Newspapers and weeklies

Two "very drunk and rude women" claiming to be OC Weekly writers were spotted this week at Don the Beachcomber in Orange County. Editor Gustavo Arellano is not amused and advises any restaurants approached for freebies to be suspicious.

Sestanovich announced to the LA Weekly staff that she will leave after assisting in the transition. Sounds as if Bob Dea, the associate publisher, is getting more responsibility. Here is the email.

While the Sun-Times cuts all its shooters, the NPR station has three staffers who mainly take pictures. There is also a new visual blog they like to call "public radio for the eyes."

A story with more anecdote and commentary than actual data or on the record sources argues that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will struggle to keep up his "one percent" lifestyle.

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.

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

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.

Talk about weird: Rupert Murdoch has emerged as a white knight in possibly bidding for the Tribune Co. papers and avoiding a takeover by the libertarian boys.

The numbers should be looked at with even greater suspicion than usual because several categories are lumped into a single count.

Talk about misinformation: The guy accuses me of taking pot shots at him for his column on the Koch brothers possibly buying the LAT. But I never even mentioned Meyerson or his column.

The paper's Monday-Friday numbers are up 6 percent, to 653,868, for the October through March reporting period. But print fell 11.5 percent, to a stunningly low 432,873.

The Riverside Press-Enterprise is the latest California newspaper to decide that it no longer needs the cost and hassle of its own building. Riverside County has agreed to buy it for about $30 million.

The Boston Globe this weekend published the staff's reconstruction of the manhunt for the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings. Haven't seen it all, but what I've read and watched looks pretty impressive.

He will contribute one of his human interest columns a week to all of the LA News Group papers. McCarthy retired in January 2012 after 30 years in the DN.

The little devil in me would almost like to see the Tribune guys do the deal with the Kochs and have all those self-anointed arbiters of journalistic propriety raise holy hell. Almost.

The early reviews on Politico's hit piece on Executive Editor Jill Abramson aren't great. Or maybe the reaction is less about the report itself, which relied heavily on unnamed sources, and more about the crybabies at the paper.

A central question is whether the Tribune Co. board will only accept offers for the entire newspaper group or consider selling off the properties in pieces.

The Los Angeles Times editorial awards are a good window into which stories and efforts the editors liked last year. The awards can also reflect which journalists might be ascendant within the newsroom pecking order, and through the years have also been used to throw a few kudos to someone who is under-appreciated or nearing the end of a long career. Inside: This year's winners.

Erica Phillips moves up to full-fledged general news and politics reporter after most of a year as officially temporary. And Hannah Karp moves over from GA to cover the music beat.

A fine newspaper has gone underground, and I have to wonder whether we'll ever hear from it again.

Between the Daily News and the LA Times, Martinez has written columns about Los Angeles for almost three decades. Last the year the Huntington mounted an exhibition of his collected work. Meanwhile, LANG is slapping the Daily News name on all of its papers.

The jury is very much out on whether all this new investment at the Register is sustainable. But for now, the happy times continue. Owner Aaron Kushner will be on 'SoCal Connected' on Friday.

Derek Thompson, the business editor at The Atlantic, gleaned this from today's Pew report on the State of the News Media. In 2012, newspapers lost $16 in print ads for every $1 earned in digital ads. And it's getting worse not better.

The venerable but dated brand of the International Herald Tribune will be dropped and the paper re-christened as the International New York Times. Plus assorted other changes.

Former Los Angeles Herald Examiner photographers Paul Chinn, Anne Knudsen, Javier Mendoza, Mike Mullen, Jim Ober, and Jim Ruebsamen will chat March 9 at Central Library with Dean Musgrove, now photo editor of the Daily News.