative reporter at the D.C. bureau of the L.A. Times, is moving on to do investigative reporting for Global Witness and take a fellowship with the Open Society Institute.

Posted September 30, 2010 9:39 AM

Tonight's sunset from Venice Beach

Photographer Jonathan Alcorn got to the Venice pier for this shot of tonight's gorgeous sunset.

Posted September 29, 2010 10:21 PM

Art Gilmore, Hollywood narrator was 98 *

Art Gilmore narrated hundreds of movie trailers, television episodes and radio shows. He also worked back in the day as a news announcer at KFWB and KNX.

Posted September 29, 2010 2:35 PM

HuffPost says Mayhill Fowler full of it

"How do you resign from a job you never had?," Huffington Post spokesman Mario Ruiz says about ex-blogger Mayhill Fowler.

Posted September 28, 2010 9:23 AM

NPR's Michele Norris offers a memoir of growing up black

NPR host and reporter Michele Norris' new book is called "The Grace of Silence: A Memoir."

Posted September 28, 2010 12:21 AM

Mayhill Fowler quits HuffPost, wants to be paid *

Mayhill Fowler was the Huffington Post election blogger who got a lot of attention during the 2008 campaign for recording Bill Clinton's three-minute rant about Vanity Fair writer Todd Purdum and Barack Obama's critique of "bitter" small-town Americans.

Posted September 27, 2010 9:03 AM

Clip from 'The Social Network'

The David Fincher movie based on Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg opens the New York Film Festival tonight.

Posted September 24, 2010 9:25 AM

Architectural Digest's new editorial team unveiled

Only a few of Architectural Digest's Los Angeles staffers show up on the masthead for the newly constituted AD in New York.

Posted September 23, 2010 3:42 PM

Daily News exec gets stolen Mustang back after 35 years

ack Klunder, the president and publisher of the Daily News, was 18 and at Rio Hondo Junior College in Whittier when his 1966 Mustang (bought for $800 in 1974) was stolen from a parking lot.

Posted September 23, 2010 9:21 AM

Wall Street Journal names new L.A. bureau chief

Rob Guth, the Wall Street Journal's tech reporter based in San Francisco, is coming south to be Los Angeles bureau chief. Read the memo.

Posted September 21, 2010 4:33 PM

Afternoon media notes

Catching up with some stuff that's been piling up.

Posted September 21, 2010 4:20 PM

What ever happened to: Alan Mendelson

Alan Mendelson, the former Channel 9 business and consumer reporter, talks to the L.A. Business Journal about his kidney and pancreas transplant, his infomercials pitching paid products and how he sees his firing from KCAL after 16 years.

Posted September 20, 2010 8:52 PM

From law school to the McCourt trial

Joshua Fisher, the 24-year-old University of Minnesota Law School student who started DodgerDivorce.com, is back in town covering McCourt v. McCourt, which resumed today with Jamie on the stand.

Posted September 20, 2010 1:45 PM

Newsweek's Fineman jumps to Huffington Post

Howard Fineman, who the New York Times calls "one of the more recognizable pundits on cable television and a correspondent for Newsweek for 30 years," is leaving the magazine to become a senior politics editor at The Huffington Post.

Posted September 19, 2010 11:54 PM

Editor's wife and daughter earn a cover

Rob Eshman, the editor of the Jewish Journal, begins this week's note to readers with an admission: "Yes, that’s my wife and daughter on the cover of this issue." As...

Posted September 16, 2010 10:12 PM

Brand X reorganizes

The weekly entertainment listings section put out by the Los Angeles Times is now more of a Times Community News operation.

Posted September 15, 2010 1:00 PM

Speier, formerly of The Wrap and Variety, joins Deadline

After Michael Speier was laid off last year as executive editor of Daily Variety, he served a stint as news editor for Sharon Waxman at The Wrap. Now he's joining Waxman's arch-rival Nikki Finke in the new position of managing editor at Deadline.

Posted September 15, 2010 9:17 AM

ESPN's Jay Mariotti charged with 7 misdemeanors

The City Attorney's charges against Mariotti stem from a domestic violence incident last month with his girlfriend at their condo in Venice.

Posted September 13, 2010 4:15 PM

Daily Beast's gangster matriarch of L.A.

The Daily Beast is billing former LA Weekly writer Christine Pelisek as the site's "new L.A.-based crime reporter, with a piece up today on Drew Street's Maria Leon.

Posted September 13, 2010 8:45 AM

Elvis Mitchell to co-host Ebert's new 'At the Movies'

Roger Ebert and his wife Chaz will co-produce a new version of "At the Movies" for PBS, with KCRW's Elvis Mitchell and Christy Lemire of Associated Press as the main critics.

Posted September 10, 2010 1:42 PM

Boyarsky on Conrad: the rest of the story

The L.A. Times obituary on Paul Conrad, one of its most recognized names ever, didn't quite tell all.

Posted September 9, 2010 12:44 PM

New 'content exchange' for freelancers and publishers

Ebyline, which launches tomorrow after several months in stealth phase, hopes to connect freelance journalists with publications that want their stories. Ex-LAT ad people are key players.

Posted September 8, 2010 2:47 PM

First read: Euna Lee's story from North Korea

Current TV producer Euna Lee's book on her and Laura Ling's captivity in North Korea is coming this month from Broadway Books. Here's a snippet from the excerpt online of...

Posted September 7, 2010 4:55 PM

LA Sketchbook: Paul Conrad

Steve Greenberg's tribute to his cartooning inspiration, plus funeral information for Paul Conrad.

Posted September 7, 2010 12:55 PM

Waxman: Schism at Min's THR

Janice Min's arrival at the Hollywood Reporter has left the trade's previous staffers feeling shut out, Sharon Waxman says.

Posted September 7, 2010 12:56 AM

Remembering Paul Conrad

Tim Rutten's tribute is one of the best I've come across.Plus this cartoon from John Sherffius.

Posted September 7, 2010 12:32 AM

New film and politics blog from Kelly Candaele

Writer, filmmaker and Los Angeles political figure Kelly Candaele has launched Politics and Films to write about feature films and documentaries from a political perspective.

Posted September 7, 2010 12:15 AM

Editor still clings to his land line

Stephen Randall, the editor in Los Angeles for Playboy magazine, explains in an Op-Ed piece for the LAT that while he loves his smartphone and all of his tech toys, the old fashioned telephone on his desk at home still has its place.

Posted September 6, 2010 11:46 PM

McCourt trial, and L.A., beckon to ESPN writer

Molly Knight says that Joan Didion speaks for her on why L.A. has it all over New York, fo rher.

Posted September 6, 2010 10:40 PM

Paul Conrad, political cartoonist was 86 *

For decades, Paul Conrad's cartoons in the Los Angeles Times were conversation starters, debate shapers and eyeball attractors. He was one of the paper's best known journalists, the one sure to draw the longest lines at book signings and other public appearances.

Posted September 4, 2010 12:05 PM

First Friday on Abbot Kinney

Abbot Kinney Boulevard's sidewalks were packed for tonight's monthly First Friday extravaganza — with pictures — plus an exhibit for L.A. Times photographer Carolyn Cole.

Posted September 3, 2010 11:14 PM

LAT joins the Breitbart profile parade

Better late than never, I guess. The L.A. Times looks today at the Los Angeles-spawned Andrew Breitbart phenomenon, though not as deeply as national pubs have. One interesting note: a...

Posted September 3, 2010 8:55 AM

'Marketplace' editor off to Stanford

Paddy Hirsch, senior editor in Los Angeles for American Public Radio's "Marketplace" program, is heading to Stanford on a John S. Knight fellowship.

Posted August 31, 2010 11:50 PM

Daily Beast snatches up Pelisek

Last month when the Grim Sleeper arrest broke, the LA Weekly's Christine Pelisek wrote about her background in the case for the Daily Beast. Now she'll join their LA bureau.

Posted August 30, 2010 3:54 PM

Time to open the Ruben Salazar files, says visiting blogger

Visiting blogger Frank Sotomayor, an adjunct professor at USC Annenberg, argues that it's time for Sheriff Lee Baca and other officials to end the mysteries about what happened to Ruben Salazar in East Los Angeles.

Posted August 27, 2010 1:35 AM

Call him Gustavo Arellano, managing editor

Arellano ascends from staff writer at the OC Weekly.

Posted August 26, 2010 7:42 PM

Jennifer Gould asks: spell the name right

Jennifer Gould, the freelance GA reporter for KTLA Channel 5, says the news coverage of Donald Bren and former lover Jennifer McKay Gold has brought her some unwanted calls from the media — for interviews.

Posted August 26, 2010 1:41 PM

Looking for pretty people in the stadium seats

Rebecca Schoenkopf, the former CityBeat editor, begins writing about checking out the upper-deck crowd at Dodger Stadium, but the piece veers into more substantial turf, including her enrollment in graduate school at USC "after this last awful year and a half."

Posted August 25, 2010 6:36 PM

LA Weekly adds Henry Rollins

Henry Rollins, the refugee from Indie 103 who landed with a Saturday afternoon show on KCRW a year ago, is now also a music columnist for the LA Weekly.

Posted August 25, 2010 6:08 PM

Harry Shearer's 'The Big Uneasy'

The native Angeleno and KCRW show host who's now living in New Orleans has directed a documentary on the failings that led to the Hurricane Katrina disaster in his adopted hometown.

Posted August 25, 2010 5:41 PM

What's worse than 45 dead in Iraq bombings? *

Seventy two bodies found at a ranch in the northern Mexico state of Tamaulipas, another area plagued by drug violence. * Media note: Randal Archibold, recently of the New York...

Posted August 25, 2010 11:17 AM

Vin Scully, and Dodgers, in focus

Sports Illustrated.com has posted a gallery of photos spanning the career of Vin Scully, who the magazine notes was the youngest announcer to work a World Series at age 25 in 1953.

Posted August 24, 2010 1:12 PM

Weekend news and notes

A round-up from the weekend's email and media.

Posted August 22, 2010 11:45 PM

First lines: Ellroy's 'Pursuit of Women'

At the mailbox today was the newest by James Ellroy. "The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women" came billed as a "raw, brutally candid memoir" that draws on the infamous...

Posted August 20, 2010 11:37 PM

Waxman flacks her conference at Finke's expense

In her column at The Wrap, editor-in-chief Sharon Waxman invites arch-rival on the web Nikki Finke to come speak at the Wrap's first entertainment industry leadership conference.

Posted August 19, 2010 5:20 PM

Will Lewis to retire from KCRW

Lewis has been in management roles at KCRW for 32 years, coming in with Ruth Seymour at the station's inception as an NPR powerhouse.

Posted August 18, 2010 10:58 PM

Dr. Laura quits radio, cites (LOL) the First Amendment

After taking flack for insulting her listeners with a string of n-words, radio talker Laura Schlessinger told Larry King tonight that she'll leave her show when her contract expires at the end of the year -- because she wants her rights back.

Posted August 17, 2010 10:18 PM

South Bay reporter signs off

One thing about all the newsrooms in town having blogs now is that when reporters leave, they have some place to say farewell.

Posted August 17, 2010 4:38 PM

Changing of the guard at the NYT bureau

Adam Nagourney's first piece as L.A. bureau chief: traffic on the 405.

Posted August 16, 2010 11:57 PM

A Guadalajara reunion in Boyle Heights

Those of us who didn't take part in the celebration of Los Angeles literary goodness at last year's Guadalajara book fair have a new reason to be envious. A new book, edited by Veronique de Turenne and J. Michael Walker, celebrates the scene all over again.

Posted August 16, 2010 10:38 PM

Sam Rubin goes 'Hollywood, Uncensored'

KTLA entertainment anchor Sam Rubin is executive producing and hosting a new weekly talk show for Reelzchannel they're calling "Hollywood Uncensored With Sam Rubin" and billing as "'The McLaughlin Group' meets 'Real Time With Bill Maher' with a Hollywood spin.

Posted August 16, 2010 3:23 PM

Carolyn Jensen Chadwick, NPR producer

Carolyn Jensen Chadwick, who died here yesterday, "created sound-rich, evocative stories that once defined the NPR listening experience," writes Current. org. She also was NPR's first employee and the husband of former host Alex Chadwick.

Posted August 16, 2010 3:07 PM

New columnist lineup at Daily News

Kerry Cavanaugh, Al Martinez, Mariel Garza plus Doug McIntyre.

Posted August 16, 2010 7:30 AM

Journo launches new Olympics website

Alan Abrahamson, who covered the Olympics and international sports for the Los Angeles Times and NBC, has started 3 Wire Sports in Los Angeles.

Posted August 15, 2010 11:23 PM

Big night at Downtown Art Walk

Big crowds — possibly the largest yet — with dozens of food trucks and many familiar faces.

Posted August 12, 2010 11:20 PM

LA Sketchbook: KTLA Stan

Posted August 12, 2010 7:05 PM

Gil and Eric Garcetti, a long time ago

City Council President Eric Garcetti posted this childhood photo to his Facebook wall: "Nice mustache, Dad!"

Posted August 12, 2010 9:50 AM

We could call him Sir Stan Chambers

Apparently even many at KTLA don't know that Stan Chambers is a Knight Commander of the Pontifical Order of St. Gregory the Great, knighted by the pope for his service to the Catholic church and the community.

Posted August 11, 2010 11:26 PM

Olbermann salutes Stan Chambers

Keith Olbermann on MSNBC just ran a personal tribute to Channel 5's Stan Chambers. I missed most of it, but the sentiment was similar to a couple of tweets Olbermann...

Posted August 11, 2010 5:35 PM

Stop calling Newsweek's Sidney Harman a billionaire

In all the media stories about his acquisition of Newsweek, Sidney Harman has been invariably given billionaire status. But not in Forbes.

Posted August 11, 2010 4:29 PM

View from the announcer's booth

Angel Stadium announcer David Courtney just posted this photo.

Posted August 11, 2010 12:14 PM

Stan Chambers makes it official

They're holding the event for Stan Chambers right now at KTLA. Here's a photo.

Posted August 11, 2010 11:50 AM

George Takei goes home again

Actor and Howard Stern announcer George Takei takes listeners through his Japanese-American family's internment during World War II in a radio documentary airing in Sirius XM Radio.

Posted August 11, 2010 9:40 AM

Former Her-Ex journalist writes about his cancer

Chris Gulker, long established in Silicon Valley since the Los Angeles Herald Examiner folded, has been blogging about the progression of his rare, fast-growing glioma.

Posted August 11, 2010 9:34 AM

Standing ovation: Stan Chambers to retire

The dean of Los Angeles television reporters — and it's not even close — turns 87 tomorrow and is expected to hang up his mike at an 11 a.m. party on the KTLA lot.

Posted August 10, 2010 9:56 PM

Radio programming notes

Coming up on "Which Way, L.A." plus Jennifer Ferro's pledge drive and Lou Adler on KPCC's "Off-Ramp."

Posted August 10, 2010 4:20 PM

Lending some expertise to the other side

Longtime California political writer John Marelius, lately at the San Diego Union-Tribune and previously at the Daily News for 15+ years, has been appointed to a state Fair Political Practices Commission task force to reform and simplify the Political Reform Act. Plus other media notes.

Posted August 9, 2010 10:32 PM

Christopher Hitchens: 'I'm dying' *

Hitchens, recently diagnosed with lung cancer, talks to The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg.

Posted August 9, 2010 9:10 AM

Weekend reads

Broadway theaters in WSJ, McCourts try to settle, Bell's $1.5 million city manager, Pau Gasol in scubs and more.

Posted August 8, 2010 2:16 PM

On almost going to Disneyland

Great, creepy, kind of disturbing story this weekend on This American Life by Starlee Kine, who grew up with SoCal kids who, as she says, were all jaded about going...

Posted August 7, 2010 2:15 PM

Quick revisit with photographer Charles Brittin

His house in Santa Monica Canyon sold to a producer of "Doctor Who," but isn't the 1957 photo of Venice Beach interesting?

Posted August 7, 2010 10:50 AM

Salaries, salaries everywhere

Add KPCC to the list of websites offering a searchable database of city of Los Angeles employee salaries, built from the file that Controller Wendy Greuel made available.

Posted August 7, 2010 10:30 AM

KABC radio drops Michael Linder

I thought Michael Linder had made a real impact covering City Hall since he joined KABC in March, 2009 and opened a bureau in the civic center.

Posted August 7, 2010 9:55 AM

Architectural Digest moving to New York

Conde Nast has named Margaret Russell the new editor-in-chief of Architectural Digest, succeeding Paige Rense. But the bigger news is that the magazine will move from Los Angeles to New Yor

Posted August 5, 2010 5:10 PM

Marylin Hudson, co-founder of Round Table West was 76

An important figure in the Los Angeles book world has died. Marylin Hudson co-founded the legendary and long-running Round Table West book and author program.

Posted August 3, 2010 1:53 PM

About that Jon Stewart goatee

"Marketplace" host Kai Ryssdal this afternoon asked his listeners, via Twitter: "Okay, so if Jon Stewart grows a goatee, can I?"

Posted August 3, 2010 1:25 PM

Publisher of Watts Times signs off at 34 years in the business

Melanie Polk writes that "I can still remember the look on my mother's face when my father came home one day in the '70s and said, 'We're in the newspaper business.'"

Posted August 3, 2010 9:40 AM

Boyarsky a SoCal book awards finalist

LA Observed columnist Bill Boyarsky's latest book, "Inventing L.A.: The Chandlers and Their Times," has been nominated for this year's Southern California Independent Booksellers Association awards.

Posted August 2, 2010 11:58 PM

NBC 4, Steve Edwards lead the local Emmys

Channel 4's news shows picked up six statues at the Los Angeles Area Emmy Awards on Saturday night.

Posted August 2, 2010 12:29 AM

Reporter reflects on the Mexican border

Marc Lacey, the New York Times' new Southwest bureau chief, is coming up from Mexico City and in Sunday's Week in Review section he observes that the border is especially nasty these days.

Posted August 1, 2010 11:58 PM

One colleague's view of Eric Malnic, L.A. and the Times

Peter Hong worked with and admired Eric Malnic, the reporter and editor who worked at the Los Angeles Times for 47 years, bridging the Otis Chander and Sam Zell era.

Posted July 29, 2010 11:42 AM

Local reaction on blockage of Arizona's SB 1070

Mayor Villaraigosa, KFI's John & Ken, Cardinal Mahony.

Posted July 28, 2010 10:02 PM

Mossberg stays with the iPhone, despite AT&T

The iPhone 4 is still his choice, the WSJ's Walt Mossberg decrees.

Posted July 28, 2010 9:10 PM

NBC 4 gets a new VP for news *

Vickie Burns, named today as Vice President, News for KNBC, comes from WNBC in New York where she was Vice President of Content and Audience Development for NBC Local Media New York.

Posted July 28, 2010 4:48 PM

Eric Malnic, retired Times reporter was 73 *

Eric Malnic was a longtime mainstay of the Los Angeles Times Metro staff, as an assistant city editor and rewrite man on big stories, and late in his career as the paper's specialist on airplane crashes.

Posted July 28, 2010 9:47 AM

Diana Nyad cleared by U.S. to go

What did you do today that challenged your comfort zone? KCRW sports columnist Diana Nyad is getting ready to swim from Cuba to Florida, a feat she couldn't complete when she was 28 and the best in the world at such extreme swims. She's now 60.

Posted July 27, 2010 9:50 PM

Mr. Lopez goes to the White House

When Nathaniel Ayers performed yesterday at the White House, it was only fitting that L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez went along.

Posted July 27, 2010 1:15 PM

Afternoon media notes

My KCRW column this evening gives kudos to the Los Angeles Times for its city of Bell reportage, but also notes that high salaries there were possible in large part because the Times stopped covering small cities like Bell over the last decade or so. Plus media notes.

Posted July 26, 2010 5:13 PM

CBS 2 /KCAL 9 make weather changes

Josh Rubenstein gets the title of Chief Meterologist for the two stations and will take over weather responsibilities for the 5 a.m. and 11 a.m. newscasts, plus other personnel moves.

Posted July 26, 2010 1:13 PM

Staying up in the name of art

Channel 2 news photographer and blogger Bryan Frank just completed a marathon picture-taking trek through the area — "my little artisitic endeavor" — that he called 24LA.

Posted July 26, 2010 9:43 AM

Daniel Schorr, longtime commentator was 93 *

Schorr joined NPR as senior news analyst after being let go by CNN in 1985.

Posted July 23, 2010 10:35 AM

Gawker: Arianna is Gotham bound *

Arianna Huffington is moving to New York City, Gawker says based on unidentified sources.

Posted July 23, 2010 12:40 AM

Facebook group honors walking man of Silver Lake

Rico Gagliano of radio's Dinner Party Download has started a Facebook group proposing that the path around Silver Lake Reservoir be re-named the Marc Abrams Memorial Loop, in honor of the walking man of Silver Lake.

Posted July 22, 2010 11:53 AM

Piece of old Melrose Avenue in Japan

If you believe interesting things happen to interesting people, you'll love this story from Mark Frauenfelder, author and co-founder of Boing Boing.

Posted July 21, 2010 6:11 PM

Journo listserv a gift that keeps giving for the right

The email listerv for mostly liberal journalists that used to be called Journolist is in the news again, this time over remarks by KCRW's publicist and producer.

Posted July 21, 2010 12:47 PM

Afternoon media notes

Some notable items from the pile.

Posted July 20, 2010 5:53 PM

Bratton hearts NYC

Ex-LAPD chief Willim Bratton tells KPCC's Kitty Felde that he's enjoying his new life in the private sector.

Posted July 19, 2010 5:50 PM

How Jewel dishonored karaoke

Joshua Joy Kamensky, the ex-City Hall press aide turned screenwriter, argues that Jewel's videotaped stunt in Santa Monica for Funny or Die (below) wasn't funny. And worse.

Posted July 16, 2010 11:15 AM

Mayor to help out Lu Parker's pet project

KTLA reporter has launched her Lu Parker Project, it has a website, a logo and a flack, boyfriend Mayor Villaraigosa is taking part in the kickoff event, and there's a story on the L.A. Times website.

Posted July 16, 2010 9:25 AM

Memo: Movie editor hired at L.A. Times

Julie Makinen, who left the Los Angeles Times awhile back to live in Hong Kong as deputy business editor of the Asian edition of the International Herald Tribune, is returning as movie editor on the LAT entertainment desk.

Posted July 14, 2010 7:08 PM

Just call him Chief Gil Garcetti *

Former District Attorney Gil Garcetti stood in on last night's episode of "The Closer" as the police chief of a certain major city who departs just before the department's new headquarters opens.

Posted July 13, 2010 9:39 AM

Pelisek explains how she came to Grim Sleeper beat

LA Weekly writer Christine Pelisek takes her story on the origins of the Grim Sleeper to The Daily Beast.

Posted July 12, 2010 5:54 PM

New Hollywood and media beats editor for NYT

Mary Jo Murphy has been an editor at at the New York Times' Week in Review section and on the metro and national desks. Plus morning media notes.

Posted July 12, 2010 11:37 AM

KPCC adds an immigration blogger

KPCC has hired a reporter from the San Diego Union-Tribune to author a blog later this summer on immigration and "emerging communities."

Posted July 9, 2010 1:23 PM

Talking seafood with the Gold brothers

Here is Zocalo's report on the panel we told you about, discussing the future of seafood.

Posted July 8, 2010 2:17 PM

Gold and Gold, mano a mano

Jonathan Gold — the enthusiastic fish gourmand — and his brother Mark Gold — the head of Heal the Bay — will be on the same panel tomorrow night talking about the sustainability of seafood. It's sort of a rermatch, if you remember their 2008 blog throwdown.

Posted July 6, 2010 8:29 PM

Pre-holiday desk clearing

Before I head off to survey the far-flung reaches of the empire for the 4th, some notes from the week.

Posted July 2, 2010 1:31 AM

Al Jazeera English opens bureau in Los Angeles

Al Jazeera's man in L.A. is Rob Reynolds, who has been with the network since 2006.

Posted July 1, 2010 6:26 PM

Why Hitchens cancelled book tour: cancer

Christopher Hitchens has announced that doctors have advised him to undergo chemotherapy for cancer in his esophagus. "This advice seems persuasive to me," the 61-year-old author says

Posted June 30, 2010 1:58 PM

Want Larry King, look first at Nate & Al's

Sam Rubin wanted to talk to Larry King on the KTLA morning show about his forthcoming exit from CNN. So Rubin guessed right and sent a couple of interns over to Nate & Al's in Beverly Hills.

Posted June 30, 2010 12:37 PM

Gene Gleeson, Mark Coogan hang up their mikes

A couple of Los Angeles television news veterans retire from their stations this week. Gene Gleeson leaves Channel 7 and Mark Coogan departs Channels 2/9. They were feted by colleagues...

Posted June 30, 2010 9:48 AM

Paul Johnson, KNBC reporter was 75

Johnson had been battling brain cancer and underwent surgery in January. He died Tuesday evening at age 75.

Posted June 30, 2010 8:23 AM

Diana Nyad going back to sea at 60

The host of the weekly column The Score on KCRW plans to swim from Cuba to Florida in August.

Posted June 29, 2010 2:29 PM

Boyarsky, Greenberg honored by Press Club *

Bill Boyarsky picked up the Online Journalist of the Year trophy at Sunday's awards dinner for the Los Angeles Press Club. Steve Greenberg won best cartoonist for a series in the Ventura County Reporter.

Posted June 28, 2010 12:11 AM

Meet your tennis marathon blogger

Xan Brooks, the Guardian's associate editor who made a new name for himself live-blogging yesterday's mega-match at Wimbledon, is making his mark today in Los Angeles media.

Posted June 24, 2010 12:44 PM

LAT's Matea Gold moving to Washington

Gold, the former City Hall reporter, now covers media, primarily television, in the Los Angeles Times New York bureau.

Posted June 24, 2010 12:10 PM

More turnover in the NYT bureau here

Randal C. Archibold, who has been in the New York Times bureau in Los Angeles, is moving to Mexico City as bureau chief this summer.

Posted June 23, 2010 1:12 PM

Random splash of World Cup humor

On Twitter from Matt Garrahan, the Financial Times bureau chief in Los Angeles, regarding his home team:

Posted June 22, 2010 10:36 PM

Los Angeles Mag celebrates women in power

Roz Wyman, elected to the City Council at 22 in 1957 — and a key player in getting the Dodgers here from Brooklyn — was one of the featured guests last night at Los Angeles Magazine's Women's Leadership reception.

Posted June 22, 2010 1:15 PM

New site presents news from multiple angles

Qewz is a technology-driven slice on the day's news, vowing to gather various angles on big stories and include left, right, middle, upper, lower, etc.

Posted June 21, 2010 12:49 AM

The Wrap relaunches its look

The Wrap has now been around long enough to reach that point in every website's life where it had to start over with a new design and back-end infrastructure.

Posted June 20, 2010 11:53 PM

Huffington Post adds arts vertical

The editor of HuffPost Arts is artist Kimberly Brooks, a habitue of Arianna Huffington's Brentwood salons who is married to actor Albert Books. The bloggers-for-free will include Suzanne Muchnic, the...

Posted June 16, 2010 10:57 AM

Arax says story about Jews and genocide ended his LAT career

With some Jewish leaders now acknowledging the 1915 Armenian genocide by Turkey, former Los Angees Times reporter Mark Arax recounts how his story on the subject led to his 2007 exit from the paper.

Posted June 16, 2010 10:35 AM

First issue of Slake is at the printer *

Slake, the quarterly literary journal being launched by former LA Weekly editors Laurie Ochoa and Joe Donnelly, is scheduled to arrive in bookstores by the first week in July.

Posted June 14, 2010 11:40 PM

LAT's ex-number two takes post in Bakersfield

John Arthur, who left last summer as executive editor at the Los Angeles Times, begins in July a three-month stint as interim editor of the Bakersfield Californian.

Posted June 14, 2010 11:22 PM

Doug Kriegel reporting...again

It was just in November that KNBC Channel 4 bid adieu to veteran reporter Doug Kriegel. Now he has shown up reporting for KEYT 3 in Santa Barbara. In...

Posted June 14, 2010 11:05 PM

Gustavo Arellano's graduation speech at UCLA

The author and OC Weekly "Ask a Mexican!" columnist gave the keynote address at tonight's main UCLA commencement ceremony.

Posted June 11, 2010 10:03 PM

Five journalists in May Day Melee get city settlements

The City Council approved settlements totaling $450,000 to Ted Garcia, then of KTLA, KCBS-KCAL camerman Carl Stein and Telemundo crew Carlos Botifoll, Fernando Mejia and Elisa Rojas.

Posted June 9, 2010 11:19 PM

French consul in L.A. is a blogger

If you're French, he'll watch the World Cup with you. And he remembers Dennis Hopper.

Posted June 7, 2010 11:11 PM

Antonio and Lu host a party for Pride week

For the 40th anniversary of Christopher Street West and LA Pride, Mayor Antonio Villarigosa opened Getty House to a Sunday afternoon soiree attended by Speaker John Perez, Councilman Bill Rosendahl and other gay community leaders from politics and beyond.

Posted June 7, 2010 10:29 PM

Paige Rense to retire from Architectural Digest

Paige Rense Noland, 81, has been editor of the magazine since 1975.

Posted June 3, 2010 11:18 AM

Jerry Clark, journalist

Friends of longtime Los Angeles journalist Jerry Clark are saying he died yesterday, possibly of a heart attack

Posted June 2, 2010 7:59 AM

LAT's Hiltzik weighs in on Sitrick lawsuit

In his column in tomorrow's L.A. Times, Michael Hiltzik examines what's really at issue in the lawsuit against crisis PR executive Mike Sitrick by two former colleagues.

Posted June 1, 2010 9:34 PM

Kim Masters to join Min at The Hollywood Reporter *

The first press release has come in from Janice Min's new Hollywood Reporter.

Posted June 1, 2010 10:29 AM

L.A. Times Hollywood writer jumps to Hollywood

Rachel Abramowitz is leaving to to work on "Outlaw Country," a new FX show she wrote with her husband.

Posted May 29, 2010 2:30 PM

Finke is on 'medical leave,' her site says

The underlings at Deadline Hollywood finally explained this morning the whereabouts of their missing leader.

Posted May 29, 2010 2:12 PM

The couple that blogs for HuffPost together...

The Huffington Post loves Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, or at least loves his press releases. And now Lu Parker promotes her stuff there too.

Posted May 27, 2010 11:49 PM

Victoria Recaño gone but not forgotten at KTLA

Look whose bio has gone missing from the KTLA website. Victoria Recaño has co-anchored the 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. news on Channel 5 just since last fall.

Posted May 27, 2010 9:27 PM

New class of Nieman fellows announced

Anna Gorman of the Los Angeles Times is among the journalists selected to spend the year at Harvard and attend Nieman Foundation for Journalism reunions forever after. She "plans to...

Posted May 26, 2010 4:16 PM

Lozano becomes CEO of ImpreMedia

Monica Lozano, the publisher and CEO of La Opinión, has been named chief executive officer of parent ImpreMedia

Posted May 24, 2010 12:51 PM

Applause: Rafat Ali leaving paidContent

li created his media business news site eight years ago, sold parent company ContentNext to the London-based Guardian Media group two years ago, and recently moved to New York from Los Angeles.

Posted May 21, 2010 11:42 AM

Nikki Finke looking for 'Tilda' payday from HBO

HBO is trying to make a deal with "litigious showbiz blogger Nikki Finke" to be a consultant on its new show "Tilda," which is pretty clearly based on Finke.

Posted May 18, 2010 4:28 PM

News executive at KNBC doesn't stay long *

Steve Lange arrived at KNBC as vice president for content just last January. Sources at the station today say he's leaving. Whether he was exactly fired or not will come...

Posted May 18, 2010 1:26 PM

Laura Ling has book and baby coming

Former Current TV reporter Laura Ling's book with her sister Lisa Ling, "Somewhere Inside: One Sister's Captivity in North Korea and the Other's Fight to Bring Her Home," is due out today from Harper-Collins.

Posted May 18, 2010 12:10 AM

Retweets o' the day

My favorites from Monday, including from Roger Ebert.

Posted May 17, 2010 11:36 PM

'Off-Ramp' producer moving to Bay Area news startup

Queena Kim, a producer at KPCC's "Off-Ramp" since the show went on the air in 2006, is heading to the Bay Citizen.

Posted May 17, 2010 5:53 PM

Sitrick's old buddy joins lawsuit *

Allan Mayer was a key player in the rise of Sitrick & Company into a major crisis PR firm, and also was the co-author of Michael Sitrick's "Spin: How to Turn the Power of the Press to Your Advantage.”

Posted May 17, 2010 1:29 PM

Jay Leno gets a tow

Photojournalist and blogger Ted Soqui was riding with the L.A. Wheelmen on Mulholland Drive when they came across Jay Leno, loading his 1963 Porsche onto a truck.

Posted May 17, 2010 12:35 AM

Journo takes pot to the airport, gets away with it

Adam Baer, the Los Angeles-based founding editor-at-large and travel guru of the website The Faster Times, is a two-time cancer survivor who has written about his brain surgery and adventures in the U.S. medical system.

Posted May 13, 2010 8:23 PM

5 things you should know before dating a journalist

San Diego journalist Tom Chambers aims his warnings to women primarily, but they could apply both wa

Posted May 13, 2010 5:13 PM

Lu Parker to be on 'O'Reilly Factor'

Not sure what this is about, but KTLA reporter and Villaraigosa companion Lu Parker just tweeted that she will be live on "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News at 5 p.m. Pacific.

Posted May 13, 2010 4:54 PM

Los Angeles Magazine publisher to leave

A restructuring of the senior leadership at Emmis magazines means that Amy Saralegui, publisher at Los Angeles, will become publisher of Texas Monthly as well as vice president and group publisher of national sales for Emmis Publishing.

Posted May 13, 2010 2:29 PM

Not everybody happy about new City Council media rules

Longtime Fox 11 political reporter John Schwada isn't so sure he likes the compromise media access rules put forth last afternoon by City Council President Eric Garcetti's new press deputy.

Posted May 12, 2010 11:01 AM

NYT expands into Phoenix

With the Arizona theater of media operations heating up, the New York Times is opening its "first new national bureau in decades" in Phoenix. The inaugural bureau chief will be Marc Lacey, currently based in Mexico City.

Posted May 11, 2010 3:54 PM

Tyler Green moves Modern Art Notes

Arts journalist Tyler Green is moving his blog, a must-read for scoops on the Los Angeles museum scene, from its long-time home at ArtsJournal to Art Info.com.

Posted May 11, 2010 9:20 AM

Alan Rich memorial service

A public memorial for music critic Alan Rich has been set for Tuesday, May 25th in Zipper Hall at the Colburn School on Bunker Hill in Downtown

Posted May 7, 2010 2:17 PM

Blogger (and copy editor) turns Good Samaritan

Larry Harnisch, a longtime copy editor at the Los Angeles Times who also created The Daily Mirror, a blog that compiles items extracted from the paper's archives, was honored by District Attorney Steve Cooley for helping save a woman from a beating by her husband outside the Pasadena police station in 2007.

Posted May 5, 2010 9:15 PM

KNBC employee among $266 million jackpot winners

Now this is one story you can find on the Channel 4 website.

Posted May 5, 2010 11:43 AM

LA Weekly gets a little staff help

Jonathan Gold, fresh off his James Beard Foundation win, will be splitting some of the food writing duties at the LA Weekly with a second staff critic. Plus a new news blogger. Read the memo.

Posted May 4, 2010 5:42 PM

Another local food writer wins big

Brad A. Johnson, the national food and travel editor for Modern Luxury and Angeleno, won the top restaurant critic prize at the international 2010 Le Cordon Bleu World Food Media Awards held in Adelaide, Australia

Posted May 3, 2010 5:45 PM

Daily Journal could be looking for editors

Two of the associate editors at the Los Angeles Daily Journal — Christian Berthelsen and Evelyn Larrubia — are going off on a couple of the most sought-after fellowships among print journalists. Only Larrubia is expected back, apparently. Read the memo.

Posted May 3, 2010 5:33 PM

Jonathan Gold wins again

The LA Weekly's Jonathan Gold won the Craig Claiborne Distinguished Restaurant Reviews category at last night's James Beard Foundation awards.

Posted May 3, 2010 11:09 AM

Haim Saban profile: still wants L.A. Times

Connie Bruck's profile of Haim Saban went online an hour ago at The New Yorker — all 11,299 words.

Posted May 2, 2010 10:25 PM

BBC reporter waits for The Big One, eats his quake kit

David Willis, a BBC News correspondent in Los Angeles, entertained the home folks today with a dispatch on Southern California's recent spate of earthquakes.

Posted May 2, 2010 8:46 PM

Saban profile coming in The New Yorker

There's an 11,000-word piece on politically active L.A. mogul Haim Saban coming in Monday's New Yorker by writer Connie Bruck, but the best story might be in what has gone on behind the scenes.

Posted May 1, 2010 8:05 PM

Reporter who lost a frat brother remembers another Daryl Gates

Let me call your attention to a new Visiting Blogger post about Daryl Gates — our second exclusive piece by longtime journalists who had extensive dealings with the late LAPD chief.

Posted April 29, 2010 11:49 PM

Todd McCarthy joins IndieWire

Less than two months after losing his longtime gig as chief film critic at Variety, Todd McCarthy has signed on with IndieWire to do film commentary on a blog they are calling Todd McCarthy's Deep Focus.

Posted April 29, 2010 8:52 PM

Can you spot Huell Howser?

Guess which one of these young men is Huell Howser circa 1966, and which one is the Tennessee senator Howard Baker.

Posted April 29, 2010 10:15 AM

New driver on the loose in L.A.

KTLA reporter Lu Parker blogged recently about taking her boyfriend's 16-year-old daughter out for a driving lesson in Parker's car. I guess we can assume that is Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's daughter Natalia Fe she's talking about.

Posted April 28, 2010 10:10 PM

Reports: Music critic Alan Rich has died *

Friends and admirers are passing around on line the news that longtime Los Angeles music critic Alan Rich died yesterday. He would have been about 85.

Posted April 24, 2010 12:15 PM

Festival of Books this weekend

I'll be signing "Wilshire Boulevard" and "San Fernando Valley" on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Angel City Press booth. LA Observed authors will be all over the place, including on a bunch of panels.

Posted April 23, 2010 3:35 PM

In re Finke v The Wrap, I guess we'll know soon *

They can't both be right. I suppose we'll find out pretty soon which one is BSing.

Posted April 23, 2010 10:58 AM

SF Chronicle editor who wrote of her cancer dies at 28

Alicia Parlette was diagnosed at 23 with a rare form of cancer in her hip and a breast. The copy editor's 17-part series in the San Francisco Chronicle under the Alicia's Story banner told of her experiences undergoing chemotherapy and coming to grips with her fate.

Posted April 23, 2010 10:48 AM

Press Club's National Entertainment Awards

Former LA Weekly film critic Scott Foundas won two awards, including print critic of the year, and KABC 7’s George Pennacchio also won a pair at the at the Los Angeles Press Club’s third annual National Entertainment Awards tonight.

Posted April 22, 2010 10:34 PM

TV MoJoe a no go

Sharon Waxman sends word that while Joe Adalian is leaving as television editor of The Wrap, the TV blog he brought with him is staying.

Posted April 22, 2010 7:02 PM

Script for 'Tilda' should be called 'Nikki'

Matthew Belloni of The Hollywood Reporter finally got to read the script for a potential HBO series about a "no-holds-barred show biz blogger." His main question going in was answered: it's definitely based on Nikki Finke.

Posted April 21, 2010 4:10 PM

TV MoJoe leaves The Wrap for Vulture *

Joe Adalian just joined the Wrap last June, but he's taking his address book and his TV MoJoe blog (originally started at TV Week) to New York Magazine's entertainment site Vulture.

Posted April 21, 2010 3:25 PM

Gabe Snyder lands at Newsweek

Gabriel Snyder, let go recently as editor-in-chief at Gawker after several media stints in L.A., is joining Newsweek Digital as executive editor.

Posted April 21, 2010 12:40 PM

Chick Hearn unveiled *

Jeanie Buss of the Lakers tweeted the photo of the newest statue outside Staples Center, with a short and sweet caption: Chickie baby.

Posted April 20, 2010 6:06 PM

Say it ain't so: YouTube pulling Hitler spoofs

Regarding all those web parodies using footage of the Adolf Hitler character from the film "Downfall," the German production company that owns the film has asked YouTube to yank them all.

Posted April 20, 2010 12:57 PM

Chick in a box

A statue honoring the late broadcaster Chick Hearn will be unveiled outside Staples Center before tonight's game 2 of the Lakers' playoff series with Oklahoma City.

Posted April 20, 2010 9:48 AM

Commie Girl visits Cuba

Former CityBeat editor Rebecca Schoenkopf, who blogs as Commie Girl, went with her boyfriend and the other writers for Fourstory.org on a recent trip to Cuba. She posts that Havana was Havana was "so dreamy and beautiful and different—different from our homes, from anyplace we have been, and from how we thought it would be. It is massively crowded, 2.2 million people squashed into a city you could walk across in not so very many hours."

Posted April 19, 2010 3:58 PM

Daily Journal reporters still don't get the 9 a.m. thing

Los Angeles Daily Journal editor David Houston clearly has a thing about his reporters being at their desks by 9 a.m. He has memoed on it at least twice that...

Posted April 16, 2010 11:07 AM

Going on 'Today' for 'The Wrong Man'

Santa Barbara writer David Freed is scheduled to be on NBC's "Today" show this morning to talk about his May profile in the Atlantic of Steven Hatfill, the virologist who the FBI mistakenly targeted as an anthrax suspect.

Posted April 16, 2010 12:57 AM

Ron Kaye as director of political theater

A long piece in USC's student-run Neon Tommy (by senior editor Hillel Aron) follows Ron Kaye on his crusade to foment, as he calls it, "the birth of democracy in L.A." The story captures Kaye as a 68-year-old white ex-newspaperman from the far west end of the Valley who wants to create a "new revolution" that goes beyond the early-2000s secession campaign he stage-managed as managing editor of the Daily News.

Posted April 16, 2010 12:24 AM

LAT's McNulty blasts Pulitzer in drama

Charles McNulty's public rant about the Pulitzer Prize awarded today in drama is unusually interesting, not because he's the L.A. Times theater critic but because he was chair of the official jury of drama critics and playwrights that recommended a different prize winner

Posted April 12, 2010 5:20 PM

Media notes: Waxman, Arellano, Katz, Welk

Catching up on some notes.

Posted April 8, 2010 11:19 PM

Kaus refines act, now wants to beat Boxer

Probably not really, but political blogger Mickey Kaus's previous statements that he didn't intend to actually win against Sen. Barbara Boxer in the Democratic primary have been used by the party to deny him a speaking spot at the upcoming state convention.

Posted April 7, 2010 11:42 AM

Sign of the (L.A.) Times

Thursday's Los Angeles Times story on the indictment of a L.A. Unified official for allegedly funneling district business to his company rightly credits an earlier Times investigation that exposed the conflict of interest. What isn't mentioned is that the reporter was laid off last year.

Posted April 1, 2010 11:58 PM

Celebrating the art of the desert

Ann Japenga's new website wallows in the art, history and landscape of the California desert, "an online magazine and gathering place for desert rats, collectors, historians, artists and anyone who loves the early painters of the desert...where landscape, history and art come together under the brow of Mount San Jacinto."

Posted March 31, 2010 12:55 AM

No L.A. plans for Bill Cunningham film

Manhattan fashionistas and media people got their first look at Bill Cunningham New York, a documentary on the octogenarian who has been shooting street fashion for the New York Times for decades. But don't expect to see it in Los Angeles any time soon, the producer tells LA Observed.

Posted March 31, 2010 12:40 AM

Tiger Woods covered in condoms

L.A. food writer and blogger Barbara Hansen discovered an unexpected restaurant in Bangkok. Called Cabbages and Condoms, it's part of a safe sex and birth control program.

Posted March 30, 2010 8:43 PM

Deadline.com hires again, expands into TV

The show business news franchise anchored by Nikki Finke's Deadline | Hollywood has hired Nellie Andreeva, television editor of The Hollywood Reporter since 2004, to become TV editor.

Posted March 29, 2010 6:25 PM

Weekend reads: Christine Daniels and more

With a GQ piece said to be in the works, the L.A. Times was first into print with a reconstruction of Mike Penner's painful transformation into Christine Daniels and back again.

Posted March 28, 2010 9:50 PM

Willie Brown is PG&E's man

Turns out that Willie Brown is more than an ex-Speaker and ex-Mayor who writes a lively California politics column for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Posted March 26, 2010 4:06 PM

Suzanne Rico says goodbye on her terms

Suzanne Rico, who lost her job last week as morning co-anchor on Channel 2, distributed an open letter that clarifies how it happened.

Posted March 26, 2010 3:31 PM

Breitbart, new media David or neocrank?

The Time magazine that hits print tomorrow will have a piece by Steve Oney on Andrew Breitbart, the Brentwood-based right-wing media impresario and culture war provocateur. The story covers the rise of Breitbart's website empire and his driving passion to conquer liberal influence on American culture and politics.

Posted March 25, 2010 2:25 PM

Brian Rooney: mood 'all over ABC News is dark'

After finding out that he was being let go after 22 years at ABC News, Los Angeles correspondent Brian Rooney talked to Michael Schneider at Variety'sOn the Air blog and said he kind of saw the end coming.

Posted March 25, 2010 1:09 PM

Variety threatens studios over online casting scoops

Variety Editor Tim Gray has been telling studio PR types that if they give casting scoops to the online competition, the paper won't run their big announcement stories in print. Plus: Nikki Finke for sale again?

Posted March 25, 2010 12:57 PM

A mother's fear about the LAPD and autism

Betty Pleasant is best known as the colorfully opinionated Soulvine political columnist for the Wave newspapers that circulate across the southern swath of Los Angeles. This week, though, she writes as the mother of an autistic adult reacting to the police shooting of 27-year-old Steven Washington, who was unarmed and autistic.

Posted March 25, 2010 9:36 AM

Huffington loses investigative editor after 10 months

Larry Roberts, hired away last spring from the Washington Post to run the Huffington Post Investigative Fund, is leaving for Bloomberg News.

Posted March 24, 2010 12:21 PM

Variety looking to hire in New York

Variety is "in search of a full-time NY-based reporter to cover finance and entertainment," Variety.com editor Chris Krewson posts on his Twitter feed.

Posted March 24, 2010 12:06 PM

ABC sheds L.A. correspondent Brian Rooney

Rooney's contract won't be renewed, part of a network staff trimming that includes Laura Marquez in San Francisco and that TV Newser says is expected to reach 300-400 by the end of the year.

Posted March 24, 2010 10:26 AM

New editor for W

Stefano Tonchi, the editor of T: The New York Times Style Magazine, has jumped to Conde Nast as the editor of W.

Posted March 23, 2010 9:24 AM

Kuh, Gold nominated for Beard awards

Of the three food writers nationally who are finalists in the top journalism category of this year's James Beard Foundation awards — Craig Clairborne Distinguished Restaurant Reviews — two are from L.A.: Patric Kuh of Los Angeles magazine and Jonathan Gold of LA Weekly.

Posted March 22, 2010 11:32 AM

Big day for newsroom carnage at KCBS/KCAL

Rumors have been flying for the past day or so, and about three hours ago KCAL anchor Pat Harvey tweeted: "Sad day at the duopoly. Some of my co-workers lost their jobs.Want to thank them for their hard work and friendship."

Posted March 19, 2010 11:28 PM

Creator of Deitch-Broad Hitler video comes forward

Last month's pretty funny and creative spoof of Jeffrey Deitch's selection to run MOCA (with some great insider references to the L.A. arts scene and digs at Eli Broad's power)...

Posted March 17, 2010 12:19 PM

She could have warned Edwards about Rielle Hunter

Ann Bardach has been sitting on this piece of information until the right moment, which is now: Rielle Hunter used to be her tenant in West Hollywood. As tenants go she was pretty good, if peculiar.

Posted March 17, 2010 12:56 AM

Christine Daniels story on HBO tonight

On "Real Sports" at 10 p.m. on HBO, Bryant Gumbel talks to the country's two transgender baseball writers and reviews the story of the L.A. Times writer Christine Daniels.

Posted March 16, 2010 8:12 PM

L.A. vets — that's veterinarians — in Afghanistan

"Nightline" did a nice feature last night on the 40th Infantry Division Agribusiness Development Team from the California National Guard, on duty in Afghanistan helping the locals keep their goats, sheep and cows — and even a monkey — healthy.

Posted March 16, 2010 3:36 PM

Sam Rubin to be honored by Press Club

KTLA entertainment reporter Sam Rubin will receive this year's outstanding achievement award from the Los Angeles Press Club during the 2010 National Entertainment Journalism awards on April 22.

Posted March 15, 2010 9:57 PM

France's man in Los Angeles

You don't have to follow French pollitics to know how David Martinon came to be the consul general in Los Angeles, though it helps.

Posted March 15, 2010 6:06 PM

Reporter in exile in Thailand

Todd Ruiz, the former politics reporter at the Pasadena Star-News and hand at other newspapers hereabouts, has landed in Bangkok. He's blogging about the political turmoil there and calls his blog Reporter in Exile.

Posted March 15, 2010 5:08 PM

Sylvie Drake is an old joke-telling Jew

Sylvie Drake, theater critic of the Los Angeles Times for a couple of decades, shows up now in the video series Old Jews Telling Jokes.

Posted March 15, 2010 12:05 PM

NPR's Anne Garrels to leave the building

By the time NPR's senior foreign correspondent gets to town to pick up her Daniel Pearl Award from the L.A. Press Club in June, she will already be three months into her next life.

Posted March 12, 2010 11:55 PM

Friday desk-clearing: Return to PDT edition

Remember: Pacific Daylight Time resumes its rightful place in the natural order of things on Sunday.

Posted March 12, 2010 6:03 PM

Ex-Times reporters launch investigative unit

Myron Levin and Joanna Lin's nonprofit FairWarning.org plans to plans to investigate issues involving safety, health and corporate conduct.

Posted March 11, 2010 8:43 PM

New music editor for LA Weekly

Gustavo Turner was introduced today as the music editor of the LA Weekly, replacing Randall Roberts. Read the memo.

Posted March 11, 2010 7:43 PM

Steve Erickson's nominated reviews

Los Angeles magazine arts critic Steve Erickson's nomination for an American Society of Magazine Editors award is for three reviews he wrote last year.

Posted March 11, 2010 12:06 AM

Libel suit over vaccine story dismissed

Amy Wallace was served two days before Christmas with the suit seeking $1 million in damages from a woman mentioned in her November cover story in Wired on the anti-vaccine movement.

Posted March 10, 2010 2:24 PM

Willie Davis 'the coolest ballplayer I ever saw' *

Sportswriter Bruce Jenkins in, of all places, the San Francisco Chronicle, recalls the late Dodgers centerfielder as the coolest of them all.

Posted March 10, 2010 12:46 PM

KPCC adds Madeleine Brand, new 9 a.m. show

Brand, the former host of "Day to Day" on National Public Radio, will host a news magazine show in the old DTD slot at 9 a.m. on KPCC's daily schedule....

Posted March 10, 2010 11:40 AM

Heal the Bay vs. The Hump *

Heal the Bay president Mark Gold is trying to get the whale-serving restaurant closed — but this time doesn't have to worry about his brother, Jonathan Gold the food writer.

Posted March 10, 2010 9:22 AM

Anderson Cooper, Dave Bryan to be feted

The L.A. Press Club's top awards are going this year to Cooper, Bryant and NPR reporter Anne Garrels.

Posted March 8, 2010 8:44 PM

Daily Journal doing some restructuring too

Our Friday newsroom buzz about the Daily Journal closing its Washington bureau was half wrong (or half right, if you prefer.) Read the memo.

Posted March 8, 2010 5:20 PM

Actually, Variety restructures across the newsroom

Today's moves turn out to be about much more than dropping the chief film and theater critics, who have been asked to write as freelancers. Variety is restructuring its newsroom,...

Posted March 8, 2010 4:54 PM

Variety loses Ebert

His tweet: "Variety fires Todd McCarthy & I cancel my subscription. He was my reason 2 read the paper. RIP, schmucks"

Posted March 8, 2010 4:14 PM

Variety drops two reviewers, goes freelance *

Two of the trade's most prominent writers, film reviewer Todd McCarthy and theater critic David Rooney, have been cut as cost-saving measures. Reviews will be done by freelancers.

Posted March 8, 2010 1:17 PM

Story behind that weird Oscars moment *

The Chic Leak blog has some backstory on the woman who popped up to commandeered the microphone from documentary short winner Roger Ross Williams.

Posted March 8, 2010 1:05 PM

Book notes: John McPhee, fact-checking and more

Jonathan Kirsch broadens his review of John McPhee's latest collection into a paean to fact-checking and, in particular, to former New Yorker editor Sara Lippincott, who lives here in L.A. Plus some book notes.

Posted March 7, 2010 11:45 PM

Friday desk-clearing

Variety has restored that missing "Iron Cross" review to its website and says it was only down for factual vetting in response to a legal threat, not because of...

Posted March 5, 2010 5:17 PM

Hitchens here to give Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture

The annual lecture series at UCLA in memory of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl continues at 5 p.m. with author and journalist Christopher Hitchens.

Posted March 3, 2010 2:49 PM

Kaus clarifies his candidate status

Mickey Kaus, the Slate blogger who delights in needling his fellow Democrats, liberals and the L.A. Times — and even sometimes a Republican — confirms via email that he's looking...

Posted March 1, 2010 6:05 PM

Afternoon notes: Brown to finally declare

Jerry Brown plans to announce officially that he's running for governor, and other notes from the day.

Posted March 1, 2010 4:43 PM

Schickel on 'the insufferable optimism of America'

Remarks by curmudgeonly Time critic Richard Schickel stole the show at a weekend panel to discuss the state of film criticism, pegged to the screening of the documentary "For the Love of Movies," by Boston Phoenix critic and filmmaker Gerald Peary.

Posted March 1, 2010 12:22 PM

Where's Erin Brockovich?

The SoCal legal assistant who became famous when Julia Roberts portrayed her in the movies now runs Brockovich Research & Consulting with a couple of assistants out of her Agoura Hills home.

Posted March 1, 2010 8:39 AM

Signature magazine and editor split, not amicably

Email came in on Friday from the publishers of Signature, the Los Angeles style magazine, announcing that editor Hellin Kay no longer speaks for the magazine.

Posted February 27, 2010 9:57 PM

Garza on the Los Angeles Public Media Service

The goal, as he tells KCET blogger (and KPCC reporter) Adolfo Guzman-Lopez, is to diversify the public radio audience.

Posted February 26, 2010 1:14 AM

'Thinking about now in Los Angeles'

The Society of Professional Journalists of Greater Los Angeles is branching out, subject-wise and geographically, for a free panel discussion tonight.

Posted February 25, 2010 9:30 AM

Transition at Calif. Planning & Development Report

Josh Stephens is the new editor of California Planning & Development Report, the Ventura-based land-use publication

Posted February 23, 2010 11:37 PM

Nice list of good journalism, nicer to be on it

Journalist Conor Friedersdorf's compilation of the best journalism he encountered in 2009 is eclectic, personal and arguable -- and that's its charm.

Posted February 23, 2010 11:14 PM

Elvis Mitchell, sartorialist

Scott Schuman of The Sartorialist posted this photo of longtime L.A. media person Elvis Mitchell after being interviewed by Mitchell on "The Treatment" on KCRW.

Posted February 23, 2010 10:38 PM

Magic Johnson's bid for Ebony, Jet breaks down

Talks reached an advanced stage before ending, but Johnson says he'll continue to look for opportunities to invest in African-American media.

Posted February 23, 2010 8:37 AM

Channel 4 axes 11 a.m. newscast

KNBC's morning newscast was "taken off the schedule in order to reallocate resources,” with anchor Kim Baldonado returning to reporting.

Posted February 22, 2010 4:57 PM

Olney back in the saddle

Warren Olney, out several weeks after a bike accident, returned today to the hosting chair on KCRW's "To the Point" and "Which Way, L.A."

Posted February 22, 2010 4:24 PM

Selden Ring Award goes to ex-LAT reporter

T. Christian Miller won for ProPublica stories on how insurance coverage for private contractors in war zones "had become a boon for companies and a disaster for those who relied upon it for treatment and death benefits."

Posted February 22, 2010 3:28 PM

How Ebert feels about the story (and photo)

Roger Ebert wrote this week about his reactions to the Esquire story and how shocked he was to see the portrait that has gotten so much attention.

Posted February 20, 2010 10:58 PM

Paula Deen cancels Pantages event, U.S. tour

The Food Network chef cites problems with the concert promoter.

Posted February 20, 2010 12:59 AM

KCRW's next general manager: Jennifer Ferro *

The Santa Monica Daily Press reports that Ferro, the assistant GM at KCRW, will succeed public radio legend Ruth Seymour.

Posted February 20, 2010 12:20 AM

What's the TV news equivalent of -30-?

Fox 11 talent tweets nice farewells to departing hairstylist.

Posted February 19, 2010 10:50 PM

Friday desk-clearing

Sunday's News Conference guests, a new column for Amy Wallace, a warning from Nikki Finke and more.

Posted February 19, 2010 4:57 PM

KUSC claims #1 in public radio ratings

Classical KUSC at 91.5 FM says the latest Arbitron ratings show it to be the top public radio station in the country based on average number of listeners and individuals who tune in during the week.

Posted February 18, 2010 5:51 PM

Print reporter on the move

Anna Scott moves from the Downtown News to the Los Angeles Daily Journal on March 1.

Posted February 18, 2010 4:49 PM

LA Weekly loses music editor to LAT

Randall Roberts gave notice at the Weekly yesterday, and sources say he has been hired to be music editor at the Los Angeles Times.

Posted February 18, 2010 8:56 AM

Posnanski on Lindsey Jacobellis

Just to add to Jon Weisman's admirably bristling take from this morning — "I want my kids to be like her" — Sports Illustrated's Joe Posnanski blogs his thoughts on the media's disappointment over snowboard champion Lindsey Jacobellis falling short of a medal.

Posted February 17, 2010 6:06 PM

Olney off another week

After taking a conk on the head, and earning some stitches, when somebody opened a car door in front of his bicycle, Warren Olney has extended his time off from hosting at KCRW.

Posted February 17, 2010 3:20 PM

Olympic endorsements for Joan's, Lindsey Jacobellis

Skater Evan Lysacek likes Joan's, while Jon Weisman says of snowboarder Linsey Jacobellis: "I want my kids to be like her."

Posted February 17, 2010 12:23 PM

Roger Ebert hasn't eaten since 2006

Television's most famous movie critic is rarely seen and never heard, says Esquire in a nicely detailed piece. But Roger Ebert is still reviewing movies and "producing the best work of his life."

Posted February 16, 2010 11:17 PM

Mary Herczog, 45, loses battle with breast cancer *

Los Angeles writer Mary Susan Herczog wrote first-person stories about her experiences with breast cancer in the L.A. Times during the late 1990s and again in 2002.

Posted February 16, 2010 5:25 PM

Dan Weintraub launches health news website

HealthyCal debuts today, billing itself as "a new independent, non-profit web site focused on the health of Californians and their communities."

Posted February 16, 2010 12:47 AM

Gabriel Snyder 'canned' as editor of Gawker

Gawker this afternoon posted two internal memos about itself: one that the site has acquired Cityfile to be its main New York media channel, and the other that Gawker editor-in-chief Gabriel Snyder is out.

Posted February 15, 2010 4:46 PM

Union-Tribune goes with online guy as editor

The San Diego Union-Tribune has nabbed Jeff Light from the Register in Orange County to be editor and vice president.

Posted February 11, 2010 4:43 PM

Dan Neil hits the road, loves the LAT

The Wall Street Journal-bound L.A. Times auto critic and columnist sent his farewell message to the newsroom this afternoon, saying he'll miss the place and the people.

Posted February 11, 2010 3:46 PM

How 'Rough & Tumble' comes together each day

Jack Kavanagh has been producing Rough & Tumble, "the single most essential news source for California political junkies," since 2002 and has logged more than 35 million page views.

Posted February 10, 2010 9:25 AM

Moot but interesting: Conan's contract with NBC

Conan O'Brien's contract language did specify that he would host "The Tonight Show" at 11:35 p.m.

Posted February 9, 2010 6:45 PM

Media people calendar

Writers and photographer Nick Ut on the calendar.

Posted February 9, 2010 5:20 PM

Olney out for today's shows

Judging by my email, a lot of people heard KCRW's fundraising pitch last week that included the news that Warren Olney, host of "To the Point" and "Which Way, L.A.?,"...

Posted February 8, 2010 5:10 PM

News-Press ordered to pay Jerry Roberts $748,000

Up in Santa Barbara, finally, some justice in the saga of News-Press owner Wendy McCaw. She forced out editor Jerry Roberts and most of his staff, tried to ruin his...

Posted February 5, 2010 3:25 PM

Peek inside a magazine editor's apartment

Laurie Pike at Los Angeles magazine let the website Apartment Therapy do a tour of her Koreatown apartment. Reader reaction hasn't all been positive.

Posted February 4, 2010 12:04 PM

Journalist teams with Barry Minkow to probe fraud

Former L.A. Times religion writer William Lobdell and ex-felon Barry Minkow have launched iBusiness Reporting to investigate inflated claims by public companies — paid for in part by short-selling stock in the companies they investigate.

Posted February 3, 2010 10:23 AM

This year's SPJ Distinguished Journalist honorees

The Greater Los Angeles chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists will honor five local journalists at a banquet on April 27. This year's winners follow.

Posted February 3, 2010 9:45 AM

Kobe passes Jerry West, now all-time Lakers scorer

Bryant scored 44 tonight in Memphis to take over the franchise lead from West, but the Lakers lost by two.

Posted February 1, 2010 8:20 PM

This day in history: KTLA airs live nuclear blast

On Feb. 1, 1951, Channel 5 in Los Angeles aired on live TV — for the first time ever — the detonation of an atomic bomb blast.

Posted February 1, 2010 12:52 AM

ESPN/LA hires have domino effect in local market

When ESPN staffed up its local operation in Los Angeles, it hired several staffers from the Daily News and Los Angeles Times. The result has been some promotions and hiring at those papers.

Posted January 29, 2010 12:28 PM

Have drinks with TJ Sullivan

The LA Observed contributor gives an advance preview of his new novel at an SPJ event this evening Downtown.

Posted January 26, 2010 9:43 AM

Another journalist jumps to UC Irvine law school

Jonathan Glater, a legal affairs writer for the New York Times, has joined the UC Irvine School of Law as interim director of academic support. He's the fourth ex-journalist on staff.

Posted January 25, 2010 11:31 AM

New version of 'Newsthinking' is available

Former Times reporter, editor and writing coach (and occasional LA Observed contributor) Bob Baker has updated his book, "Newsthinking: The Secret of Making Your Facts Fall Into Place."

Posted January 25, 2010 12:19 AM

New prez of Press Club is a public radio veteran

Chris Woodyard of USA Today passes the gavel to Will Lewis of KCRW.

Posted January 24, 2010 11:55 PM

Joe Papp book with Kenneth Turan appears 20 years later

Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan has a new book out co-authored by New York theater impresario Jospeh Papp — who died in 1991 and who killed the book a few years before that.

Posted January 24, 2010 12:45 AM

Bay Area news startup names editor, rest still unclear *

Jonathan Weber, the former Los Angeles Times tech editor who co-founded (and recruited me to join) The Industry Standard magazine a decade ago,will be the editor-in-chief of the new Bay...

Posted January 21, 2010 11:31 AM

Journalist discovers he's related to Jessica Alba

OC Weekly writer and KPFK host Gustavo Arellano is sort of digging the news that they are third cousins once removed, by way of a tiny Mexican village.

Posted January 18, 2010 1:57 PM

Dock Ellis and his no-hitter on acid going to Sundance

L.A. journalists Donnell Alexander and Neille Ilel helped co-produce an animated short on the amazing feat turned in by Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis in 1970.

Posted January 14, 2010 12:49 AM

Mr. Fish unhooked at LA Weekly

Dwayne Booth, for nearly six years the Mr. Fish cartoonist for the LA Weekly, has been discontinued.

Posted January 13, 2010 10:40 PM

Rick Reilly remembers Christine Daniels and Mike Penner

ESPN columnist Rick Reilly began at the Los Angeles Times in the same year as his friend and sports colleague Mike Penner. Reilly and his wife helped Penner make the transition to a new identity as Christine Daniels.

Posted January 13, 2010 5:14 PM

Alycia Lane still makes news in Philly

Channel 4 reporter and weekend anchor Alycia Lane's lawsuit over her firing in Philadelphia is working its way through the courts there.

Posted January 13, 2010 12:58 PM

She's not buying the Lily et Cie attitude

No gushing journalism worship for celebrity dresser Rita Watnick and her Beverly Hills store from the New York Times' Cintra Wilson.

Posted January 12, 2010 11:02 PM

Grazergate and Andres Martinez make the j-ethics syllabus

L.A. Times editor-at-large Jim Newton is now teaching a course in journalism ethics at UCLA, part of his appointment as a senior fellow in the School of Public Affairs. In...

Posted January 12, 2010 12:07 PM

Simon Cowell's exit from 'American Idol' explained

In a piece at the Daily Beast, Richard Rushfield reveals what he learned about Simon Cowell and behind-the-scenes dramas at "American Idol."

Posted January 12, 2010 10:59 AM

Afternoon news and notes

A roundup of items in the news and our in-box.

Posted January 11, 2010 6:30 PM

Finke takes a couple more reporters

The company backing Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood blog is expanding the site with two more entertainment journalists, including Variety veteran Mike Fleming.

Posted January 11, 2010 12:20 AM

What to do with the papers when the book's done

Los Angeles journalist Steve Oney was consumed for nearly half his life by bringing "And the Dead Shall Rise:The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank" into print.

Posted January 10, 2010 6:22 PM

LA Observed on the radio

My weekly Friday afternoon segment on KCRW tied together the Chicago flutist's farewell finger at the L.A. Phil, Michael Brand's departure from the Getty and the end of the Aerospace...

Posted January 9, 2010 1:39 PM

A New Year's baby

Longtime L.A. blogger (and Channel 2 web journalist) Darleene Powells gave birth New Year's Day to Michael Christian Powells. Not without some drama, it turns out. Darleene is due to...

Posted January 6, 2010 5:56 PM

Jonathan Gold finally joins the LA Weekly

Yes, all this time, LA Weekly food star Jonathan Gold has been a freelancer. Now he's on staff, the rest of the newsroom was told today. He'll continue writing his...

Posted January 6, 2010 5:50 PM

Steve Lopez crosses one toke over the line *

The Times columnist begins this week as a contributor on "SoCal Connected" on KCET.

Posted January 5, 2010 11:46 PM

New outdoors blog by a journalist *

Pete Thomas had one of those newspaper reporting jobs that many lust after. Now he blogs.

Posted January 4, 2010 7:31 PM

Carl Kassel signs off at NPR

"The only thing I'm retiring is my alarm clock," he quipped on the air

Posted December 30, 2009 10:43 AM

LA Weekly adds film editor, reporter *

Karina Longworth is the new film editor at the LA Weekly. She is the co-founder of Cinematical.com, the former editor of SpoutBlog, and calls her personal film blog Vidiocy. (She...

Posted December 23, 2009 8:08 PM

That was some wind

Rico Gagliano, a reporter for "Marketplace" and co-host of "The Dinner Party Download" podcast, sent along this photo of a tree that blew down during this morning's wind gusts. No...

Posted December 22, 2009 2:25 PM

Daily News loses another reporter

Sue Doyle covered transportation until moving this year to the police beat after the Daily News lost its cops reporter. She's moving on, reportedly to freelance. The newsroom note this...

Posted December 22, 2009 1:20 PM

Reporter moves back into journalism

Dan Morain landed as communications director for the Consumer Attorneys of California in February after 27 years at the Los Angeles Times, the last chunk of that in the Sacramento...

Posted December 22, 2009 10:59 AM

Rushfield leaving Gawker?

Richard Rushfield, hired away from the L.A. Times just last July to be west coast editor for Gawker, is leaving for an entertainment start-up, says Dylan Stableford at The Wrap....

Posted December 21, 2009 5:05 PM

L.A. Times hires another TV editor

Not too many shrinking media outlets have the chutzpah to hire a few days after laying off people, but the new Los Angeles Times isn't shy about announcing its changing...

Posted December 21, 2009 4:42 PM

Weekend news and notes

LAPD chief Charlie Beck reiterated that he will keep Special Order 40, which instructs officers not to question people solely to ascertain their immigration status. Don Novey, the political...

Posted December 20, 2009 11:15 PM

Amy Wallace finds some life peace

Journalist Amy Wallace, editor-at-large at Los Angeles magazine these days, has a self-exploration piece in More magazine about how she came to trust in the cosmos that life was going...

Posted December 15, 2009 12:58 AM

Leo Wolinsky named editor of Daily Variety *

Leo Wolinsky, an editor and reporter at the Los Angeles Times for 31 years, has been named editor of Daily Variety, "encompassing both the L.A. and Gotham editions," the trade...

Posted December 8, 2009 2:25 PM

Peter Gammons leaving ESPN

When ESPN's new Los Angeles presence debuts Dec. 21, the network will be without baseball writer Peter Gammons. He's leaving to pursue other challenges and a lighter schedule....

Posted December 8, 2009 2:03 PM

New life for old newspaper stories

Time Capsule Press was started last year by Narda Zacchino, a former top editor at the Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle, and Dickson Louie, an ex-LAT and Times...

Posted December 6, 2009 9:36 PM

Seacrest the invisible

Nice portrait (by Michael Muller) that goes with a profile of Ryan Seacrest by Amanda Fortini in today's T Magazine in the New York Times. She calls Seacrest the invisible...

Posted December 6, 2009 8:29 PM

Fried grasshoppers with Jonathan Gold

Veronique de Turenne shared a cab in Guadalajara with Jonathan Gold and his wife, Laurie Ochoa, then joined them for an adventurous lunch — fried grasshoppers included. Veronique's photos will...

Posted December 4, 2009 5:41 PM

27% of ex-LATers report health problems

In the second part of a survey of recently formered newsroom staffers at the Los Angeles Times, almost all say they have health insurance — but mostly due to COBRA...

Posted December 2, 2009 1:17 PM

Greenberg on his 'crappy anniversary'

Steve Greenberg, LA Observed's editorial cartoonist, posts at his Cagle.com blog about his year of underemployment since being laid off by the Ventura County Star. "I thought my position was...

Posted December 2, 2009 9:37 AM

Bad tidings for LAT refugees

This won't come as good news for the Los Angeles Times staffers who are worried about losing their jobs in the coming cutbacks. The ex-staffers behind The Journalism Shop did...

Posted December 1, 2009 2:51 PM

PEN's award winners to be feted

PEN Center USA's annual awards dinner and LitFest is tomorrow night at the Beverly Hills Hotel. It's always chock full of local authors, journalists and interesting people. (Tickets are still...

Posted December 1, 2009 2:39 PM

Penner and soccer

Sportswriter Scott French was at the World Cup match in Pasadena in 1994 where Mike Penner first discovered soccer. The late L.A. Times sports writer bought a ball, started kicking...

Posted November 30, 2009 2:15 PM

Mike Penner's musical side

Kevin Bronson, the music writer formerly with the L.A. Times, remembers Mike Penner for more than his sports writing or his sexuality. They bonded over rock and roll. Penner was...

Posted November 29, 2009 9:20 PM

New Hollywood site seeks writers

Hollywoodnews.com expects to launch in January with former Los Angeles Times film reporter Robert Welkos as the editor and Carlos de Abreu as CEO and publisher. Welkos posted about it...

Posted November 29, 2009 9:02 PM

Ironman of Channel 4

KNBC reporter Chris Schauble has apparently been chronicling his training for an Ironman competition in Arizona. He accomplished his goal this week: "I didn’t cry. I screamed when I crossed...

Posted November 27, 2009 11:21 PM

L.A. authors in Guadalajara

LA Observed contributors Veronique de Turenne, Jenny Price and Denise Hamilton will be heading to Guadalajara in coming days (or are already there) for the big book fair, which has...

Posted November 27, 2009 1:09 PM

L.A. isn't Canada

Rich Hammond, the ex-Daily News reporter hired by the Los Angeles Kings, has been the only journalist accompanying the team on most road trips. This week they're in western Canada,...

Posted November 26, 2009 11:24 PM

Local journo leaves the business

There could be a rush of these leaving the business items in the next couple of weeks when the L.A. Times drops its next, much-rumored layoff bomb. This one, though,...

Posted November 23, 2009 10:54 AM

Peter Hong lands with Ridley-Thomas

When Peter Hong left the Los Angeles Times on a buyout during the last staff paring, he hinted at a gig to be named. It's this: the former real estate...

Posted November 20, 2009 4:40 PM

Spot.Us names editor for L.A.

Anh Do, a former columnist for the Orange County Register and vice president of Nguoi Viet Daily News (the largest Vietnamese-language newspaper in the U.S.), will be the managing editor...

Posted November 18, 2009 10:28 PM

Heikes hiring at LA Weekly *

The LA Weekly's editorial staff is down to six full-time employees: three editors (Drex Heikes, Jill Stewart and Tom Christie) and three reporters, according to a story at USC's Neon...

Posted November 17, 2009 10:47 PM

Euna Lee signs book deal

Euna Lee and Laura Ling continue to go their separate ways. Today in New York, Broadway Books confirmed it has a deal for Lee's account of the Los Angeles journalists'...

Posted November 12, 2009 11:05 PM

Sandra Tsing Loh confesses some more

In the December issue of The Atlantic, author Sandra Tsing Loh discusses two books about the concept of bad mothers and expands a little on her current situation. Remember, in...

Posted November 12, 2009 4:34 PM

Foundas switches sides

LA Weekly film editor and chief film critic Scott Foundas is moving to Lincoln Center in New York as associate program director. His responsibilities will include the New York Film...

Posted November 12, 2009 11:04 AM

Agassi's agony continues

Former tennis great Andre Agassi took his woe-is-he book tour tonight to NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Nice shout-out at the top of the segment for Los Angeles magazine...

Posted November 11, 2009 9:20 PM

L.A. Public Media Service hires up

The new "radio and multimedia service directed to an ethnically diverse and underserved 25-40 year-old demographic" — funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and managed by Radio Bilingüe —...

Posted November 11, 2009 1:19 PM

Axles of Evil on 'Oprah'

That, of course, is the roller derby name for KPCC's Alex Cohen, local host for NPR's "All Things Considered." She was on "Oprah" today in a piece on the Derby...

Posted November 4, 2009 3:38 PM

L.A. Film Critics down to 11 full-timers

The layoff of Alonso Duralde from MSNBC means ten members of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association have lost their gigs in the last 18 months, says David Poland at...

Posted November 2, 2009 2:52 PM

Jonathan Gold profiled in the New Yorker

Dana Goodyear's profile, almost a year in the making, calls the LA Weekly's Jonathan Gold "the high-low priest of the L.A. food scene." Subscription required to read the whole piece,...

Posted November 2, 2009 8:51 AM

Other weekend stuff

Clearing the decks for the new week: USC president Steven Sample announced that he would step down in August, after 19 years. Honors student Melody Ross, 16, was shot and...

Posted November 1, 2009 11:55 PM

Forbes bureau killed, report says

Gawker's Valleywag says that the Los Angeles bureau of Forbes was eliminated in today's mass cutbacks across the magazine. The site says that staff writers Evan Hessel and Scott Woolley...

Posted October 29, 2009 4:12 PM

Guv's hidden message crosses the pond

Readers of The Independent in Great Britain will get their own report tomorrow on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's email finger sent to state assemblyman Tom Ammiano, with whom the governor recently...

Posted October 28, 2009 5:45 PM

Book reading by flashlight

Last night's winds knocked out the power at Book Soup for the first half hour or so of Jesse Katz's launch party for The Opposite Field, his new memoir about...

Posted October 28, 2009 12:20 PM

Bono to Hilburn: Love the book

New author Robert Hilburn got a pretty nice shout-out for "Corn Flakes with John Lennon And Other Tales from a Rock 'n' Roll Life" at last night's U2 show at...

Posted October 26, 2009 9:21 PM

Amy Wallace and the anti-vaccine crowd

Amy Wallace, the editor-at-large for Los Angeles magazine, wrote recently at Wired about the controversy over the safety of vaccines. She frames it as more akin to hysteria on the...

Posted October 26, 2009 12:59 PM

Best Music kudo for scribe

Former CityBeat editor Rebecca Schoenkopf has a piece she wrote for the late weekly included in "Best Music Writing 2009," the annual edited by Greil Marcus. Schoenkopf also gets a...

Posted October 26, 2009 11:11 AM

What's in a byline?

Ann Powers is the pop music writer for the Los Angeles Times (currently living in Alabama, but that's another story.) She's been using that byline for many years since it...

Posted October 25, 2009 10:31 PM

Going in style *

Everybody works through getting fired in their own way. Laid-off L.A. Times columnist Tina Daunt has been expressing her fashionista side at her blog The English Muse for the past...

Posted October 21, 2009 2:51 PM

More journos hire out as bloggers

The first is more of a website than a blog, by ex-Los Angeles Daily Journal editor Martin Berg. He's editing Where's Our Money? for Harvey Rosenfield's Consumer Education Foundation, billed...

Posted October 21, 2009 12:58 PM

Mikulan joins The Wrap

About a week after leaving the LA Weekly, Steven Mikulan has been inked to write a new blog for The Wrap to be called L.A. Noir. The site also announced...

Posted October 19, 2009 2:46 PM

Derby dolls land their book

L.A. media types who also skate — Alex Cohen of KPCC and Jennifer Barbee of Blood & Thunder magazine — have written "Down and Derby: the Insiders Guide to Roller...

Posted October 19, 2009 12:54 PM

He's going to Abu Dhabi

Former Inland Empire sports columnist Paul Oberjuerge, who blogged his own firing in 2008, finally got a job back in daily journalism — in Abu Dhabi. It grew out of...

Posted October 16, 2009 9:24 AM

Weintraub leaving Sacramento Bee

Daniel Weintraub, the columnist for the Sacramento Bee opinion pages since 2000 and before that a reporter in the capital, is leaving the paper on Friday. He will be starting...

Posted October 15, 2009 3:31 PM

Mikulan: blogging not his strength

"My strengths lay in writing longer pieces," Steven Mikulan says in a Neon Tommy story about his departure from the LA Weekly, where he was the main writer on the...

Posted October 15, 2009 1:19 PM

LAT refugee gets a gig

Terry McDermott, a former national reporter at the Los Angeles Times, is one of four new CJR Encore Fellows named by the Columbia Journalism Review. [It's] a new initiative—the first...

Posted October 15, 2009 11:05 AM

3-on-3 on Skid Row, for a year

Downtown News staff writer Ryan Vaillancourt spent a year reporting on the inner workings of the Skid Row basketball league, starting by getting himself into pickup games at Gladys Park....

Posted October 12, 2009 12:13 PM

Zocalo parties at Union Station

Zócalo Public Square took over the grand ticket hall at Union Station Saturday night for its first fundraiser, featuring the LA Weekly's Jonathan Gold, who praised Zócalo as an essential...

Posted October 11, 2009 1:04 AM

'SoCal Connected' returns tonight

I joined some media and blog folks at the KCET studios the other morning for a preview of the second season of "SoCal Connected," the PBS station's weekly news program....

Posted October 8, 2009 11:20 AM

Picking on Finke

With the chatter about Nikki Finke on high due to this week's profile in The New Yorker, Gawker's Richard Rushfield is offering $1,000 for "a recent photograph of the scourge...

Posted October 6, 2009 10:24 PM

Gourmet's Reichl: 'Stunned, sad'

Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl tweets, sounds like she was surprised at magazine's demise: Thank you all SO much for this outpouring of support. It means a lot. Sorry not to...

Posted October 5, 2009 11:56 AM

The New Yorker v. Nikki Finke

You know something's up when you wake up to Sunday morning email from Nikki Finke and the flack for The New Yorker, both flagging a story in the magazine that...

Posted October 4, 2009 1:01 PM

Couple of new local blogs

There are two new blogs by L.A. journalists that I've started following. L.A. Explored is by journalist and fellow Angel City Press author Amy Dawes, who posts, "I live in...

Posted September 30, 2009 1:33 PM

Bob Long's last day

Long checked out Friday as news director and VP at KNBC Channel 4. He's headed to Istanbul to teach a class in journalism ethics at Bahcesehir University. Long had previously...

Posted September 26, 2009 2:58 AM

Toni Sciacqua named editor of Daily Breeze

The managing editor moves up to the top job. From the story in the Daily Breeze: Sciacqua, 37, fills a position left vacant after former editor and interim publisher Phillip...

Posted September 24, 2009 8:10 PM

CBS' Cami McCormick to lose foot *

Some Dodgers visited Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington today. They met CBS Radio reporter Cami McCormick, who said she was going to have a foot amputated tomorrow. She was...

Posted September 23, 2009 2:15 PM

Morning Buzz: Wednesday 9.23.09

That testimony about Cardinal Mahony, more statewide candidates, Chief Bratton's house and more after the jump. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark...

Posted September 23, 2009 8:53 AM

Friday desk-clearing

The City Council voted unanimously to offer early retirement to 2,400 employees in lieu of layoffs and furloughs. LAT, Ron Kaye Producer John Wells was elected president of the...

Posted September 18, 2009 7:15 PM

Puck boy

Steve Hymon, the former transportation and City Hall reporter for the Los Angeles Times, has a blog devoted to his crusade — as a 43-year-old novice — to learn to...

Posted September 18, 2009 6:16 PM

Visiting blogger objects to LAT ads

Murray Fromson, the longtime CBS News correspondent who holds emeritus professor status at USC Annenberg, has good things to say about the Los Angeles Times these days. He just doesn't...

Posted September 17, 2009 4:25 PM

Catching up...

Moving on up: Villaraigosa press secretary Matt Szabo becomes deputy chief of staff. One of his first priorities will be to tackle the city's worsening financial situation. (LAT) Warhol art...

Posted September 12, 2009 9:10 AM

RIP: William Trombley

The long-time education writer at the LAT was 80. From the Times obit: At The Times, where he was a reporter for nearly 30 years starting in 1964, Trombley was...

Posted September 10, 2009 2:06 PM

Sports columnist apologizes

Response to Mark Whicker's tasteless sports column in the OC Register has been so brutal that he was forced to make a public apology on the newspaper's Web site The...

Posted September 10, 2009 6:03 AM

Lady of the L.A. house

This week's New Yorker proclaims Kelly Wearstler the “presiding grande dame of West Coast interior design." In the Letter from Los Angeles, Dana Goodyear says that "Wearstler represents the uninhibited...

Posted September 8, 2009 8:33 AM

Slate vs. rap legend

Los Angeles lawyer and journalist Ben Sheffner, who used to represent some Warner Music arms, pens a piece at Slate today that destroys an earlier New York Daily News story...

Posted September 2, 2009 6:11 PM

Introducing Scott and Phillips

The newest iteration of "At The Movies" debuts this weekend with A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips installed as hosts — they both filled in a lot for Roger Ebert when...

Posted September 2, 2009 5:54 PM

Chronicler of cool

Los Angeles photographer Phil Stern turns 90 tomorrow. That's his photo of Frank Sinatra lighting JFK's smoke. Vanity Fair celebrates the big day with an online piece by David Friend:...

Posted September 2, 2009 3:42 PM

Ling & Lee make statement

"We tried with all our might to cling to bushes, ground, anything that would keep us on Chinese soil, but we were no match for the determined soldiers," Laura Ling...

Posted September 1, 2009 6:29 PM

The real 'Inglourious Basterds'

Kim Masters, host of The Business on KCRW, talks about her father's part in a secret unit that killed Nazis on today's Talk of the Nation on National Public Radio....

Posted September 1, 2009 2:50 PM

Blogger turns tables on paper

Fishbowl LA's Tina Dupuy takes to YouTube to demand $75 she feels owed by the Tampa Tribune, which ran a funny piece she sent in....

Posted September 1, 2009 9:46 AM

Dominick Dunne, writer was 83 *

Dunne is the father of actor Griffin Dunne and wrote extensively about the Los Angeles murder of his daughter, the actress Dominique Dunne. He also wrote best-selling books and produced...

Posted August 26, 2009 2:09 PM

California Watch names its team

The investigative reporting operation launched to fill in where newspapers such as the L.A. Times don't go so much any more will announce on Monday its staff of 11 reporters,...

Posted August 23, 2009 10:06 PM

Glamorous magazine life

Los Angeles magazine's website has posted a short slide show from behind the scenes of a recent fashion shoot in West Hollywood with photographer Hugh Kretschmer. Also in Los Angeles:...

Posted August 22, 2009 9:21 AM

Gastrokid cookbook

Hugh Garvey, features editor at Bon Appetit magazine here and a food blogger, has a new cookbook out called "Gastrokid Cookbook: Feeding a Foodie Family in a Fast-Food World." Self-explanatory...

Posted August 22, 2009 9:02 AM

KFWB lays off 14 staffers *

The fallout continues from the station's decision to emphasize conservative talk radio over news at 980 AM. AFTRA was notified of the KFWB pink slips this morning. Former Fox 11...

Posted August 21, 2009 4:06 PM

Talking with those ex-LAT entrepreneurs

Scott Martelle and Brett Levy are the former Los Angeles Times journalists running The Journalism Shop, the new co-op in which they and a selected group of other ex-LAT staffers...

Posted August 20, 2009 10:11 PM

Parting ways with Crux L.A.

Journalist Donnell Alexander has been talking recently about he and his fiance being the "founding curators" of an upcoming Los Angeles culture website called Crux L.A. Well, that honeymoon is...

Posted August 20, 2009 9:49 PM

Another journalist hits the books

This morning we noted a new reporter-turned-law student at UCLA. Now it's been pointed out that Frank Mickadeit, a columnist for the Register in Orange County, is also starting law...

Posted August 19, 2009 6:47 PM

Why he roots for Mexico

Los Angeles journalist Daniel Hernandez, living temporarily in Mexico City, explains why he cheered for Mexico to beat the U.S. in soccer last week. Excerpt of a piece he posted...

Posted August 17, 2009 4:58 PM

Esha Momeni comes home to L.A.

The Cal State Northridge grad student who had been imprisoned in Iran was interviewed last week on video by the school's Daily Sundial newspaper. Also in Daily News...

Posted August 16, 2009 10:25 PM

Those two NYT editor's notes

The New York Times public editor opined today on the paper's troubled story involving Katherine Jackson and John Branca, the attorney for Michael Jackson's estate. In addition to needing two...

Posted August 16, 2009 9:48 PM

Budd Schulberg and Watts

Donna Myrow, the founder and publisher of LA Youth, met the novelist and screenwriter Budd Schulberg soon after he launched the Watts Writers Workshop following the 1965 riots. He became...

Posted August 13, 2009 4:59 PM

Rachlis to USC Annenberg center

USC Annenberg plans to announce tomorrow that Kit Rachlis, the former editor of Los Angeles magazine, will be a Senior Fellow at the Center on Communication Leadership and Policy. As...

Posted August 13, 2009 4:32 PM

Anschutz-Jacko connection

Michael Jackson surrounded himself with unusual characters, from Marlon Brando to Bubbles the chimp, but in billionaire Phil Anschutz "Jackson may have found his most mysterious—and lucrative—partner" yet, writes Matt...

Posted August 13, 2009 10:12 AM

Reporter lands

Richard Serrano, a former reporter at the Los Angeles Times Washington bureau, and before that on the LAPD beat here in L.A., is joining the Las Vegas Sun as a...

Posted August 13, 2009 9:55 AM

Roger Wetherington, journalism adviser

Roger Wetherington, who died July 26, had been the adviser to the student newspapers at Cal States Northridge and Long Beach. As such, he worked closely with a number of...

Posted August 12, 2009 1:25 PM

Euna Lee writes *

She's still getting re-adjusted to life at home, but Euna Lee sent her thanks to supporters in a post on LauraandEuna.com: Knowing that you would not stop until we came...

Posted August 12, 2009 11:06 AM

Stan Chambers celebrates 86th birthday

Video of the newsroom celebration from reporter Eric Spillman's blog at the KTLA website....

Posted August 11, 2009 6:13 PM

Reading and writing about Lily Burk

LA Observed contributor Nancy Rommelmann, at her blog up in Portland, steps back and considers the murder of 17-year-old Lily Burk, the way she and others have written about it,...

Posted August 10, 2009 8:57 PM

Another journalist checks out

Jennifer McLain has left the San Gabriel Valley Tribune to pursue a master's degree in public administration at USC. She posts at Leftovers from City Hall, the paper's politics blog:...

Posted August 9, 2009 10:49 PM

Weekend reads

In the latest first-person Column One story by a Times reporter, Molly Hennessy-Fiske writes about bonding with a South Los Angeles gang shooting victim. LAT Oscar Winner Budd Schulberg...

Posted August 9, 2009 10:40 PM

Unedited video of Ling & Lee homecoming

The Asian American blog Epicanthus posts three videos of the Burbank arrival of Laura Ling and Euna Lee that has footage beyond what most of the media showed. Noted: Producer...

Posted August 7, 2009 11:12 PM

Ling and Lee, ahead of the media

Here is a reunion photo from inside the hangar at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank this morning, before Laura Ling and Euna Lee met the media. Above, Lee and her...

Posted August 5, 2009 10:36 AM

Laura and Euna are home

Laura Ling and Euna Lee at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank this morning....

Posted August 5, 2009 8:12 AM

Ling and Lee coming to Burbank *

GiGi Graciette was just on Fox 11 live from Burbank's Bob Hope Airport, talking to Laura Ling's husband and setting up the arrival of Ling, Euna Lee and former President...

Posted August 4, 2009 10:06 PM

Statement from Ling and Lee families

"The families of Laura Ling and Euna Lee are overjoyed by the news of their pardon. We are so grateful to our government: President Obama, Secretary Clinton and the...

Posted August 4, 2009 3:29 PM

Laura Ling and Euna Lee chronology *

Selected previous items on Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the Los Angeles journalists for Current TV who have been held in North Korea since March 17. Pyongyang announced their special...

Posted August 4, 2009 12:37 PM

Ling and Lee pardoned, to be freed **

Former president Bill Clinton met with Laura Ling and Euna Lee today in North Korea, according to ABC News quoting a government source. The meeting was described as "emotional." More...

Posted August 4, 2009 12:05 PM

Bill Clinton in North Korea

Former President Clinton is engaged in talks aimed at bringing home Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the Los Angeles journalists for Current TV held in North Korea since March 17,...

Posted August 3, 2009 8:58 PM

Robert Hilburn goes online

The L.A. Times' emeritus pop music editor has a memoir of his decades covering the business — "Corn Flakes with John Lennon And Other Tales from a Rock 'n' Roll...

Posted August 3, 2009 5:25 PM

LA Observed on KCRW: Lily Burk

My commentary today talks about the murder of 17-year-old Lily Burk and the strong reaction it has evoked in the city. The piece airs at 4:44 p.m., can be heard...

Posted July 31, 2009 4:38 PM

Huell Howser tripping, the video

Yesterday on Twitter I re-tweeted this affectionate parody of Huell Howser on a road trip of another sort, but forgot to post it here. The creator calls it California's gold...

Posted July 28, 2009 2:10 PM

Parolee named in Lily Burk abduction, murder *

Police said today that they took transient Charlie Samuel into custody by 5:30 p.m. Friday on drug charges in Downtown. They now have a pretty horrific chronology of the events...

Posted July 27, 2009 1:20 PM

'Hancock Park,' the debut bestseller

Isabel Kaplan is 19, got her book deal when she was a high school junior, and now is enjoying "Hancock Park" hold a spot on the L.A. Times bestseller list...

Posted July 27, 2009 12:05 PM

Lily Burk, 17 *

The daughter of Los Angeles journalist Greg Burk and Southwestern Law adjunct professor Deborah Drooz was found slain this morning in her car near Alameda and Fourth Street downtown. A...

Posted July 25, 2009 11:50 PM

North Korea, U.S. negotiating on Ling & Lee

The South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo says that the U.S. and North Korea have "started delicate negotiations" over the future of Los Angeles journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, citing...

Posted July 20, 2009 11:33 PM

Changes in WSJ bureau

Alexandra Berzon's addition isn't the only move this summer in the Wall Street Journal bureau here. I'm told that when Berzon arrives, Tamara Audi is expected to slide from casino...

Posted July 20, 2009 12:16 PM

Pulitzer winner coming to L.A.

Alexandra Berzon, the Las Vegas Sun reporter whose four-part series on the high death rate among construction workers on the Las Vegas Strip won the Public Service medal in this...

Posted July 17, 2009 3:41 PM

Doug Jehl, ex-L.A. journo, goes to Wash Post

Doug Jehl is a former Los Angeles Times White House reporter who jumped years ago to the New York Times, where he is deputy editor in the Washington bureau. He...

Posted July 14, 2009 12:25 PM

Columnist takes leave of absence

Tina Daunt, who writes the Cause Celebre political column for the L.A. Times' Calendar section, posted on her blog that she's taking time off to care for her ailing father....

Posted July 14, 2009 12:21 PM

Laura Ling and Euna Lee: 113 days

The Los Angeles staffers for Current TV have now been held in North Korea for 113 days. Lisa Ling sends word of a new website — lauraandeuna.com — to galvanize...

Posted July 8, 2009 5:05 PM

Hymon working in City Hall again

Steve Hymon, who covered the City Hall beat (and later transportation as the Bottleneck blogger) for the Los Angeles Times, is back again, at least virtually. This time, he's doing...

Posted July 1, 2009 4:22 PM

Amanda gets married

Westside Internet impresario (impresaria?) Amanda Congdon was married over the weekend to Mario Librandi. She produces and hosts Sometimes Daily on the web. In this episode, she skateboards to the...

Posted June 30, 2009 9:44 AM

New LA Weekly editor: Drex Heikes

After the Las Vegas Sun won a Pulitzer prize in April, I kept getting messages tipping me that ex-Los Angeles Times Magazine editor Drex Heikes was making good things happen...

Posted June 29, 2009 2:48 PM

Anschutz's media moves

L.A.'s most important absentee billionaire, Phillip Anschutz, is "quietly building a small empire of social-networking sites, newspapers and now a leading conservative weekly," says a piece in Forbes. Jim Monaghan,...

Posted June 29, 2009 9:15 AM

Draw on Dana Goodyear's website

Move your cursor around and create some art on the site of poet and Los Angeles-based New Yorker staff writer Dana Goodyear....

Posted June 28, 2009 10:55 PM

Hilburn on Michael Jackson

Robert Hilburn, the former L.A. Times pop music critic, lives not far from the Jackson family compound in Encino and knew Michael — and wrote about his music — for...

Posted June 26, 2009 4:36 PM

Billboards of the '50s and '60s

Photographer Gary Leonard has what looks to be a very cool exhibit up in his Broadway gallery: prints made from Kodachrome slides he saved from the trash showing Pacific Outdoor...

Posted June 24, 2009 12:42 AM

Laura Ling interview, 2005

The video is an interview from 2005 of Laura Ling, one of the Current TV journalists from Los Angeles being held in North Korea. The interviewer was Los Angeles...

Posted June 21, 2009 11:44 PM

Steve Jobs got liver transplant

The Apple chief executive received the new liver secretly in Tennessee about two months ago, the Wall Street Journal reports tonight. He has been on medical leave since January to...

Posted June 19, 2009 10:45 PM

Friday desk-clearing

Freeways are uncommonly bad out there today, especially the 405 north due to truck crash in Sepulveda Pass. Incoming councilman Paul Koretz signed his chief of staff: Rich Llewellyn,...

Posted June 19, 2009 4:31 PM

Be careful who and how you fire

In a Huffington Post entry about firing and being fired, once-axed LA Weekly publisher Michael Sigman shares a couple of anecdotes about the perils of being the one doing the...

Posted June 18, 2009 9:40 AM

Anschutz takes control of Weekly Standard

Staples Center owner Phil Anschutz's Clarity Media Group closed the deal to buy the conservative mag from Rupert Murdoch. Here's a report in Anschutz's Washington Examiner, via Romemesko....

Posted June 17, 2009 2:45 PM

News as endangered species

The current issue of Pomona College Magazine examines the future of news, drawing on journalist alums: Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times; Richard Pérez-Peña, who covers newspapers...

Posted June 16, 2009 8:56 PM

Maher & Huffington at Press Club awards

Bill Maher's talk at Sunday night's L.A. Press Club awards dinner. Here, by the way, is the list of winners, which included the Bloomberg News bureau's David Evans, who won...

Posted June 16, 2009 9:26 AM

From TV Week to the web

Josef Adalian, the television editor at Variety for nine years until jumping last year to TV Week as deputy editor, is moving again. This time he is going to The...

Posted June 14, 2009 11:32 PM

List of Press Club winners

At tonight's Los Angeles Press Club awards dinner, the L.A. Times and KPCC came away with seven winners each and the LA Weekly had six — three of them named...

Posted June 14, 2009 10:03 PM

Gustavo meets Benicio del Toro

For reasons only he can adequately explain, OC Weekly writer, author and "Ask a Mexican" creator Gustavo Arellano was on the red carpet asking questions of stars at this week's...

Posted June 13, 2009 12:20 AM

Friday desk clearing

Channel 5 had Stan Chambers throw the switch to change over to digital TV, making the point that he worked at the station for the entire analog era. Video...

Posted June 12, 2009 11:38 PM

Ling's resume impressive

Reporter Laura Ling is "unassuming, inquisitive and fearless...fearless, but not reckless," says a San Francisco Chronicle story about Ling and Euna Lee, the Los Angeles journalists held in North Korea....

Posted June 12, 2009 9:07 AM

Afternoon news and notes

The L.A. Times was forced to run a correction because Michael Douglas forgot that he hosted a 1991 event honoring his father, Kirk Douglas. The anonymous blogger known as...

Posted June 11, 2009 5:26 PM

Add one digger, take one away

The Center for Investigative Reporting named the editorial director for its new reporting initiative focusing on California: Mark Katches, the former editor who oversaw prize-winning investigations at the Register in...

Posted June 11, 2009 12:53 AM

Friends talk about Laura Ling & Euna Lee

Nice story for tomorrow's L.A. Times talking to co-workers and friends of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, and especially nice to see the Times finally acknowledge that it's a...

Posted June 10, 2009 4:35 PM

Tales of the LA Weekly

Michael Sigman, the LA Weekly's former publisher, blogs at the Huffington Post that the paper was wrong to "part ways" with editor Laurie Ochoa. Sigman had originally hired her. His...

Posted June 9, 2009 12:24 PM

Daily Breeze interim publisher

With publisher Mark Ficarra headed to San Diego, Breeze editor Phillip Sanfield will fill in as interim publisher. Newsroom note from the new president of the Los Angeles Newspaper Group...

Posted June 9, 2009 11:44 AM

Al Martinez now in Daily News

The longtime columnist who was squeezed out of the Los Angeles Times (again) this year now runs in the Daily News. Martinez's debut DN column is about his daughters, one...

Posted June 8, 2009 11:26 PM

Clinton calls for humanitarian release

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, taking questions at a photo op with the foreign minister of Indonesia, just said the United States is committed to winning the release of Euna...

Posted June 8, 2009 1:02 PM

Obama 'deeply concerned' about sentences

The White House reacted Monday to the sentencing of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, with spokesman Bill Burton telling reporters "the president is deeply concerned by the reported sentencing of...

Posted June 8, 2009 8:21 AM

Local media transitions

Mark Ficarra is stepping down as publisher of the Daily Breeze to become a VP at the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Register has lost investigative reporter Norberto Santana Jr. and...

Posted June 8, 2009 12:41 AM

Laura Ling and Euna Lee: 12-year sentences*

News out of North Korea tonight: Los Angeles journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee were convicted in last week's trial and sentenced to 12 years "reform through labor" each...

Posted June 7, 2009 9:53 PM

Mr. South Bay opinion leaves

Mike Carroll has ben the editorial page editor at the South Bay Daily Breeze for 17 years. He's relocating to Canada. Newsroom note from editor Phillip Sanfield is after the...

Posted June 4, 2009 4:58 PM

Laura Ling & Euna Lee vigil photos

Found some nice photos from last night's Santa Monica vigil in support of the Los Angeles reporters for Current TV who went on trial today in North Korea. They...

Posted June 4, 2009 3:30 PM

Reporters' trial said to begin

North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said in a brief dispatch today that the trial of Los Angeles journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee would begin at 3 p.m....

Posted June 4, 2009 9:58 AM

Berg exits Daily Journal

It's not entirely clear to me who's leaving who here, but this much I know. Martin Berg, who was replaced abruptly last December as editor of the Los Angeles Daily...

Posted June 3, 2009 11:42 AM

Lisa Ling urges petition support

Television journalist Lisa Ling just Twittered a request for support of an online petition calling on North Korea to release Los Angeles journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee. They have...

Posted June 3, 2009 9:34 AM

Tweet o' the day

From here on, I'll probably post tweets o' the day only occasionally. They seem better suited to Twitter itself, where I'll keep retweeting media postings on the LA Observed feed....

Posted June 2, 2009 5:01 PM

Trial coming for journos Laura Ling and Euna Lee

I've been awfully remiss in not jumping on the bad situation facing Los Angeles journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the Current TV reporters who have been held in North...

Posted June 2, 2009 4:25 PM

Ex-KCRW commenter un-laid off

Nick Madigan was axed as a reporter for Sam Zell's shrinking Baltimore Sun. Then several co-workers with safer safety nets volunteered to leave instead. Madigan stays. He used to do...

Posted June 2, 2009 2:52 PM

You too can live with sexologist Susan Block

It's not too often you see an ad for a live-in editorial assistant, especially with the chance to "earn lucrative commissions doing telephone sex therapy." But then Susan Block is...

Posted May 31, 2009 11:56 PM

At the Jesse James Hollywood trial

Natasha Vargas-Cooper, who is watching the murder trial of Jesse James Hollywood up in Santa Barbara for The Awl, grew up with killing victim Nick Markowitz in West Hills. The...

Posted May 27, 2009 3:55 PM

Tweet o' the day

Today's media tweet catches two of the top British journalists posted to Los Angeles taking some down time to follow the day's biggest story in Europe. mattgarrahan Watching Man Utd...

Posted May 27, 2009 2:10 PM

Tweet o' the day

Sounds like Los Angeles communications consultant Edward Headington has had a bad day, in a different way than you or I might have had a bad day: HeadingtonMedia word to...

Posted May 26, 2009 4:07 PM

Anna Wintour has a turkey burger

The day after she was featured on "60 Minutes," the editor of Vogue was spotted at Tavern in Brentwood eating dinner at a table of four without any paparazzi in...

Posted May 20, 2009 12:21 PM

Tweet o' the day

Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz is in Los Angeles this week to do Bill Maher etc. If you see a drowsy guy on the corner outside Television City, might...

Posted May 19, 2009 3:27 PM

Howser & Soboroff, together again

No, it's not a law firm. It's Huell Howser and Jacob Soboroff meeting for coffee at Intelligenstia 2½ years after they first circled each other on video at the Cornfield...

Posted May 19, 2009 3:12 PM

Nieman for Kevin Sites

The former CNN correspondent who reinvented himself as a Los Angeles-based multimedia journalist for Yahoo was named one of 24 new Nieman Fellows at Harvard. He's the only one from...

Posted May 19, 2009 1:32 PM

THR adds Roger Friedman

The Hollywood Reporter announced that former Fox entertainment reporter Roger Friedman will join the trade as a senior correspondent based in New York....

Posted May 18, 2009 8:47 AM

Lit props to Venice Paper

When Elmore Leonard was researching his new novel "Road Dogs," Venice Paper publisher Tibby Rothman showed him around Venice for a few hours. Now she's in some of the book's...

Posted May 17, 2009 10:33 PM

Beverly Hills Adjacent, the book

Haven't seen the book yet, but I like the title. "Beverly Hills Adjacent" is a debut novel with strong local flavor and media bloodlines: it's by Jennifer Steinhauer, the New...

Posted May 14, 2009 11:50 PM

Daily Breeze reporter on life support

Vu Nguyen, who is 34, suffered cardiac arrest while playing in a weekend soccer game in Santa Monica. The Daily Breeze staff story says that Nguyen is hospitalized in a...

Posted May 14, 2009 10:32 PM

Joel Stein tries to save hockey writing *

With the Anaheim Ducks getting set to play a deciding game 7 tonight in Detroit, I have to say that — for me — there aren't too many sports scenarios...

Posted May 14, 2009 4:44 PM

Who's killing the Daily News

Former Daily News editor Ron Kaye has been building up to this post ever since he got fired last year, I suspect. With Ed Moss departing yesterday as publisher and...

Posted May 13, 2009 9:25 AM

Tweet o' the day

In which we observe the media- and politisphere's embrace of micro-blogging, one tweet at a time. Today, The Wrap's Sharon Waxman gets out of town: sharonwaxman Headed to cannes, god...

Posted May 12, 2009 3:48 PM

New Yorker office 'not creepy,' Orlean says

Daniel S. Baum continues to Twitter his downfall as a contract writer at the New Yorker — he's getting into promises that either were or were not made by editor...

Posted May 11, 2009 7:52 PM

Tweet o' the day

Mark Lisanti manages to tie a personal grooming note into Hollywood. Proving he hasn't lost the Defamer touch. @marklisanti Just got the Dark Knight of haircuts: 30 minutes too long,...

Posted May 11, 2009 5:14 PM

New titles at Yahoo news & sports

Yahoo has promoted Jimmy Pitaro to oversee what they call "North America Vertical Audience Experience," meaning he's in charge of News, Finance, Sports and a whole bunch more. That means...

Posted May 11, 2009 2:07 PM

Fired New Yorker writer fires back

Dan Baum, a journalist who I believe lived and worked in California before moving to Colorado, is Twittering in 140-character dispatches about his departure from the New Yorker staff. At...

Posted May 8, 2009 11:52 AM

Nick Ut honored tonight

Associated Press photographer Nick Ut receives the Lifetime Achievement Award from the L.A. chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists tonight at the Omni Hotel downtown. On June 8, 1972,...

Posted May 6, 2009 5:11 PM

Media tweet o' the day

Toni Sciacqua, managing editor of the Daily Breeze newspaper in Torrance: dailybreezeME was just looking at a front page of the Daily Breeze from 1950. There were about 30 stories,...

Posted May 5, 2009 4:30 PM

Metrolink settles with Denise Tyrrell

Metrolink has agreed to pay the agency's former spokeswoman $135,500 to settle potential claims arising from her departure. Denise Tyrrell resigned last September after being criticized by some Metrolink officials...

Posted May 5, 2009 1:07 PM

Media tweet o' the day

From Howard Kurtz, media writer at the Washington Post and CNN host: HowardKurtz Work has interfered with tweeting all day. Thing about reporting is it takes time--phone calls, etc. Very...

Posted May 4, 2009 4:38 PM

Subtract another Daily Journal scribe *

Cortney Fielding, the Superior Court reporter for the Los Angeles Daily Journal, is leaving the legal paper to freelance and work on a documentary project. * Update: Catherine Ho, a...

Posted May 1, 2009 4:31 PM

LA media tweet o' the day

From our own TJ Sullivan: TJSullivanLA "Swine Flu" is supposed to be called "A(H1N1)" ... They thought about calling it "O(+>," but Prince tried that already. Follow LA Observed on...

Posted May 1, 2009 4:08 PM

Photog feels the Pang

After OC money manager Danny Pang was released from federal custody in Santa Ana Wednesday and sent to home confinement on $1 million bail, he took exception to photographer Jonathan...

Posted April 30, 2009 10:26 PM

View from the top at City Hall

KPCC's John Rabe didn't just get to the public observation level high up on Los Angeles. He shot a video from the TOP, where the beacon shines over Los Angeles....

Posted April 29, 2009 2:27 PM

Leaving the Daily Journal

Associate editor Daniel Yi has quit the L.A. Daily Journal to flack for the Port of Long Beach, and he left with an appreciative note to his colleagues about the...

Posted April 29, 2009 7:35 AM

In Mexico City, more questions than answers

Los Angeles journalist Daniel Hernandez, in Mexico the past year or so writing a book, has left the federal district for Puebla to get a break from the "toxic urbanism...

Posted April 28, 2009 4:10 PM

Lakers and Ducks move on

The Lakers were the #1 seed eliminating the #8 Jazz, while the Ducks achieved the reverse: the lowest-ranked playoff team in the NHL's west knocking off the top-seeded San Jose...

Posted April 27, 2009 10:45 PM

USC names its digital journalism trainees

Fifteen digital journalists from 10 states have been selected for the inaugural class of the Knight Digital Media Center’s News Entrepreneur Boot Camp. Local fellows are Julia Scott, who blogs...

Posted April 27, 2009 3:35 PM

People of the Weekly

The current LA Weekly is the annual L.A. People issue. "Portraits of the waitresses and starlets ... the tech wizards and rock stars ... the activists, gang survivors, political warriors...

Posted April 24, 2009 8:53 PM

Dunne not gone from Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair writer Dominick Dunne, responding to readers interested in his future with the magazine, posts at DominicksDiary that he expects to be back in the pages of VF shortly...

Posted April 20, 2009 12:08 PM

Reporter beats the ticket

KTLA reporter Eric Spillman thought he had a good case so he fought the ticket he received via red-light camera while exiting the 2 freeway in Glendale. He won and...

Posted April 20, 2009 12:26 AM

Shawn Mortensen, photographer was 43

The Los Angeles pop culture photographer died last night, according to several websites. SuperTouch, Daily Swarm, ThaIndian News...

Posted April 17, 2009 11:18 AM

Ritsch going with Obama

Massie Ritsch, the former L.A. Times politics desk writer and editor who has been Communications Director at the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, is heading for the Department of...

Posted April 16, 2009 4:47 PM

Journo moves back with her dad

Rachel Uranga left the Daily News last year and now, in her 30s, has left Echo Park to move back in with her father. She writes about it in a...

Posted April 15, 2009 4:10 PM

Weekend reads

"The sudden appearance of these designs, even in provisional form, in the middle of a deep recession prompts a couple of questions. Why now? And why -- when the last...

Posted April 12, 2009 10:40 PM

Scratch another Calif. political writer

In this case, Mary Anne Ostrom of the San Jose Mercury News is "Silicon Valley's top political writer," says Capitol Alert's Peter Hecht. Ostrom is joining the gubernatorial campaign of...

Posted April 9, 2009 12:59 PM

Guy who booed at opera comes forward

That was L.A. writer Rip Rense who booed during the cheers for Achim Freyer at Saturday's opening night performance of "Die Walküre" at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The Times' Mark...

Posted April 8, 2009 9:43 PM

Michael Sommer, ex-journalist was 73

Sommer died in a trauma helicopter en route to UCLA after being hit by a car in an Agoura Hills parking lot last week. His mother Ann, 98, also suffered...

Posted March 31, 2009 9:08 AM

Morning Buzz: Tuesday 3.31.09

County Supervisors pay a student worker to peel the labels off bottles of water and replace them with a customized county label so that Arrowhead won't get free publicity...

Posted March 31, 2009 8:58 AM

Perenchio is at it again

A. Jerrold "Jerry" Perenchio, the former chair of Univision, has donated $1.5 million to back two of the May special election measures being pushed by the governor. It's the...

Posted March 30, 2009 10:23 PM

Weekend desk-clearing

Rick Orlov offers the L.A. politics obituary for City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo: "Could be remembered as the loneliest guy in City Hall." DN The 151 pages of sign regulations...

Posted March 22, 2009 10:46 PM

'Everything goes gonzo, never to return'

Journalist Chris Willman attended an American Cinematheque screening of the 1976 Woody Guthrie biopic "Bound for Glory" at the Aero Theatre that became, he writes on Facebook, "a nerve-wracking, weird...

Posted March 21, 2009 10:27 AM

They miss their Trash 80's *

Talk here of the old Radio Shack TRS-80 computers that reporters lugged around in the 1980s elicited some memories from LAO readers. "Loved that Cranston campaign piece, but I must...

Posted March 19, 2009 9:43 AM

Bellows remembered by Mary Anne Dolan

Mary Anne Dolan was hired at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner by Jim Bellows and followed him as editor. Below are her remarks at last Friday's memorial service for Bellows,...

Posted March 19, 2009 9:20 AM

Alan Cranston campaign bus, 1986 *

Sen. Alan Cranston's 1986 reelection campaign was the first one I covered where Hollywood celebrities rode along on just about every bus trip across California. They would be introduced at...

Posted March 18, 2009 9:35 AM

Bellows, Jean Seberg and the FBI

In a "Blowback" piece on the Times' opinion web page, former LAT staffer Allan Jalon goes into the controversy that ensued after Jim Bellows let Times gossip columnist Joyce Haber...

Posted March 13, 2009 12:54 PM

Going way back with Bellows

I haven't gotten to all the Jim Bellows appreciatons that have been posted or published, but today's by columnist Jon Carroll in the San Francisco Chronicle is a bit different...

Posted March 11, 2009 5:58 PM

Another reporter switches teams

Mark Arax, the former Los Angeles Times reporter based in Fresno, is joining the staff of the state's Senate Select Committee on Air Quality, a new committee headed by Sen....

Posted March 9, 2009 9:58 PM

Jim Bellows, editor was 86

Bellows died Friday at a nursing home in Santa Monica after suffering from Alzheimer's. He had been an editor in New York, then the overseer of the features sections at...

Posted March 7, 2009 7:37 AM

Journo signs on with Ridley-Thomas

Aurelio Rojas, a reporter for the Sacramento Bee, is the new communications director for L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas. An item at Capitol Morning Report says that Rojas used to...

Posted March 3, 2009 12:49 PM

Afternoon news and notes

Because it's been that kind of day: The consulting company belonging to the Screen Actors Guild�s new national executive director, David White, shut down shortly before he was hired because...

Posted February 25, 2009 4:40 PM

Or, L.A. is on the upswing

While Joel Kotkin sees Los Angeles "fading rapidly toward irrelevancy," this month's Atlantic cover story posits that L.A. is one of the relatively few American places ideally situated to rise...

Posted February 25, 2009 9:55 AM

Correction o' the day

Fox News shouter John Gibson did not compare Attorney General Eric Holder to a monkey with a bright blue scrotum, and thus the Huffington Post regrets the error. Live by...

Posted February 23, 2009 5:25 PM

Daily News re-lowers sights on the Valley

David Kronke, who covered television for the Daily News and wrote the paper's Mayor of Television blog, posted his final item today and said to watch for the launch of...

Posted February 20, 2009 4:13 PM

Blending of KNX and KFWB begins

The two all-news AM stations (KNX 1070 and KFWB 980) share the same floor on Wilshire Boulevard but a wall, physical and virtual, has separated the newsrooms. The staffs were...

Posted February 20, 2009 3:16 PM

Farewell notes at the Daily News

This was the day that Daily News desk editors who didn't want to make the move to West Covina had their buyout applications accepted — a "tense and tearful day,"...

Posted February 19, 2009 5:06 PM

Mag editor's reinvention in L.A.

After 26 years, Martha McCully "pulled loose from the glue trap of New York City to start fresh in Venice, California." The former executive editor of In Style and executive...

Posted February 18, 2009 9:10 AM

Drew Street demo like the Middle Ages

Journalist Marc Haefele found this week's media event at the demolition of the former Avenues gang home in Northeast Los Angeles more than a little unsettling. A bunch of pols...

Posted February 6, 2009 11:19 AM

Gary Leonard took his pictures Downtown

Photographer Gary Leonard is no longer taking pictures for CityBeat — they cut him in November — but he has moved his collection of Los Angeles photos to a new...

Posted February 6, 2009 9:35 AM

James Brady, editor and Parade interviewer was 80

Brady did the celebrity profiles for Parade magazine for nearly 25 years — his last, of actor Kevin Bacon, runs February 15. Before that he was a Washington reporter for...

Posted January 27, 2009 5:44 PM

O'Shea gets gig he knows something about

Former Los Angeles Times editor Jim O'Shea, who lost the top job after clashing with then-publisher David Hiller, will study conflicts between newspaper editors and owners as a spring fellow...

Posted January 26, 2009 12:32 PM

New L.A. book by Chris Ayres

Ayres, the Los Angeles correspondent for The Times of London, previously wrote "War Reporting for Cowards." From the flap for "Death by Leisure: A Cautionary Tale," his newest: All Chris...

Posted January 23, 2009 12:54 AM

Waxman, Berman, Orlov et al

Newly powerful Reps. Henry Waxman and Howard Berman are the key draws at a Sunday gathering at USC of the Jewish Federation's New Leaders Project. They will be honored along...

Posted January 23, 2009 12:07 AM

Scheer loses his column...again

Syndicated columnist Robert Scheer has been dropped from the San Francisco Chronicle Op-Ed page. The editor told him his take on world affairs and politics had become "predictable," to which...

Posted January 21, 2009 5:33 PM

Timberg adds 'blogger' to resume *

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....

Posted January 15, 2009 9:21 AM

Another critic down: Andy Klein *

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...

Posted January 14, 2009 12:21 PM

Gustavo Arellano adds another outlet

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...

Posted January 12, 2009 11:13 PM

Life after journalism

Last year at this time, Brent Hopkins was a reporter for the Los Angeles Daily News and the guild shop steward/blogger called upon to keep the staff informed through waves...

Posted January 8, 2009 3:29 PM

Matthew William Bernsen, 35

The son of former LAPD spokesman and Fox 11 reporter Rod Bernsen died of cancer. The family suggests donations be made to the Memorial Hospital Cancer Center's Circle of Hope,...

Posted January 8, 2009 12:14 PM

Frantz becomes Senate investigator

Doug Frantz, one of the many senior Los Angeles Times editors to depart in recent years, has been named chief investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee under new chairman...

Posted January 7, 2009 11:05 AM

Another exit from the Daily News

Aron Miller, who recently served a stint as interim city editor at the Daily News, has given notice that he's leaving the paper and journalism. He's been on the Woodland...

Posted January 6, 2009 3:21 PM

Press Club's board for 2009

Voting by members of the Los Angeles Press Club has returned Ezra Palmer, Anthea Raymond, Jon Regardie, George White and Adam Wilkenfeld to the board for new two-year terms and...

Posted January 5, 2009 2:27 PM

An L.A. walkabout

Channel 2 (and 9) photographer Bryan Frank had Friday afternoon off and spent it taking pictures on foot in Hollywood and Downtown. Hot dogs at Skooby's and a beer at...

Posted January 3, 2009 11:49 AM

New Year shorts

Some new, some holdovers from the end of the year. I'll be back to regular posting on Monday. Happy New Year everybody! Bell Gardens city counciman Mario Beltran took the...

Posted January 2, 2009 5:25 PM

2008 passings: Journalists and media

Bob Benoit, photographer Mr. Blackwell, fashion figure Manuel Bogran, Breeze carrier Bernie Boston, photographer P.J. Corkery, editor Elmer Dills, TV restaurant critic Bill Drake, radio executive Clay Felker, editor...

Posted December 30, 2008 8:22 PM

Daily Journal turmoil continues

Two weeks after David Houston took over abruptly as editor of the Los Angeles Daily Journal, I'm hearing a lot of unhappiness out of the newsroom. Houston has reportedly been...

Posted December 17, 2008 12:39 PM

Afternoon news and notes

Word out of KCBS/KCAL is that there have been layoffs today, including assistant news director Jim Hattendorf. Also, the copy desks of the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, San Bernardino...

Posted December 16, 2008 5:01 PM

'Ecotopia' revisited

I observed more WTF? head scratching over the L.A. Times' layoff of Calendar writer Scott Timberg this fall than over just about anybody. So no surprise he shows up today...

Posted December 14, 2008 2:13 PM

Wall Street Journal bureau gets chief

Gabriel Kahn, the deputy chief in the WSJ's Los Angeles bureau on Wilshire since the summer, gets the top job when Bruce Orwall heads for London next month. Kahn (they...

Posted December 10, 2008 8:54 PM

Rod Lurie mourns for film critics

The director of "Nothing But the Truth" blogs some praise for newly laid-off Daily News critic Glenn Whipp and others who have lost their jobs, including Premiere's Glenn Kenney and...

Posted December 9, 2008 12:42 PM

L.A. Film Critics to announce Tuesday

The Los Angeles Film Critics Association will get together Tuesday and announce its winners of the year's movie awards. The org has a newly freshened website — the group photo...

Posted December 7, 2008 9:49 PM

Kate Beckinsale on being a reporter

The actress plays a newspaper reporter not — repeat not, director Rod Lurie winks — based on Judith Miller in next week's new thriller, "Nothing But the Truth." Beckinsale and...

Posted December 7, 2008 8:44 PM

PEN honors Gelbart, WGA, journos

Last night at the Beverly Hills Hotel, PEN Center USA gave a lifetime achievement award to multi-faceted writer Larry Gelbart and its First Amendment Award to the Writers Guild. Jesse...

Posted December 4, 2008 8:17 AM

Familiar byline at LA Weekly

Lynell George, one of this year's exiteers at the Los Angeles Times, shows up today on the LA Weekly website with a short essay about the 1992 Los Angeles riots...

Posted December 3, 2008 3:39 PM

Afternoon shorts

Media and politics tidbits from around the greater Los Angeles universe. Controller Laura Chick is quoted on the CBS Evening News in a story about the impact of car dealers...

Posted December 2, 2008 4:52 PM

Berg out as Daily Journal editor

The Los Angeles Daily Journal newsroom was told this afternoon, in a very brief meeting, that editor Martin Berg is moving over to columnist and the new editor in chief...

Posted December 1, 2008 1:48 PM

On the scene with Mexico's death saint

Los Angeles journalist Daniel Hernandez, on extended book research in Mexico City, makes his video debut on Current TV with a story from the neighborhood of Tepito on the growing...

Posted November 26, 2008 1:50 PM

Claire Hoffman on mags, sex, religion etc

Magazine writer Claire Hoffman, who did the recent New Yorker interview with Prince talking about gay marriage, discusses that Joe Francis piece she did for the old L.A. Times magazine,...

Posted November 25, 2008 1:31 PM

SPJ's journalists of the year

The Los Angeles chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists will honor Paul Pringle of the Times, John Schwada of Fox 11, Frank Stoltze of KPCC and Terri Vermeulen Keith...

Posted November 24, 2008 11:50 PM

Erin Aubry Kaplan responds

As Sara Catania points out at Native Intelligence, Erin Aubry Kaplan has posted a followup to her Salon piece on Michelle Obama's ass and the ensuing furor. When all is...

Posted November 24, 2008 9:49 AM

Salinas at peace

Mirthala Salinas tells La Opini�n that she has adjusted to her new job as the morning host at Spanish-language AM 690, is past that whole episode with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa,...

Posted November 22, 2008 6:04 PM

Mike Downey out at Chicago Tribune

Mike Downey, the former Los Angeles Times sports columnist (and featured California columnist on page A3 for awhile in the 1990s, when state and local news still ranked ahead of...

Posted November 21, 2008 8:45 AM

In praise, or not, of Michelle Obama's butt

Former L.A. Times columnist Erin Aubry Kaplan may or may not have been looking to scare up a little controversy with her piece in Salon celebrating the soon-to-be first lady's...

Posted November 20, 2008 9:11 AM

Just a few more things *

And now, some stuff I missed because I was actually working. Let's start here at LAO: Today's biz headlines (Japan is in recession) and an answer (hah) to the subprime...

Posted November 17, 2008 2:24 PM

Milo the (really big) dog needs a (really good) home

We're not in the habit of running adoption notices here at LAO, but since I can't even begin to count the number of times Gustavo Arellano has made me...

Posted November 16, 2008 4:24 PM

Some media moves

First, some good news. Remember Lauren Beale, who edits the Times' real estate section? Though her name made the list of the 75 editorial employees cut from the newsroom last...

Posted November 16, 2008 1:00 PM

Media moves for the day

L.A. Times Editor Russ Stanton today named Alice Short, the former editor of the L.A. Times Magazine, as an assistant managing editor to oversee some of the feature sections that...

Posted October 13, 2008 11:19 PM

Gawker in turmoil again

Gawker Media creator Nick Denton sent an email announcing the layoff of 19 editorial employees (out of 133) and eliminating the traffic bonuses that whipped so many of his bloggers...

Posted October 3, 2008 2:40 PM

New around LA Observed

Our columnist Bill Boyarsky has been on the national campaign trail this year for Truthdig, and as he used do to for the Times as a columnist and political reporter,...

Posted October 2, 2008 11:12 PM

LA Observed's rooftop party

More than 200 journalists, authors, bloggers, Los Angeles political types and other readers of this here blog filled the outdoor deck of the Formosa Cafe in West Hollywood Thursday night...

Posted September 27, 2008 12:55 AM

Friday desk-clearing

No felony charge for Kanye West in that scuffle with a photographer at LAX. Reuters New editor assignments on the L.A. Times city desk — involving Nita Lelyveld and...

Posted September 26, 2008 10:40 PM

Dodgers season as TV series

LAT baseball writer Bill Shaikin asked television writer Scott Kaufer to analyze the Dodgers season as if it were a series being filmed on the Paramount lot. Matt Kemp is...

Posted September 22, 2008 12:35 AM

Joel Stein gets naughty again

Remember last year when Los Angeles Times columnist Joel Stein was billed as a guest instructor on oral sex at Babeland, then dropped out after we and others wrote about...

Posted September 16, 2008 5:16 PM

Photographer criticized for McCain photos

Atlantic magazine and its writer Jeffrey Goldberg are unhappy that Los Angeles photographer Jill Greenberg turned in manipulated photos of John McCain for a story, then announced that she had...

Posted September 15, 2008 8:34 AM

Hats off to Linda Deutsch

Poor Linda Deutsch. AP's legendary Los Angeles-based trial reporter is back on the O.J. Simpson beat. She is in Las Vegas for the start of Simpson's latest criminal trial —...

Posted September 10, 2008 12:24 AM

SoCal media notes

Item 1: The Register may go tabloid (in size and shape, not necessarily in mentality), Publisher Terry Horne said today. He says it's 50-50 the change will happen. "�I think...

Posted September 9, 2008 11:58 PM

Next out the Daily News door: Beth Barrett

Beth Barrett was a mainstay of the Ron Kaye era at the Daily News — and before — digging into city and county spending and other investigative projects. Today's exit...

Posted August 27, 2008 4:53 PM

Subtract another Daily News editor

This time it is City Editor Judi Erickson who decided the grass is greener outside the Dean Singleton newspaper universe. Memo from Editor Carolina Garcia: All, I'm sad to report...

Posted August 26, 2008 5:20 PM

Where's Lisa Mascaro?

I knew that former Daily News reporter Lisa Mascaro had moved to Washington in 2006, then landed a job as the DC correspondent for the Las Vegas Sun. But I...

Posted August 22, 2008 9:57 PM

Dirt on the Andr�s Martinez restraining order

Gawker has posted a whole bunch of excerpts from the Washington, D.C. case that led to a restraining order against former L.A. Times rising star Andr�s Martinez. OK, he's a...

Posted August 22, 2008 5:33 PM

New editors at Daily News

Mariel Garza moves up to editor of the editorial pages at the Daily News in Woodland Hills. Oscar Garza (no relation), formerly the editor of Tu Ciudad magazine and before...

Posted August 22, 2008 3:23 PM

Elvis Mitchell wants his $12,000 back

Film critic and KCRW host Elvis Mitchell was stopped recently at the U.S.-Canada border between Detroit and Windsor and a search of his luggage found a box of contraband cigars...

Posted August 14, 2008 4:05 PM

Write for free for people with money

RealTalkLA lives on, in a way. (I can't get the website to work.) Craiglist has an ad for LA Reporting and Writing Interns Sought that reads: RealTALKLA.com, founded by Jay...

Posted August 7, 2008 12:20 AM

No more jeans, or Weinkopf, at Daily News

The Daily News took a double morale hit today. First, Publisher Doug Hanes decreed a new dress code that proves the secessionst's main point: the Valley (or at least Woodland...

Posted July 31, 2008 6:34 PM

Bunch of L.A. media moves

Alan Mittelstaedt, formerly an editor and L.A. Sniper columnist at CityBeat and LA Weekly (and blogging at the Weekly and at Witness LA), is joining the editing staff at the...

Posted July 28, 2008 1:59 PM

L.A. journalism loses Anat Rubin

In the last couple of years, I think I've heard more glowing praise for Anat Rubin than for any young local reporter whose beat is Los Angeles. She was named...

Posted July 22, 2008 2:49 PM

Daily Journal fills DC bureau

Reporter Robert Iafolla can put away his Pellicano case notes. He's been named the L.A. Daily Journal's federal government reporter based in Washington. Newsroom note from Editor Martin Berg: Please...

Posted July 21, 2008 1:15 PM

Matt McHale tributes

Reactions to yesterday's death of former Daily News (plus Register, Star-News and AP) sports writer and editor Matt McHale include an obituary by Los Angeles Newspaper Group Sports Editor Kevin...

Posted July 15, 2008 3:05 PM

Booth and O'Connor bound for Mexico

The Washington Post announced in the newsroom that Los Angeles correspondent William Booth is going back on the foreign beat. His wife, ex-foreign correspondent Anne-Marie O'Connor, will be leaving the...

Posted July 15, 2008 12:57 PM

Columnist survives the hospital

Sandy Banks writes in the Times that she took herself to UCLA Medical Center fearing she was in the middle of a heart attack, but found out after a couple...

Posted July 15, 2008 8:16 AM

Dodgers new meets old

Frank McCourt, the Dodgers owner of new, met Peter O'Malley at yesterday's Coliseum unveiling of a plaque honoring Walter O'Malley, the owner who brought the Dodgers west from Brooklyn. O'Malley...

Posted July 10, 2008 12:38 PM

Another exit from Daily Journal

I'm told that the Los Angeles Daily Journal's Supreme Court reporter in Washington, Brent Kendall, has left to join Dow Jones Newswire. He was at the DJ for five years....

Posted July 8, 2008 9:23 AM

Ex-reporter pens farewell to journalism

Shelly Leachman left the Daily Breeze last Thursday, and with it her career in newspapers (including a stint at the Santa Barbara News-Press in the Wendy McCaw meltdown years.) She's...

Posted July 7, 2008 2:45 PM

B&C hires an editor

Melissa Grego, editor of HollywoodReporter.com, jumps to Broadcasting & Cable as executive editor. Grego joined THR last year after serving a stint as managing editor at TV Week. Memo follows...

Posted July 7, 2008 2:25 PM

Orange Coast names a 'best columnist' *

The July issue is a relaunch under Emmis ownership by new editor Martin Smith. Editor's note here. The issue's best of OC media section proclaims the Register's Frank Mickadeit as...

Posted July 7, 2008 9:05 AM

LANG loses another

Staffers at the San Gabriel Valley Tribune say that Metro Editor Edward Barrera resigned Thursday. He's reportedly moving back to New York after a stint in Guatemala. Barrera pioneered the...

Posted July 4, 2008 12:42 AM

Driving with Clay Felker

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll was Clay Felker's West Coast editor of the Village Voice and an early hire at New West, Felker's attempt in the late 1970s to...

Posted July 3, 2008 11:58 AM

Managing Editor next to ditch Daily News

Melissa Lalum's departure from the Daily News make it a clean sweep of the top editors who were there at the beginning of April. Editor Ron Kaye was shown the...

Posted July 2, 2008 4:05 PM

Clay Felker, magazine pioneer was 82

The founder of New York as a Sunday supplement to the New York Herald-Tribune, and later as a standlone glossy weekly, changed the face of American magazines. He also edited...

Posted July 1, 2008 10:38 AM

'Book of Tribune damnation'

That's what retired Los Angeles Times reporter Ken Reich calls his series of blog posts telling a little bit about 75 former Times staffers who left during the later part...

Posted June 29, 2008 11:53 PM

Daily News columnist signs off

Steve Young's regular column in the DN's Sunday Viewpoint section is no longer needed, given that this week saw the last Sunday Viewpoint section to be published. Young takes it...

Posted June 25, 2008 5:35 PM

Add Geneva Ellroy

Frank Girardot, city editor at the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, also posted his paper's original 1958 coverage of the murder of writer James Ellroy's mother. In the post Girardot describes...

Posted June 24, 2008 11:12 PM

Case of the Nahai family DWP bill

Alan Mittelsteadt blogs that the Daily News and reporter Beth Barrett — he calls her "the Queen of Spoon-Fed Journalism" — got snookered into running DWP chief David Nahai's planted...

Posted June 24, 2008 10:51 PM

Video: Steve Lopez on Sam Zell

At the Los Angeles Press Club awards on Saturday night, L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez had some fun at Sam Zell's expense — alluding to Zell's lame ideas, four-letter...

Posted June 24, 2008 7:10 PM

L.A. Press Club winners

Journalists of the year announced at last night's Los Angeles Press Club awards: Big print: Melissa Healy, L.A. Times Small print: Anat Rubin, Los Angeles Daily Journal TV: Antonio Valverde,...

Posted June 22, 2008 12:22 PM

Old home week at L.A. Times

Earlier this month, it was Truthdig's Robert Scheer reappearing on the L.A. Times Op-Ed page — notable because his firing as an Op-Ed columnist after thirteen years created quite a...

Posted June 21, 2008 11:22 AM

Next year's Hollywood (Blvd.) stars

KCRW host Harry Shearer and KFI's Bill Handel are on the list to get their stars installed on the Hollywood walk of fame next year. Among the others are Cameron...

Posted June 19, 2008 8:59 AM

Parsons featured on 'Off Ramp'

I've been kicking myself for a week for under-playing the selection of Russ Parsons, one of my favorite food writers, to the dining industry's hall of fame. He's the first...

Posted June 16, 2008 9:05 AM

John Rabe and Julian Bermudez

John Rabe, host of "Off-Ramp" on KPCC, hopes to be pretty much first in line for a marriage license Tuesday morning at the Beverly Hills courthouse. Rabe, 42, and Julian...

Posted June 16, 2008 9:02 AM

KCAL babes meet Joe Francis

Weather reader Jackie Johnson was out last night with Channel 9 colleagues Mary Beth McDade and Melissa McCarty, but it was Johnson who got all the personal attention from Girls...

Posted June 10, 2008 11:54 PM

Look who's covering sports now

Dave Zirin has been named the first-ever sports correspondent for The Nation. From the flackage: Starting this month, Zirin will report regularly for The Nation and TheNation.com on the intersection...

Posted June 10, 2008 3:44 PM

Angeleno wins James Beard Award

Brad A. Johnson, national food and travel editor for Angeleno, won the James Beard Foundation Award in restaurant reviews for his pieces on Hampton's, Sona and The Penthouse. Junot Diaz...

Posted June 10, 2008 12:05 PM

Sappell finds a calling outside journalism

Joel Sappell, who vented recently in the American Journalism Review about Sam Zell and other changes that led him to flee the Los Angeles Times, started today as Deputy for...

Posted June 9, 2008 6:46 PM

Missed a Daily News exit

I guess Josh Kleinbaum's last official title was director of audience development for the Los Angeles Newspaper Group websites, but he came out of the reporting ranks at the Daily...

Posted June 9, 2008 12:15 AM

L.A. cleans up at alt-weekly awards

The good news out of today's Association of Alternative Newsweeklies awards in Philadelphia is that Jeffrey Anderson won top honors for investigative pieces in the LA Weekly and Andrew Gumbel...

Posted June 7, 2008 6:23 PM

Daily News loses another

I'm told that opinion columnist and Friendly Fire blogger Bridget Johnson has accepted an offer to become an editorial writer, columnist and member of the editorial board at the Rocky...

Posted June 7, 2008 5:26 PM

Gina Gershon not happy

The actress has demanded a retraction from Vanity Fair and says she has only been in the presence of former President Bill Clinton three times, always with lots of other...

Posted June 4, 2008 9:59 AM

Adios 'Cada Dia'

Telemundo had another bad day on Friday, dropping the network's national morning show "Cada Dia" and making some executive changes. Host Maria Antonieta Collins, who joined Telemundo from Univisi�n, had...

Posted June 2, 2008 1:59 PM

Susan Spano adopts Roma

After three somewhat stormy years living and blogging in Paris, four months in China and a stint in a rented apartment near Santa Monica beach, Los Angeles Times travel writer...

Posted June 2, 2008 12:49 AM

Where is...Jules Asner

The former E! Channel host, Elite model and daughter-in-law to Ed Asner (she's now married to Steven Soderbergh) has a new novel landing tomorrow. "Whacked" is set in Hollywood, of...

Posted June 2, 2008 12:43 AM

Call to action over laid-off critic's suicide

Christopher Page killed himself three weeks after losing his job as a theater critic and editor at the at the East Valley Tribune in Phoenix. He was 29. Sasha Anawalt,...

Posted May 28, 2008 11:16 PM

Santa Barbara 8 lose a round

A federal judge has denied the National Labor Relations Board's request for an injunction ordering Wendy McCaw to immediately reinstate eight staffers fired during the big purge at her News-Mess....

Posted May 28, 2008 12:43 PM

Q&A with the obituary editor

Jon Thurber, the LAT's obits editor, gets some ink on Claire Hoffman's religion blog for Newsweek and the Washington Post. To me, one of the most desirable jobs in newspapers...

Posted May 28, 2008 12:25 PM

Tuesday media tips

Nikki Finke points a chiding finger at Defamer, Variety columnist Anne Thompson, LAT columnist Patrick Goldstein and Slate's Kim Masters for posting an erroneous item that she says began...

Posted May 27, 2008 10:31 PM

Azteca Am�rica leaves town

Veronica Villafa�e at Media Moves reports that Azteca Am�rica Channel 54 is dropping its Los Angeles production and will host the Spanish-language newscasts in Mexico. Layoffs of 29 staffers came...

Posted May 27, 2008 10:25 PM

Fired editor's email to his (ex)writers

Alan Mittelstaedt sent his freelancers the news LAO reported yesterday — that he was canned by CityBeat. Under the subject line "Fired--again!," it contains the details that he got the...

Posted May 26, 2008 12:15 AM

Telemundo dumps anchor, loses exec

Lucia Navarro is out as anchor at Telemundo-52 after seven years, according to Media Moves, a blog that charts the movement of Latinos in the media business. Navarro was on...

Posted May 25, 2008 10:19 PM

Another exit from CityBeat

Alan Mittelstaedt, CityBeat's news editor and number two, was let go on Friday by Acting Editor Rebecca Schoenkopf. Something about the money being used for columns and freelancers. That's one...

Posted May 25, 2008 5:34 PM

Dilbeck family crisis

Daily News columnist Steve Dilbeck leads the paper today with a column about learning that his 14-year-old son had Type 1 diabetes. We took him out of school and when...

Posted May 23, 2008 12:32 PM

Obama hires a journalist

Linda Douglass, the former television reporter here who is now a contributor editor at National Journal, will join the Barack Obama presidential campaign as a senior strategist and "senior campaign...

Posted May 21, 2008 5:20 PM

Weekend shorts

California Supreme Court chief justice Ronald George gives a two-hour interview to the LAT's Maura Dolan and talks about the court's milestone same-sex marriage ruling: "I think there are...

Posted May 18, 2008 12:25 PM

NPR promotes Del Barco

Longtime Los Angeles reporter Mandalit Del Barco is getting a raise. The memo at National Public Radio: From South Central Los Angeles to Central America, she's been telling stories with...

Posted May 16, 2008 12:58 PM

'Scriptland' writer moves to Hollywood Reporter

Jay Fernandez will join THR as a senior film reporter to concentrate on breaking news, says Hollywood Wiretap. He has written the "Scriptland" column in the L.A. Times Calendar section...

Posted May 12, 2008 5:32 PM

Make it three editors...

An add to yesterday's item on the tale of two ex-editors: current Times editor Russ Stanton also gets out on the town Thursday night, appearing as the featured guest at...

Posted May 7, 2008 10:35 PM

Tale of two ex-editors *

Take your pick: on Thursday, USC Annenberg fetes Michael Parks, the outgoing director of the Annenberg School of Journalism. He is the former editor of the Los Angeles Times. Later...

Posted May 6, 2008 9:48 PM

Another print journo gives it up

Ryan Oliver is leaving the Los Angeles Daily Journal for public relations. He'll work on the Police Protective League and U.S. Army accounts for Weber Shandwick Worldwide's Los Angeles office....

Posted May 5, 2008 2:02 PM

W visits Arianna

The May issue of W (with Cameron Diaz on the cover) proclaims Arianna Huffington more influential than ever, with her new book doing well and the Huffington Post "arguably the...

Posted May 5, 2008 12:55 AM

New City Hall reporter

The Times is moving California political writer Phil Willon onto the Los Angeles City Hall beat. The memo from California Editor David Lauter waxes on a bit about the importance...

Posted May 4, 2008 11:54 PM

Letter from Skid Row

This week's issue of The New Yorker carries a "Letter from Los Angeles" by Dana Goodyear on the movie being made based on Steve Lopez's L.A. Times columns about street...

Posted April 28, 2008 9:23 AM

Newswriting is just like songwriting

Former L.A. Times editor and staff writer (and occasional LA Observed contributor) Bob Baker makes his case at the Poynter Institute website — and puts up a podcast from the...

Posted April 23, 2008 11:54 PM

Ruben Salazar gets a stamp

The journalist killed by a Los Angeles County sheriff's projectile during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War — held on August 29, 1970 in East Los Angeles...

Posted April 18, 2008 12:05 AM

Ron Kaye's LA *

The former editor of the Daily News has his first blog post up (at a different address than mentioned in the Morning Buzz, which came from the LA Weekly's blog.)...

Posted April 17, 2008 11:40 AM

Salinas never dated Alex Padilla

I scanned past this in my initial quick read of the Mirthala Salinas interview by Shawn Hubler in the new issue of Los Angeles magazine. Salinas talks in some detail...

Posted April 16, 2008 8:59 AM

Singleton's Obama moment

OK, I'm not suggesting Dean Singleton has a morale issue on his hands. But approximately 90% of the email that came my way today pointing out his Washington luncheon gaffe...

Posted April 14, 2008 9:20 PM

Ramirez wins again

Bringing home a Pulitzer Prize to Los Angeles isn't the only praise Investor's Business Daily cartoonist Michael Ramirez gets to bask in this month. He also just picked up a...

Posted April 14, 2008 1:34 PM

Overholser official

As reported Saturday, Geneva Overholser was just announced as the new journalism director at USC Annenberg....

Posted April 14, 2008 9:16 AM

New journalism director at USC

Geneva Overholser, former editor of the Des Moines Register, will be introduced Monday as the new director of the journalism school at the USC Annenberg School of Communication, according to...

Posted April 12, 2008 6:16 PM

Los Angeles PM media briefs

Jane Gross exits NYT Former L.A. Times reporter (and ex-New York Times L.A. bureau correspondent) Jane Gross takes the NYT buyout offer. Romenesko The Advocate sold cheap PlanetOut Inc. agreed...

Posted April 10, 2008 3:44 PM

Mirthala and Yanni's wedding site

CurbedLA scoured the web and found the wedding planning site for Mirthala Salinas and Yanni Raz, where one of them says "I'm marrying my best friend." Looks like a Cabo...

Posted April 10, 2008 9:44 AM

Doug Dowie surfaces

PolitickerCA has a blind item saying that Doug Dowie, the former president of Fleishman-Hillard in L.A. whose conviction on wire fraud is on appeal, is doing some work for political...

Posted April 9, 2008 11:25 PM

A layoff tale from the Daily News

Matthew Kredell was a Daily News sports writer who lost his job in the Feb. 29 payroll purge. A kid from El Camino Real High in Woodland Hills and USC,...

Posted April 9, 2008 9:36 PM

Pellicano wrap: Bernie Weinraub too

Former New York Times Hollywood correspondent Bernard Weinraub, who had teamed with Anita Busch at one point, also took the stand today in the Anthony Pellicano trial. Allison Hope Weiner's...

Posted April 9, 2008 6:19 PM

Anita Busch testifies at Pellicano trial

The reporter who started it all — by being threatend via Pellicano and associates to lay off a story about Steven Seagal — took the stand this afternoon. She recounted...

Posted April 9, 2008 2:50 PM

Mirthala speaks — and she's engaged *

Los Angeles magazine scored the first big interview with Mirthala Salinas, ex-squeeze of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Former L.A. Times writer Shawn Hubler did the story, which reportedly goes up on...

Posted April 9, 2008 12:39 PM

Alan Rich out as Weekly critic

Another local music critic down, not many left to go. Alan Rich, who is at least 83, was let go as classical music critic over lunch with LA Weekly editor...

Posted April 9, 2008 12:37 AM

CityBeat, the unofficial view *

The official explanation for Steve Lowery bailing as editor of CityBeat after a few days is that his heart wasn't in reinventing the weekly as a broader, more appealing magazine-like...

Posted April 8, 2008 12:15 AM

Pulitzer scenes

This was new Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Ramirez's editorial cartoon today in today's Investor's Business Daily. He is based there and syndicated in 450 newspapers. After the jump: the scene...

Posted April 7, 2008 11:19 PM

Scheer has another book coming

On the day that Michael Ramirez won a Pulitzer Prize, it's somewhat fitting to run a Robert Scheer item too. He and Ramirez were both dropped from the L.A. Times...

Posted April 7, 2008 11:13 PM

Six Pulitzers for WashPost, two for ex-LATers *

My prediction of this morning was correct, if general. The Washington Post cleaned up with six Pulitzer prizes, for coverage of Walter Reed, Virginia Tech, Dick Cheney and Blackwater among...

Posted April 7, 2008 12:25 PM

Carolina Garcia it is for Daily News

Garcia is the new executive editor of the Los Angeles Daily News. She was introduced in the newsroom this morning. Garcia, 53, comes to the Daily News after five years...

Posted April 7, 2008 11:34 AM

Schoenkopf rises fast at CityBeat

Steve Lowery's resignation as editor of CityBeat was accepted today and — one week after the she joined the paper — Rebecca Schoenkopf was named acting editor. (I reported the...

Posted April 7, 2008 10:52 AM

Bearak out of Zimbabwe jail

New York Times (and former LAT) reporter Barry Bearak was released on bail and must stay in the country, either at a U.S. diplomatic residence or in a medical facility....

Posted April 7, 2008 9:03 AM

L.A. media types are talking about...

I've received a lot of emails since Friday repeating a sarcastic exchange between former Daily News reporter Val Kuklenski, who left in the newsroom thinning a month ago, and Dave...

Posted April 6, 2008 11:26 PM

DN calls Kaye exit 'resignation'

A story posted on the Daily News website quotes longtime City Hall reporter Rick Orlov and attorney David Fleming, who joined with the Daily News to help bankroll the Valley...

Posted April 4, 2008 6:20 PM

Ron Kaye's farewell email

Ron Kaye emailed the newsroom this note. The staff has been told to be on hand Monday morning at 10 am for the introduction of the next editor. Everyone: All...

Posted April 4, 2008 4:49 PM

CityBeat editor quits, heart not in it

Steve Lowery reported as editor in chief on Monday, put out his first issue of CityBeat on Thursday, then tendered his resignation last night. "I felt horrible when I called...

Posted April 4, 2008 11:46 AM

Good day for a print journo

The OC Weekly's Nick Schou got a double dose of good news today. Universal is developing a film based on his 2006 book "Kill the Messenger," about the late journalist...

Posted April 3, 2008 9:20 PM

Bearak located in Harare jail

New York Times reporter Barry Bearak and another journalist were detained for "practicing without accreditation," a government spokesman in Zimbabwe confirmed. Bearak is a former L.A. Times staff writer. NYT...

Posted April 3, 2008 8:55 PM

Ron Kaye called 'last competent editor' in LANG

That's coming from Paul Oberjuerge, who lost his job as a sports columnist in the recent putsch so may not be the most objective observer. But he also worked for...

Posted April 3, 2008 4:24 PM

Former LAT reporter held in Zimbabwe

Barry Bearak, a New York Times correspondent based in Johannesburg, was arrested today by police in Harare, where he was covering the elections. Editor Bill Keller says in a statement:...

Posted April 3, 2008 2:35 PM

Bad month for dance coverage

First Lewis Segal, now Laura Bleiberg at the Register. Memo via email from the Orange County paper's online features editor after the jump....

Posted April 3, 2008 2:31 PM

Ron Kaye out as L.A. Daily News editor

Sources at the Daily News and outsiders close to Ron Kaye say he will be replaced by an editor from Northern California. Nothing official yet, but the announcement could be...

Posted April 2, 2008 10:35 PM

Yeah, yeah, 'Mexican' lives on

Gustavo Arellano finally cops that the demise of his Ask a Mexican column was an April Fool's Day gag — he just got the jump on the other five million...

Posted April 2, 2008 12:39 AM

Say what you will about Kinsley

Michael Kinsley's tenure in Los Angeles may not have gone smoothly or ended gracefully. But I enjoyed being reminded in this week's New Yorker how engaging he is as a...

Posted April 1, 2008 11:06 PM

Zahniser's tale of car-theft woe

Times City Hall reporter David Zahniser cracks Column One for the first time with a first-person story about his 1989 Toyota Camry being stolen and recovered three times in six...

Posted March 31, 2008 12:21 AM

Two columnists quit CityBeat

I'm told that two of the original CityBeat columnists have given up their gigs in response to last week's dump of editor Steve Appleford. Natalie Nichols writes the pop-culture column...

Posted March 30, 2008 11:08 PM

�Ask a Mexican! hits the end?

Gustavo Arellano announced in today's OC Weekly column that he's dropping the long-running �Ask a Mexican! gig that has brought him fame and...well, maybe just fame. And lots of angry...

Posted March 27, 2008 6:10 PM

When Betty met Bill (Bratton)

Betty Pleasant, the Wave's Soulvine columnist, has been hammering away that there is a racial aspect to the gang murders sweeping South Los Angeles and the Eastside. LAPD chief Bill...

Posted March 27, 2008 9:25 AM

Editor change at CityBeat

After this week's issue went to bed earlier today, the staff of CityBeat was told that founding editor Steve Appleford is being replaced by Steve Lowery, who starts Monday. This...

Posted March 26, 2008 11:40 PM

More ramping up at AP

The every-burgeoning Los Angeles entertainment desk of Associated Press snagged a photo editor from Getty Images. Press release on the hire of Guinevere Smith as national entertainment photo editor after...

Posted March 24, 2008 5:36 PM

LAT's Krikorian to join public defender

Greg Krikorian, a Los Angeles Times veteran who is the lead reporter on the Anthony Pellicano trial, applied for and received the recent buyout. He's joining the office of the...

Posted March 24, 2008 4:48 PM

Huffington Post in the New Yorker

Eric Alterman's piece considers the HuffPost as a step along the path of evolving news and opinion, away from the printed newspaper. Some tidbits: First envisaged as a liberal alternative...

Posted March 24, 2008 9:14 AM

Harry Shearer and Ana Garcia, together

The common link is the Los Angeles Press Club. Shearer, the actor and host of a popular KCRW show, will emcee the club's June 21 awards dinner at the Biltmore...

Posted March 20, 2008 12:46 PM

One more Her Ex reflection

Rip Rense attended last week's Los Angeles Herald Examiner reunion, but he found it too surreal and disorienting to see his old colleagues — and editor Jim Bellows — 19...

Posted March 19, 2008 11:57 PM

The Hilburn Chronicles

Longtime L.A. Times pop critic Robert Hilburn has signed with ModernTimes/Rodale to do a "deeply personal and highly opinionated memoir" of his decades covering the music scene. From the flackage:...

Posted March 18, 2008 11:41 AM

Herald Examiner slide show

For last week's reunion of Los Angeles Herald Examiner alums, organizer Alex Ben Block, columnist for Hollywood Today.net, and Josh Kleinbaum, managing editor of interactive for the Los Angeles Newspaper...

Posted March 16, 2008 4:25 PM

Last great newspaper editor?

Ron Kaye, editor of the Daily News, delivers an homage on the paper's Op-Ed page to Jim Bellows, the editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner when Kaye was there....

Posted March 13, 2008 9:21 AM

Living the Prius stereotype

Journalist Sharon Waxman is happy with her new silver Prius, except there are so many around that look alike. Today at Trader Joe's, she threw her bags in, plopped down...

Posted March 12, 2008 6:17 PM

Laid-off editor pleads to Stanford, Zell

Wes Hughes, a former editor at various levels of the Los Angeles Times, was a city editor and columnist at the San Bernardino Sun until last week's layoffs. In the...

Posted March 11, 2008 6:11 PM

USC's new ethnic media fellows

Twelve U.S. journalists from ethnic media have been selected to take part in a week-long program, "Immigration: Reporting the Full Story," put on March 16-23 by USC Annenberg's Institute for...

Posted March 11, 2008 5:27 PM

Sports columnist blogs his firing

Paul Oberjuerge was writing his column for the San Bernardino Sun when he got the call. They were "eliminating the position of sports columnist for the Inland group.� These days,...

Posted March 11, 2008 10:59 AM

Sold out in Santa Barbara

The documentary Citizen McCaw opened Friday night to a sell-out crowd of 2,200, reportedly including Wendy McCaw's sister, said to have remarked that she loved the film. Afterward, the crowd...

Posted March 9, 2008 12:41 AM

Weekend media shorts

Couple of bad links fixed Sports columnist Paul Oberjuerge, science writer Elise Kleeman and former LAT editor Wes Hughes are among the staffers out of jobs in this week's round...

Posted March 8, 2008 4:48 PM

More layoffs today in LANGland *

One reporter each at the Pasadena Star-News and San Gabriel Valley Tribune so far, says former LANGland editor and reporter Gary Scott. More expected at the Inland Empire properties, he...

Posted March 6, 2008 12:10 PM

Dwyre tips his hat to ex-colleagues

Times sports columnist (and former editor of the section) Bill Dwyre gave a nice shout out in today's column to laid-off sports staffers at the rival Daily News: Finally, a...

Posted March 6, 2008 9:55 AM

Daily News eliminates Sacramento bureau

Harrison Sheppard is returning to the Woodland Hills office, where he will do a mix of editing and reporting, the Sacramento Bee's Capitol Alert says. Sheppard went up to Sacramento...

Posted March 5, 2008 1:02 PM

Return to Corky's: the HerEx reunion

Alumni of the late Los Angeles Herald Examiner, as they called it toward the end, are gathering March 13 at the L.A. Press Club. The paper closed 19 years ago...

Posted March 3, 2008 8:41 PM

Film on News-Mess is ready to go

The documentary on Wendy McCaw's wreckage in Santa Barbara premieres Friday night up there. Filmmaker Sam Tyler, who will speak after the showing, says they thought about calling it "Will...

Posted March 3, 2008 2:16 PM

Long Beach columnist whiffs

In his first column since the newspaper he has headlined for 30 years was decimated, "Mr. Press-Telegram" Tom Hennessey took a deep breath and railed at the horrible injustice of...Sam...

Posted March 2, 2008 7:51 PM

Who's leaving the Daily News *

The Paper Trail, blog of the Daily News newsroom guild, names names and posts tributes to the staff who departed Friday. Included in the toll are Lisa Friedman, the paper's...

Posted March 2, 2008 2:13 PM

Press-Telegram essentially merged **

I'm told by a staffer that the positions of publisher and managing editor were eliminated today at the Long Beach Press-Telegram, along with the copy desk and most of the...

Posted February 29, 2008 2:59 PM

Hopkins chooses LAPD over newspapers *

* Rewritten at 2:40 pm with better info Brent Hopkins, the Daily News reporter who has been keeping everybody informed about pending cuts via his blog, took the buyout and...

Posted February 29, 2008 12:35 PM

Sitrick loses claim against film financier

Crisis PR executive Michael Sitrick tried to collect a $7.7 million judgment from Ryan Kavanuagh, but a judge Friday said no. The reason is that Sitrick apparently agreed previously not...

Posted February 23, 2008 10:25 AM

AP bulks up here

Dan Becker, the Los Angeles-based director of entertainment content for Associated Press, announced a couple of moves as part of the wire service turning up its entertainment coverage: The Los...

Posted February 22, 2008 9:08 AM

Press Club hands out entertainment awards

The Los Angeles Press Club's "national entertainment awards" are new and mostly local. Winners include Matthew Garrahan of the local Financial Times bureau for best print news story, Jacob Soboroff...

Posted February 22, 2008 8:58 AM

Back to L.A., virtually

When LA Observed was just a toddler of a blog, I watched Nancy Rommelmann chronicle her anxiety-filled but hopeful (and ultimately happy) move to Portland in a blog she called...

Posted February 20, 2008 11:15 PM

Weisberg book party

Slate editor Jacob Weisberg gave a little shout out to LA Observed in his remarks last night at a book party at Arianna Huffington's home. Actually, he noted that I...

Posted February 20, 2008 6:04 PM

Lohan pics provide her a simple pleasure

Dana Goodyear, the New Yorker's blogging L.A. staff writer, had her own paparazzi encounter recently near the Chateau Marmont that inspired her to check out New York magazine's nudes of...

Posted February 20, 2008 5:57 PM

Mirthala Salinas is back on L.A. air

The onetime rising star at Telemundo whose career burned up in the wreckage of an affair with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has taken the familiar post-TV route — AM radio. Tomorrow's...

Posted February 19, 2008 9:43 PM

Los Angeles mag for March

In the March issue, Los Angeles kicks off a contest to let readers pick the single greatest thing about Los Angeles. They start with 64 in the magazine, then whittle...

Posted February 19, 2008 5:25 PM

Blog wins a Polk Award

Talking Points Memo, the Democratic politics blog run by Joshua Micah Marshall, received a prestigious (within journalism) George Polk Award for legal reporting. TPM "led the news media coverage of...

Posted February 18, 2008 9:49 PM

The GOP's book on Obama

The Republican National Committee convened its winter retreat for major donors this weekend at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, presenting Karl Rove and figure such as RNC chairman Robert Duncan —...

Posted February 18, 2008 9:20 PM

Reviewer retires after 50 years of eating out

Larry Lipson wrote up restaurants for the Daily News starting in 1958. From his exit column: Sure, there have been editors who have leaned somewhat heavily on me - especially...

Posted February 15, 2008 1:25 AM

Cooper enjoys Fabian's worst day in politics

Marc Cooper sinks the hooks on Speaker Fabian N��ez at the LA Weekly website: With great pride, I accepted the honor a few months back of being labeled 'the state's...

Posted February 12, 2008 10:46 PM

Booth covers the 'Geek Oscars'

William Booth, resident feature writer in L.A. for the Washington Post, lurked at Saturday night's Scientific and Technical Awards given out by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...

Posted February 11, 2008 12:13 PM

Leo Greene, journalist with ALS was 62

Leo Greene chronicled his fight with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis for more than a year in the pages of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, where he was a reporter, columnist and...

Posted February 10, 2008 2:39 AM

Where is Doug Frantz?

Last year's managing editor of the Los Angeles Times (actually he stayed nearly two years) will be on Hugh Hewitt's radio show Thursday. Frantz and his wife, Catherine Collins, will...

Posted February 6, 2008 9:42 PM

Meghan Daum gives her playlist

The novelist and Los Angeles Times Op-Ed columnist shows up today on the New York Times' books blog, in a weekly feature that posts "a playlist of songs from a...

Posted February 6, 2008 8:59 AM

Where's Claire Hoffman?

The Portfolio contributing editor and former LAT writer — she covered the porn beat for a time and did that great West magazine piece on Joe Francis of Girls Gone...

Posted February 5, 2008 6:51 PM

Al Martinez starts a blog

The veteran Times columnist, briefly dumped last year, holds his nose and starts posting on Blogspot: A blog is generally a loathsome, tedious creation of the electronic age, an opportunity...

Posted February 5, 2008 3:23 PM

Fox 11's John Schwada takes up a blog

The talent at Channel 11 has been strongly encouraged to blog for MyFox LA, the branding given the station's website. Reporter John Schwada has taken to it easier than most...

Posted February 3, 2008 12:41 AM

Political scribe jumps to think tank

Joe Mathews, who's covering the presidential campaign, will leave the Los Angeles Times sometime after Super Tuesday to join the New America Foundation as a California Fellow. Other ex-Timesmen already...

Posted February 2, 2008 9:03 PM

Fighting over Daniel Murphy High

Soulvine columnist Betty Pleasant says that Councilman Bernard Parks and former mayor Richard Riordan are trying to stave off the closing of Daniel Murphy High School, Parks' alma mater. The...

Posted February 2, 2008 3:41 PM

TV Week loses another

Television reporter James Hibberd is leaving TV Week to take a newly created slot on the broadcasting beat at The Hollywood Reporter, I'm told. The path is getting familiar. Melissa...

Posted February 1, 2008 5:44 PM

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