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journalismism
LA Times Already Planning to Sell Out Again
The fake front page story in Thursday's Los Angeles Times was a PR disaster; staffers are signing a petition calling it "embarrassing and demoralizing." Naturally, then, management is planning a sequel. More »
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By Ryan TateComment by ChillbearLatrigue: I just hope when the newspapers finally finish themselves off for good that they have enough dignity not to beg... 2 Responses | Other threads
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print is dead
Is the Los Angeles Times Cribbing from Wikipedia?
Whether they admit it or not, Wikipedia is every reporter's crutch for finding mundane details on deadline. Most know to cover up their laziness. But not this Los Angeles Times foreign correspondent. More »
6,695
By Owen ThomasComment by jangregory: And of course, Owen didn't crib this story from anywhere. Clearly, he came across both of these articles on... 3 Responses | Other threads
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journalismism
Foursquare Founder Tells Two Tales About Filched Dodgeball Code
Too busy partying in Austin, Dennis Crowley never replied to our questions about whether Foursquare was built on code owned by Google. He's denied it to other press, but we hear he's telling buddies otherwise. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by GChin: "If only Fost had thought to factcheck that with, say, any of the South By Southwest attendees to whom Crowley... 3 Responses | Other threads
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los angeles times
LAT to California: Drop Dead [Reuters]
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Media Crack
Print Media Is Officially Scary Now
Mailing it in for Hamilton Nolan, who's, er, on assignment, I'm here with your post-inaugural, Nobama media column. More »
5,539
By Owen ThomasComment by semiserious: What is it with powerful gays and their taste for much younger men? Not like straighties are any better, but... 5 Responses | Other threads
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journalismism
The Rules For Interviewing Anderson Cooper
Anderson Cooper prefers to address questions about his sexuality with on-camera winks, nudges and the like. There's a reason the CNN anchor is not asked for more direct answers in formal interviews. More »
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By Ryan TateComment by Madge Gristle: Kathy Griffin put it best - he's a well respected journalist who has gone into countries in the middle of... 15 Responses | Other threads
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los angeles times
A Newspaper's Online Fairy Tale
The editors and writers of the Los Angeles Times could shut off the presses tomorrow and live off its website, media pundit Jeff Jarvis claims. But the numbers don't add up. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Lizstless: Or, you know, maybe like decades of knowledge selling ads actually is worth something and they actually sell for more... 1 Responses | Other threads
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anthony pellicano
LA Times Reporter Went To Bat For Convicted Wiretapper
Chuck Philips: "They deceived Pellicano and his lawyers for six months, knowing it was a violation of his Constitutional rights .'" [Patterico] -
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los angeles times
Film Critic Carina Chocano Laid Off in Latest 'LAT' Cutbacks
Yet more bad news from the abattoir better known as the Los Angeles Times newsroom: Film critic Carina Chocano is one of 75 staffers put down today by butchers at the Tribune Co., bringing to 325 the number of LAT employees laid off since last summer and the fourth full-time film critic to vanish from a Tribune daily since July 2007. More » -
newspapers
Old Newspapers Had Enough News to Kill a Dog
Everybody knows that the L.A. Times has been in trouble lately, with shrinking ad sales and dealing with the outbursts of their eccentric billionaire CEO and threatening to suing their staff memo-leakers. But LA Observed reminds us that back in the day, the paper was so big that it killed a dog: More »
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By SheilaComment by Unfun: I will not snark about dead dogs. This makes me want to kiss my pugs. Sad face. Christ, Gawker... 9 Responses | Other threads
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Terror Campaign
'LAT' Hit By Real Domestic Terrorist
Come on, crazies, not the old mysterious white powder gag again. What is it about political psychopaths, abortion freaks, and Anthrax? They've got a fetish for the stuff. Get a new move, terrorists! "I'm told the Los Angeles Times mailroom opened a hand-scrawled letter today that read 'death to Obama' and contained a white powder that triggered a call to the FBI and a city hazardous materials team." More »
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Comment by Daria: Wants a dollarmillionare: Why do nutjobs have a thing about saving babies? They always want to save some babies. Even racist nutjobs want... 14 Responses | Other threads
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burning bright
While these parts have been known to house a predatory cougar or two, nothing could have prepared us for the family of bobcats who have moved into a foreclosed home in Lake Elsinore. The brood — at least two adult cats and three kittens — have lived in the house for weeks, sunning themselves on an outside wall and hanging out by the koi pond. "They are great neighbors," said local Scott Brown, "and as long as they don't want to baby-sit my kids, it's not a problem." That's how it starts, Scott, but before you know it, you're forced to drag your autistic young brother through the house in a desperate attempt at survival. Be wary. [LAT] -
los angeles times
Bloggers Scolded Against Using "Pissed Off"
Could the editors at the Los Angeles Times be any more useless? Their newspaper is going down in flames, with cash flow declines ranked worst among the deeply troubled Tribune Company newspapers. Their best hope for salvation is the Web, where the paper is desperately behind upstart competitors like Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood and the Huffington Post. Just last year the paper installed new publishing software that couldn't even handle hyperlinks. And yet newsroom "leaders" just spent 18 months in a fucking (ahem) committee debating what swears LATimes.com bloggers should be allowed to use, and when. The byzantine machinations involved some sort of appeal to a "ruling" of a special committee about some formal guidelines, and of course resulted in a tedious and useless memo that should make anyone who ever cared about the once-great newspaper want to slit his wrists. Its insufferable, self-indulgent stupidity lies after the jump. Oh, and it basically says no one can use "pissed off" because it's crude and might tarnish the LA Times's sterling image in the remaining months before the paper's now-all-but-inevitable collapse. More »
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By Ryan TateComment by Hiphopopotamus: Ooooh! You mentioned Finke! Now she gets to write an article that another media source used her name! 1 Responses | Other threads
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los angeles times
'Jackie Brown,' and Other Glaring Mistakes on the LA Times's Top 25 Films List
There's a place and time for discussing the inanity of movie lists — usually early January, right when the radius of critics' annual Top 10 circle jerk is at its widest. But a few prime exhibits pop up throughout the year as well, such as last weekend's Los Angeles Times feature selecting the top 25 Los Angeles films of the last 25 years. While we wouldn't begrudge the contributors' right to close out the late-summer news cycle as energetically as possible (we've all seen what happens when John Horn gets bored), the tactical and intellectual errors that occurred along the way are an unfortunate example of zeal gone horribly wrong. More » -
los angeles times
Red-Headed Step-Fox: The cycle of abusive box-office analysis is renewed today at the Los Angeles Times, where John Horn broke out his calculator and a hot wire hanger in assessing this summer's winners (Paramount, Warner Bros.) and losers (Sony, Disney). And, as per recent LAT tradition, 20th Century Fox was carted in for the grand finale, an epic pinata smackdown invoking everything from Meet Dave to Fox films' Rotten Tomatoes ratings while once again completely ignoring the total! phenomenon! that was The Happening; at last glance, Manoj's Mint broke $150 million worldwide, which isn't exactly a flop under the circumstances. Anyway, there's always next year, Horn writes, "when it will have sequels to X-Men and Ice Age and a film version of The A-Team." And don't forget Watchmen! Seriously, John — is this even your regular beat? [LAT] -
los angeles times
The Case Of The Scheming Flack Girlfriend
Former LA Times editor Andres Martinez's new lawsuit is a sad story of betrayal that should convince any journalist never to date a publicist, unless she can somehow find one who is not crafty and constantly scheming to leverage the relationship. Martinez left his job editing the editorial page amid scandal. He tried to have film producer Brian Grazer guest edit his section even though his girlfriend Kelly Mullens was flacking for Grazer. Dirty and stupid and unethical, right? Well, hold one one second: Martinez says in his suit that Mullens promised him she had recused herself from working with Grazer, a client of her firm, at least on this one project. This turned out to be an awful awful lie. Writes Matt Belloni at the Hollywood Reporter: More » -
lat
Outfoxed: Though ticket prices continue to rise and box office records are broken nearly every week, this will be 20th Century Fox's first summer without a $100 million hit since (yikes) 1997. How could anyone have predicted such dire earnings from a blockbuster slate that boasted Space Chimps, an X-Files sequel made a decade too late, and twin bombs from Eddie Murphy and M. Night Shyamalan? As the LAT's Patrick Goldstein notes, Fox toppers Tom Rothman and Jim Gianopulos have held their position for nine years — will this be the year one (or both) gets the axe? If so, we hear there's a certain toothy mogul who might be looking for work... [LAT] -
los angeles times
Dog Days: By August 29, the struggling L.A. Times will have laid off 150 of its employees following job cuts announced last month. Exactly what does the paper plan to do with its diminished resources now that so many of its "non-essential" employees are gone? Why, run a 35-page "Stars With Puppies" slideshow, of course! The Elizabeth Snead-penned feature, entitled, "Do Hollywood stars look cuter with puppies?" (spoiler alert: yes) is full of penetrating insights like, "Ali Simms has never looked cuter than in this photo with a tiny teddy-bear-faced Yorkie puppy." It's enough to drive a terminated employee to drink — or at least eat penis. [Los Angeles Times] -
los angeles times
Stats
I'm not sure what is more telling: the fact that the Los Angeles Times website got only 127m pageviews last month; or the troubled newspaper's belief that's a statistic to trumpet. The West Coast's largest newspaper has the traffic of a humble blog network.
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By Nick DentonComment by jezebeldavis: @Aaron Altman: I was just thinking that! Mindreader. more » | Other threads
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the chart
America's Fattest Newspaper Goes On A Scary Diet
Tribune Company's Los Angeles Times is one of the most hard-pressed big-city newspapers: the parent company is over-leveraged; the local market reeling from a real estate crash; and like all papers the LAT is suffering from competition from the internet. Even so, the 150 newsroom layoffs announced today are shockingly swingeing. Together with buyouts announced at the start of the year, the latest cuts will leave the Los Angeles Times—once one of the fattest papers in the country—with 20% fewer editorial positions than last year and 42% fewer than a decade ago. More » -
m night shyamalan
Dear Reader: Please pay no attention to John Horn, who should be ashamed of himself today — not just for his facile collection of "lessons" studios have "learned" so far this summer, but for daring to suggest that The Happening was anything but a success for Fox and Manoj Night Shyamalan. The effrontery! Even the most casual of observers would know that Manoj's Mint has yielded more than $113 million worldwide in two weeks of release, which is more than fine for all parties involved. (Never mind the 66% drop during its second weekend — it's all profit for Manoj!) Then there's this silly matter of viewers rejecting darker-themed movies like War Inc. (John Cusack would beg to differ) and Horn's pedestrian observation that "Paramount is on fire." And anyway, that's not even accurate — Paramount has topped $1 billion for the year, and Universal is on fire. Christ, John — get it straight! [LAT] -
defamer
Yesterday's hearty Defamer welcome of Patrick Goldstein to the blogosphere was one of many around the Web, with Nikki Finke's hat-tip today falling the most conspicuously between "housewarming present" and "gentle kick in the nuts." To wit: "I'm told that, despite heavy promotion by the paper and other media, Goldstein's blog on Monday only received 1,102 page views, placing #35 out of 50 blogs at the LA Times," Finke wrote. "But I'm rooting for you, Patrick, I really am." Awwww! And that headline, Nikki! "Goldstein On Finke; Finke On Goldstein"? Get a room, already. [DHD] -
patrick goldstein
Everyone Gets a Blog, Including the LAT's Blog-Hating Patrick Goldstein
The work of "Big Picture" columnist Patrick Goldstein accurately reflects the LA Times' dedication to producing nothing but the hardest of hard-hitting entertainment journalism: his columns, which run the gamut from "Here Is An Old Producer I Had Lunch With" to "This Focus Group, Made Up Exclusively of Ten-Year-Olds from Brentwood, Has a Lot to Teach Us" can always be counted on for a kid-gloves examination of this city's major export. Though Goldstein is persona non grata in the blogosphere for deriding the effect blogs have had on print journalism, it may not surprise you to learn he has now become that which he hated most. Says FishbowlLA: More » -
los angeles times
LA Times Not Afraid To Ask The Meta Questions
Come for the Secret Diary Of A Call Girl review, stay for the copy-editing questions. (She found the show surprisingly boring and, yes, a subhead would work in both places.) [Los Angeles Times] -
media
The Art Of The Tasteful Sell Out
There was much consternation in the media world earlier this week when it emerged that Tribune's Los Angeles Times would take its Sunday magazine out of the hands of trained journalists and hand control over to the newspaper's sales staff. Editor Russ Stanton even insisted that the magazine's name be changed so readers didn't get the idea that it still had, you know, integrity. But journalists are as much to blame as the business side for the fact that their work increasingly sounds like catalog copy. Here's ink-stained wretch Rob Walker in his most recent "Consumed" column for New York Times Magazine: More »
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By Ryan TateComment by strikethrough: I don't know what you are talking about since I don't read that trash. I get my news from SkyMall. more » | Other threads
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journalismism
Sam Zell To Chainsaw Tribune Papers
Tribune CEO Sam Zell famously cursed one of his journalists earlier this year when asked whether refocusing the company would undermine serious journalism. He called such thinking "classic... journalistic arrogance." But now Zell is struggling to service $12.8 billion in debt amid a weak economy, and he's planning what sounds like mass layoffs and newsprint reductions to meet the challenge. The cuts would fall hardest on the journalists who produce the least output — just the sort of emphasis on quantity over quality once-supportive reporters and editors at the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Orlando Sentinel are likely to abhor: More »
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By Ryan TateComment by IndianSlipper: I'll buy the first 10 people laid off an Old Style at the Billy Goat today at lunch time. (2... more » | Other threads
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party report
The future of Jonathan Zittrain (and how to stop it)
Really, I wasn't trying to be posh for the book party Arianna Huffington threw Saturday for Oxford scholar Jonathan Zittrain and his new book, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It." I pulled up to Larry Ellison's Pacific Heights manse in a black Town Car because that's the only vehicle I was able to flag down in North Beach. Huffington, the pundit turned blog mogul, greeted me at the door and extracted a promise of my best behavior before allowing me in. (One wonders what these people think my worst behavior might be, and if they realize how tempting living down to their expectations is.) More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Rachel Marsden: Jetzt stereotypieren Sie Deutsch. Und mich. :) more » | Other threads
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sam zell
Crazy—and 'unpatriotic'
Just as one tires of Sam Zell's schtick—the 66-year-old newspaper proprietor's folksy pep talks to Tribune newsrooms have become sadistic rituals—there comes a useful reminder of the alternative, the pompous grandees of journalism who used to run the newspapers. Six former editors of Zell's Los Angeles Times have spoken up, in the manner of retired generals opposing the war in Iraq, with generally unhelpful suggestions for the former real-estate magnate. Worst of the bunch is Dean Baquet, now Washington, DC bureau chief for the New York Times. Zell's threat to dismantle the Tribune newspapers' national and foreign coverage is not merely shocking, or stupid—according to Baquet, it's no less than "unpatriotic".
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By Nick DentonComment by belltolls: As a former Chicagoan I can tell you that until the winter snows and ice melt in July, the iron... more » | Other threads
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the end of ideas
Compounding (and maybe even stealing) our acute grief at the news of Short Circuit Redux, LA Times columnist Jay Fernandez today mulls over the pandemic of horror glutting the marketplace. With this week's release of Prom Night leading the way, Fernandez counts more than a dozen do-overs en route to theaters, including the certain evisceration of classics like Friday the 13th, The Birds and Near Dark; a Stanford professor deigns to comment that audiences can't be bothered to think and dread at the same time, so they take comfort in the familiar. Kind of like Fernandez himself, in a way, who latched on to our Short Circuit distress by reworking our "End of Ideas" tag for a lede ("Smell that? It's the decay of original ideas"), citing stars Steve Guttenberg and Ally Sheedy being "at the height of their powers" (we said they were "in top form") and hitting the 1986 original's IMDB Quotes page to flesh out our mutual concern over Fisher Stevens' garish Indian stereotype. We feel your pain, Jay — but you already knew that, didn't you? [LAT] -
defamer
If Critics Aren't Dead Yet, Patrick Goldstein Will Finish the Job
If film critics are in fact a dying breed, we at Defamer would like to urge them to get on with it. It's a little cruel, we know; some of our best friends are critics, and we'll miss them terribly. But if we have to read another motherfucking article like the one Patrick Goldstein wrote today about the Demise of the Print Film Critic, we'll suck it up, go door-to-door and whack every reviewer we know our own selves just to make it stop. More » -
print is dead
'LAT' to Replace Axed Reporters with J-School Brats?
Tribune CEO Sam Zell's plan to cut 400 to 500 jobs from his newspaper fiefdom—including 150 positions at the Los Angeles Times alone—could be good news for some eager younglings. Rumors are mounting that LAT publisher David Hiller is hot to replace all those costly veteran reporters with J-School kids just hungry and indebted enough to work for scraps. If you've heard anything, kindly hit the tips button. [najp.org]
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Comment by BlinkyMcChuck: @MrInBetween: It would be like the total opposite of the Huffington Post. more » | Other threads
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rumormonger
Ex-Yahoo Neil Budde lands at the Los Angeles Times
Neil Budde, the founding editor of WSJ.com and former Yahoo News chief has won a new gig at the Los Angeles Times. Despite the woes of print newspapers, trading Jerry Yang as a boss for foulmouthed motorcyclist Sam Zell sounds like a good bet right now. -
tribune
Sam Zell Cuts 500 Newspaper Jobs At Tribune, 150 At 'LAT' Alone
And so it begins. Tribune CEO Sam Zell announced in an email today to employees that he'll be cutting 400-500 positions across the company's various newspaper divisions. "Unfortunately, I can't turn this ship from its course of the past 10 years within just a few months," Zell wrote. "Further, while I will do everything in my power to drive, pull and drag this company forward, I can't promise we won't see additional position eliminations in the future." So reassuring! In an email to Los Angeles Times staff, publisher David Hiller said a third of the 150 spots he expects to cut will come from the newsroom. Last week a dozen Tribune HR employees got the Zell ax, and in Florida, the CEO warned Sun-Sentinel employees more cuts were ahead. "If you want to visit the corporate office, you ought to do it in the next month." Both Hiller's and Zell's emails are after the jump. More » -
sam zell
Sam Zell to Remaining LAT Employees: You Are Now Free To Facebook!
Sure he'll stand idly by as the Los Angeles Times fires a succession of editors with backbone but Sam Zell, the mercurial owner of the Tribune Company, is a laissez-faire kinda guy. In a recent memo to staff he informed them now they can surf the internets completely unmonitored. " I do not see how a member of the Fourth Estate, dedicated to protecting the First Amendment, can censor what its own employees and partners can see." Is Zell truly the internet's Adam Smith or has he simply realized that if passengers on the RMS Titanic had been able to use Facebook, they would have all slid into the Atlantic pacified and peacefully? Full memo after the jump. More »
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By Joshua SteinComment by HookerfaceAnon: @viruswithshoes: Exactly, what else should you be expected to do once you've been laid off? Pretend to work? OHFUCKNO. more » | Other threads
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rants
In Which The Internet Invents Yellow Journalism And Poor Taste!
Web hits, "the current fool's gold of the newspaper industry," are bringing down the level of discourse in this country, says veteran Los Angeles Times sports columnist Bill Dwyre, in a column that leads with the saga of Golfweek's editor, who was fired after sticking a noose on the cover last week. The press, Dwyre says, spends too much time covering Britney and public demonstrations of stupidity, separate entities in this case. There's a war on, you know. What? We had no idea! This is a perfectly valid sentiment, but that's the problem—it's a sentiment, not an argument and it's about ten years past tired. I'm pretty sure William Randolph Hearst would have something to say about the web getting all the credit for inventing the proper way to monger a scandal or bait a race. (See racially insensitive image above, c. 1894.) More »
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By MaggieComment by Dusty in the Wind: @Michael Jahn: Interesting... I wouldn't be surprised. more » | Other threads
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the wire
The Writers Always Have The Last Say
John Carroll (pictured speaking) became a newspaper martyr when in 2005 he resigned as editor of the Los Angeles Times rather than implement budget cuts demanded by the penny-pinching corporate overlords. But that wasn't enough for David Simon, creator of The Wire, the HBO drama about crime, politics and the media in Baltimore. Simon, a former reporter at the Baltimore Sun, still blames Carroll for "single-handedly destroying" the newspaper; he's the model for the bland manager of Simon's television show who urges staff to do "more with less". [Baltimore Sun via Fimoculous]
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By Nick DentonComment by HobeforeHos: Wow, she provides the inside scoop mere months after it was detailed in the New Yorker. Ladies and gentlemen, your... more » | Other threads
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anxiety
Publishers Wrung Their Hands A Bit More Than Usual In 2007
"The year was punctuated by anxiety over the decline of many newspaper book review sections and worry that publishing, with its old-fashioned way of printing books on paper and shipping them to stores or to online services, can't keep up with a fragmented, increasingly distracted and digital world," according to the LA Times, which was one of many newspapers that cut back or altered its book review coverage in 2007. Another problem was that there just weren't that many exciting books this year, according to Times Book Review editor Dwight Garner: "There was a lot of excitement about books by major writers... But all of them were mild disappointments." But wait, there's hope! More »
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By Emily GouldComment by belltolls: I worked in publishing for about a decade. Here is some free advice. Forget the electronic thingie...nobody is ever going... more » | Other threads
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no, bobby orr, no!
LA Times media columnist Tim Rutten castigated the sports journalists of America over the weekend for not covering "the transformation of baseball clubhouses into the plush equivalent of crack houses." Then he went on to recount a blind item about a "very veteran National Hockey League defenseman," who told him decades ago that "If I were a racehorse, they'd never let me on the track." Well, that's the first time that quote appears on Nexis, so we're gonna assume that either Mr. Rutten was writing for the Podunk Weekly or that he also turned a blind eye to sports doping. [LAT] -
awkward situations
CNN, 'LATimes' And Politico To Host January Debates
The final two presidential debates before Super Tuesday will be co-hosted at the end of January by CNN, the Los Angeles Times and Politico. Apparently, nobody relayed news of this partnership to LA Times media critic Tim Rutten, who, over the weekend, called CNN "corrupt" and "incompetent" for botching last week's "debacle masquerading as a presidential debate." Awkward! Also, we think it would make some damn fine television if Politico reporter Ben Smith was allowed to ask Rudy Giuliani a question on live TV, such as "How much do you hate me for writing about your mistress slush fund and exposing the blueprints for your presidential campaign?" [LAT]
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By MaggieComment by PandoraSpocks: @PimpMyCouch: Depends on the state. Some have "Open" primaries where you can vote for anybody. Others have only Democrat or... more » | Other threads
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newspapers
Dead-tree newspaper readership down, Web readership up
Newspapers sales have fallen 3 percent year-over-year. With the exception of USA Today and the Los Angeles Times, the vast majority of major papers lost subscribers. This year the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the industry organization that reports subscriber information, included online readership in the report. In the last two years, half of 88 papers examined showed no change or an increase in combined print and online readings. That's good news for the news industry — online readers tend to be younger and more attractive to advertisers. That's fine. Maybe more papers should follow the New York Times' example — they may be just a fancy blog, but that's what the kids are reading these days. (Photo by AP/Mark Lennihan)
los angeles times
New York, 12:46 AM
Fri Jul 17
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