Results tagged “latimes”

LA Times columnist Steve Lopez teased us Monday about his adventure of getting recommendation approved for medical marijuana by a gynecologist and today his experience was told in full. An excerpt: I stood to show him where my back hurts. He asked me to bend down, and I demonstrated that I couldn't touch my toes, but I don't think he could see that. He hadn't moved from his seat. I pointed again to my lower back and asked if there were a disc that low.

Figures are in this morning for newspaper circulation nationwide, and the numbers reflect the downward trend symptomatic of a changing media landscape. Here in Los Angeles, the Times' circulation for a six-month period ending September 30th, "was at 657,467 for the Monday-Friday run," notes LA Observed, which shows an 11.05% drop from the same period for 2008.

It's very common for reporters to cross the line and become communicators for agencies they once reported on and investigated. Today comes the news that Metro is launching their blog (finally!) with two notable names behind it. From the LA Times is Steve Hymon, the paper's former transit reporter. And from the blogLAsphere is Fred Camino, the downtown resident who created the blog MetroRiderLA. It's called The Source and Metro says it "is your window into what's happening at" the agency. "We'll be writing about agency news, funding and policy issues, and how to get the most out of transit and Los Angeles."

There are some staff changes happening at the Times this week. Tina Daunt, who wrote at the paper for 20 years, is among an unknown number of people laid off. Last night, she wrote on her blog:

It's quite a change from the old look, but a welcome one at that. It's more mature and newsie with a hat tip to the past--much better than that corporate turquoise thing that was going on before. There's an interactive tour you can take and over at the Readers' Represenative blog, online managing editor Meredith Artley explains and highlights the key changes made, such as better navigation, the new font (Georgia!), a faster loading video application and other features. Your thoughts?

You want to eat fresh seasonal produce that's grown by area farmers. You want to help your local economy and not line the coffers of corporate America. You appreciate that an Oxnard-grown strawberry--one that's softer, smaller, redder, riper, and sweeter--is about a thousand times tastier, better for you, better for the environment, and better for your fellow Californians than the one that's bigger, harder, paler, less flavorful and found in a big plastic box inside the store that feels like a big plastic box.

With tens of thousands of crimes in Los Angeles, the LAPD's crime map tool will never be 100% perfect, but missing 40% of all reported crimes is a far cry from being complete. Thanks to an LA Times investigation--the second about the LAPD's touted crime map--today we learn that 26 homicides, 137 rapes and over 10,000 other nonviolent thefts remain off map, but not intentionally says the LAPD.

CNN is reporting that Michael Jackson's body will be transported to Neverland Ranch on Thursday for a public viewing on Friday and a private memorial service on Sunday. However, the LA Times says things are not exactly confirmed: "A source knowledgeable about Neverland affairs said that no decision had been made. 'Nothing has been confirmed,' the source told The Times. 'The family is still trying to work it out.'" Jackson's will has been found and a service is scheduled for next week in Gary, Indiana, where he might be buried, is in the works, says CNN.

Pulitzer Prize winner and 18-year LA Times veteran Drex Heikes will join LA Weekly as their Editor later this summer. Most recently, Heikes was at the Las Vegas Sun where he was honored with the Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Public Service for an investigation he assigned and edited. While at the LA Times, he served as editor of the Sunday magazine and as foreign affairs editor in the paper's Washington bureau. He will take the Weekly's reigns on August 17th. Earlier this month, Editor Laurie Ochoa parted ways with the paper.

The LAPD's high public ratings in an LA Times poll may partly be due to Mayor Villaraigosa, but he earned a 55% approval rating with the same poll takers. The upside? With LA voters, he could win the Democratic nomination for Governor's seat at 38%, beating out Jerry Brown (32%) and Gavin Newsom (13%). Goverornor Schwarzenegger's approval rating was 29%.

Last night, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger tweeted, asking followers to try to fix the budget themselves on LA Times' wicked-cool budget calculator. "Tell me how you do," he said. Now that's Government 2.0, or whatever, at its prime. So, this is how we did, amazingly earning the state an extra $840 million. Of course, that came at the expense of the education system and your taxes. Here's how we solved the budget crisis, making enemies the whole:

They just won't go away. Not even eclipse-able by Frozen Yogurt, the ubiquitous cupcake has held Los Angeles in its sugary, frosted, portable grip for the past few years, and doesn't seem to be letting go. In today's LA Times, food writer Mary MacVean looks into the cupcake phenomenon and tries to unravel its sweet mystery. Why do we still adore cupcakes?

Earlier this year the LA Times launched their "Mapping L.A. Neighborhoods" project, when they released some maps with basic neighborhood boundaries and offered themselves up to the mercy (or malice) of the public for feedback and input. And spoke we did, giving the project managers plenty to work with, prompting them to make "nearly 100 boundary changes, producing an updated map showing 113 neighborhood subdivisions within the city," they say.

            

Before a recent trip to Tokyo, the LA Times published Steve Lopez's column entitled "L.A. could learn some lessons from Tokyo". In his piece he praises Tokyo for its clean taxis, beautiful parks, and bike commuters.

Did you watch Southland on NBC last night? Only four shows in and it looks like they'll be green lit for season two already. Last night's episode was extremely interesting, literally ripping topics from the headlines just months old:

In the streets of Los Angeles millions of connections are made, be it with a friendly gesture or flirty smile. Yet often times fear gets in the way and connections go unrealized as a person passes up a conversation to continue with their day, only to end up thinking, “What if?” Enter Craigslist Missed Connections, where individuals put up posts detailing random interactions they’ve had with others, ultimately hoping it will catch the person’s eye and a relationship can be made.

The 2009 Pulitzer Prize winners were announced today, and LA Times Metro staff writers Bettina Boxall and Julie Cart were named as awardees in the category of Explanatory Reporting. The duo were behind the series "Big Burn," which examined the "growth and cost of wildfires." The category seeks material that "illuminates a significant and complex subject, demonstrating mastery of the subject, lucid writing and clear presentation, in print or online or both," and the committee hailed Boxall and Cart's work as "fresh and painstaking."

As expected, readers and writers alike were not happy about yesterday's NBC fake news story advertisement paired with horizontal ad on the front page of the Times. Around 100 newsroom staff apparently signed this petition:

Playa Del Ray resident Joe Talamo is not your average 19 year old. The guy's already earned $4 million in purse money as one of horse racing's hot young stars, he's been featured on a reality television series, Animal Planet's Jockeys and in all likelihood is on his way to one of the biggest events in sports - The Kentucky Derby.

It's almost a sport these days: Spotting the gaffes in the print edition of the LA Times. After this week's most recent rounds of letting-go at the city's fledgling old guard news source, readers keep wondering if maybe they let a few too many people go, namely the ones who would make sure the stories had, you know, like, headlines. Yesterday, Lies.com noticed a few things missing from the news; instead of headlines the placeholders "tag briefs subhead large," "tag briefs subhead," and "ALL-CAPS LEDE-IN" were left in place. Says the blogger of the flubs: "In an earlier era, the editorial folks would have said, 'No way can you print it like this. We have to eat the cost of fixing it, or our reputation for competence will suffer horribly.' But if that conversation took place, apparently the editorial folks at the Times don’t have that kind of pull anymore." [h/t Patterico's Pontifications]

It's a sad day for transportation news in Los Angeles. Veteran journalist Steve Hymon was one of the many laid off at the LA Times today, according to Kevin Roderick at LA Observed. Hymon, in our opinion, was one of the best writers at the paper. He's succinct, clear, creative, has an ear for bullshit coming out of city officials mouths and is happy to call them on it. Before covering transportation issues, he was on the city hall beat and on a team that was honored with a public service Pulitzer for covering the King-Drew medical center in 2005. More than 50 people are expected to be laid off today at the paper.

If you only read the LA Times local section online, you wouldn't have noticed know the difference, but today the paper dropped the California section, rearranging the " A section, with local news starting on page A2, followed by national and foreign news, editorial pages and obits," notes Kevin Roderick at LA Observed. "The second or B section now has Business and some classified ads."

Jon Weisman, like many of us, wears many hats. A former reporter for the Daily News, Weisman, 41, is now a full-time editor for Variety Magazine, Dodger blogger and father of three. By his own admonition, it is a tough balancing act made even more difficult by his blogs' move from a domain with other baseball writers to the LA Times. The transition from Baseball Toaster, which recently shut down after Weisman and others left, to the Times, could represent a seismic shift in sports journalism. At once, it shows that the mainstream media is continuing to recognize blogs (and bloggers) as writers to be taken seriously while also giving great credence to the multitude of fans who regularly read Weisman's posts. Or it could mean very little in the scheme of things, if the humble Weisman is to be believed.

Established in 2002 thanks to a donation by warehouse owner Richard Meruelo, Skid Row's Excess Personal Property Warehouse is still the only of its kind in the nation. The Central City East Association created the warehouse out of the need clean up the streets and decrease the amount of homeless encampments by providing Skid Row's homeless with a place to keep their belongings.

LA County Board of Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky has jumped on the bandwagon of politicians begging the LA Times not to kill the California section of the paper. "Despite its profitability even in the current market, the Times recently boosted its street price by 50% even as it was accelerating plans to further degrade its news product by eliminating sections and cutting additional staff," he wrote in the letter (via LA Observed). "Charging the newspaper's customers more while giving them less is never sound economic policy, nor is it a sustainable journalistic practice. In essence, the Times' current trajectory can be described succinctly as follows: 'We are going to save the newspaper by destroying it.'" LA City Councilmember Eric Garcetti started a popular Facebook group to urge the section's survival.

After hearing the news of the the LA Times' decision to cut the California section, which gives us local, regional and state news, Councilman Eric Garcetti went on Facebook and created a group that now has over 1200 members. "Save the California section of the LA Times before it is too late," Garcetti writes. "We need a dedicated section that focuses on the news of the Los Angeles area and the state of California. Cutting the section is the latest blow in cutting the coverage of our community" (the NYT has also chimed in on the matter). Apparently, the Times had a choice in the matter--the Business section could have been axed. In related news, a Superbowl story in the paper this morning ended like this: "Editor's note: This review has been ended because of cutbacks. We wish the writer success in his future endeavors." Some say it was dissent, others say it was a contextual joke, but hey, there's truth in comedy.

LA Observed broke the news late last night that the LA Times will be cutting the state and local news section of the paper, the California section. "The publisher decided to fold local news inside the front section," Kevin Roderick wrote.

                     

On Monday night, while Norwegian rocker Ida Maria (MySpace) wowed the Spaceland (MySpace) crowd, Santa Barbara's Katy Perry (MySpace) returned to her singer-songwriter roots by headlining a sold out show at the Hotel Cafe (MySpace) in Hollywood, with support from last-minute openers Holly Conlan (MySpace) and Meiko (MySpace). LA-Underground observed that, "If [Perry] returned to the 50-capacity Genghis Cohen Cantina or Highland Grounds where she really started now that would be something (especially since Highland Grounds/The Dive closed last year)." But to say that this intimate show wasn't highly anticipated would be wildly inaccurate, as fans flew in from as far away as Vancouver, offering as much as $200 for a pair of tickets, and upwards of 15 paparazzi camped outside at the front and rear entrances for the duration of the evening.

It's probably one of the biggest cultural shocks for people relocating to Los Angeles for the very first time: the high cost of living, specifically renting. While most natives don't bat a single eyelash at $1200 studio apartments or $2500 two-bedrooms, the recently arrived are dumbfounded by exorbitant rates for totally mundane, even run-down apartments (Westwood Village, anyone?).