Media and media people

Nice headline from this morning's traffic... jam... attributed to the Los Angeles Times' Joseph Serna.

As the Center for Investigative Reporting, the newsroom in Berkeley will take a more national focus and cut back on the number of stories it undertakes. California Watch has been one of the most successful nonprofit journalism startups in the country.

Radio Titans is an Internet outlet for podcasts that was started by Carl Kozlowski (arts writer for the Pasadena Weekly), Jake Belcher and Brant Thoman. They do Grand Theft Audio ten hours a week and other shows that have guests including Richard Linklater and Burt Bacharach.

Before airing a documentary about the Park Avenue building where Koch and a lot of other rich people live, the president of WNET gave the mogul a call and offered to water things down. It didn't help: Koch still resigned from the station's board.

A little taste of Scranton (and Dunder Mifflin) on Saticoy Street.

Former news anchor Giselle Fernandez kicks off "Big Shots" on the magazine's CityThink website with the Mexican mogul. The series will feature influential business people and leaders.

Anne Knudsen, one of the Herald photogs to come out of the Cal State Long Beach photojournalism program, quipped at the reunion we covered in March about being in chemotherapy — she was bald at the time. Now comes word that Knudsen died on Sunday, leaving a teenaged daughter.

Nothing has changed, Tribune Company CEO Peter Liguori says in an email to staffers today: "No decision to sell our publishing assets is imminent." All the speculation about this or that potential buyer of the Los Angeles Times and the other papers "has been and is premature."

CBS 2 sifts the data for the most notorious places for LAPD traffic cops to nab speeders, while Joel Grover and NBC 4 turn their hidden cameras back on Jiffy Lube. May is always a busy month for local TV's investigative teams.

The annual people issue of LA Weekly hits the stands this week and is already on the web. The selection of interesting Angelenos this time includes Janice Min of the Hollywood Reporter.

The women's magazine thinks that Greuel's first politics mentor was Tom Brady, but gets to the bottom of her preferred "go-to look."

Gold will cover the money and politics beat for the WashPost. Before she started covering national politics and government, Gold covered the 2001 and 2005 races for mayor of Los Angeles between Antonio Villaraigosa and James Hahn and the City Hall beat.

With today's news about Angelina Jolie, Los Angeles Times reporter Anna Gorman revisits on the Times website her 2007 surgery.

Hader is the next "Saturday Night Live" cast member to leave. He wants to do movies and TV in Los Angeles. We'll say this — he knows his way around the city (video.)

The media mogul and possible buyer of the LA Times announced via Twitter that he has bought the Moraga estate on the Bel-Air ridge that faces across the 405 freeway at the Getty Center. Check out his tweet.

The head writer of “Saturday Night Live” and host of the show's “Weekend Update” segment will be the fourth host of NBC’s “Late Night,” following David Letterman, Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Fallon.

He must be getting a good chuckle over how his interest in the Tribune papers - especially the LAT - is being all but ignored.

The New York Times weighs in today on the fear and loathing among some in Southern California over the possibility that the libertarian Koch brothers might buy the Tribune company's newspapers, gaining control of the Los Angeles Times. "No formal bids have been submitted," the story notes.

KCRW producer Matt Holzman embedded with cops in the LAPD Air Support unit to see what it's like in the helicopters that patrol Los Angeles skies. Listen inside.

We have two winners!

The weekly's editorial hopes that Garcetti "would grow in the job," and says it's "a pity" that Greuel is too close to unions. It's the LABJ's first endorsement for mayor.

Mario Machado was a familiar presence on Los Angeles TV and radio for a few decades starting in 1967, when he joined Channel 9 (then KHJ-TV) as the city's first Chinese-American TV news reporter. He was a soccer booster in LA before the sport was cool and a founder of AYSO. Girls play soccer today because of Mario Machado, a friend posted on Facebook.

Larry Altman, who covers crime for the South Bay Daily Breeze, contributes to a piece on CBS' "48 Hours: Over the Edge" airing on Saturday night. The story is about the case of Dawn Viens, who disappeared in 2009 from her Lomita home.

The National Magazine Award for Los Angeles last night came in the personal service category. The Naked Truth About the Future of Your Face and Body, a package on plastic surgery and the industry, was edited by Nancy Miller and ran in the October 2012 issue.

Anyone using the Netflix or Amazon streaming services knows that movies will come and go - it's largely a function of intricate licensing deals.