It's always sad to hear when a paper totally goes away. "It is with great regret that as of the March 26, 2009 issue, Southland Publishing, Inc. has decided to discontinue publishing the Los Angeles CityBeat alternative weekly publication," company President Bruce Bolkin wrote in a memo to staff and others about the closure. Citybeat started in 2003 and was a blast this summer when Alan Mittelstaedt got on the transportation and water efficiency beat. "Sources inside the paper expressed surprise at the decision. Under CityBeat publisher Will Swaim's direction the paper had recently gone from operating at a loss to breaking even," finds Tina Dupuy at FishbowlLA more ›

For six weeks, ex-LA City Beat writer Alan Mittelstaedt has been trying to get a hold of DWP's CEO and General Manager's personal water bills, something that must be released by law within 10 days of request. The reporter was ready to bring the DWP to court, but before that, the Daily News printed a story about Nahai's bills but left out the backstory on why Nahai was all of the sudden releasing this info. "[The Daily News reporter] deserves to be hauled before the Court of Public Opinion and denounced as a toady for writing a puff piece devoid of even a hint of the real reason that Nahai coughed up his bills and hired an auditor to examine waste at his 6,012-square-foot Benedict Canyon palace," Mittelstaedt wrote in reaction to the series of events. more ›