Austin Beutner has been named the new publisher and chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Times. What does the future hold for the LA Times with the appointment? Also, the Police Commission is meeting tomorrow to decide whether to reappoint LAPD Chief Charlie Beck for a second five-year term. Then,
What does the future bode for the LA Times in the Austin Beutner era?
Austin Beutner has been named the new publisher and chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Times.
The 54-year-old was the first deputy mayor of Los Angeles and the city’s former jobs czar under Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. But he first made his name first in the world of high finance on Wall Street, as the youngest partner of the Blackstone Group and then co-founder of Evercore Partners. Beutner briefly ran for the Los Angeles mayorship in 2013 before dropping out of the race.
Beutner’s appointment came amid an industry-wide decline in print advertising revenue. The Los Angeles Times, like many news publications across the country, is trying to monetize its web presence to make up for the loss.
Beutner has called Los Angeles home since 2000. He succeeds former Times publisher Eddy W. Hartenstein, who recommended him for the job.
As a LA Times reader, what do you think of the appointment? What does the future hold for the LA Times with the appointment? What is the role of a publisher? How much editorial influence would Beutner yield at the newspaper?
Guests:
Alice Walton, KPCC politics reporter
Gabriel Kahn, Director, Future of Journalism at the Annenberg Innovation Lab; former LA bureau chief at The Wall Street Journal
A day before Police Commission meeting, a look at Chief Beck’s tenure
The Police Commission is meeting tomorrow to decide whether to reappoint LAPD Chief Charlie Beck for a second five-year term.
Crime in the city has decreased for 11 years in a row and Beck has played an important role in keeping Los Angeles safe in the face of budget and departmental cuts. But Beck has also come under fire for favoritism and inconsistency in dishing out discipline. Of late, he has been embroiled in a scandal of sorts involving a horse the department bought that was subsequently revealed to have been owned by Beck's daughter. And over the weekend, the LA Times published an analysis finding that the LAPD has misclassified some 1,200 serious violent crimes as minor offenses.
How does the reappointment process work? What criteria does the five-person Police Commission use for making their decision? What’s your opinion of Chief Beck’s performance thus far?
Guests:
Erika Aguilar, Crime and Politics Reporter at KPCC
Frank Stoltze, Crime and Politics Reporter at KPCC
Ben Poston, LA Times assistant data editor who led the Times’ analysis into the LAPD’s violent crime misclassification
Raphe Sonenshein, Executive Director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at CSU Los Angeles
Lessons from the science of loneliness
Science writer Robin Marantz Henig admitted recently that although she has a relatively full social calendar and a happy marriage, most of the people in her circle are closer with other people than they are with her.
Essentially, Henig confessed she suffers from loneliness. Searching for cures or answers in psychology research reveals that the worst symptoms of loneliness are also reinforcing causes. Increased loneliness is linked to increased negativity, depressive thinking and heightened sensitivity, according to research by John Cacioppo and Louise Hawkley.
And just how much pleasure do we get when socializing with negative, hypersensitive depressives? What is less bleak about this research is that it shows lonely people play a role in their situations and could play active roles in changing them. What is your experience with loneliness? Better yet, what is your cure?
Guest:
John Cacioppo, Ph.D., Professor in the Department of Psychology; Director, Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience, The University of Chicago
Should some college students have the right to carry concealed weapons?
Dartmouth officials have rejected a student’s appeal to carry a gun on campus to protect her from a man accused of stalking her. Taylor Woolrich, 20, originally from San Diego and has been harassed by Richard Bennett, 67, since 2011.
Bennett began stalking Woolrich in San Diego when she worked at a local coffee shop. His most recent arrest resulted from appearing at her dorm in New Hampshire. Previously, Bennett was arrested for carrying items in his car deemed to be a “rape kit” that included a noose and knife after having a restraining order placed by the Woolrich family. Bennett is facing charges in San Diego County Superior Court with a bail posted at $30,000 that could have him released at any time.
Woolrich, who fears for her safety, is considering dropping out. There are currently nine states who allow firearms on college campuses which include Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah and Wisconsin. Because she is 20 years old she is younger than the 21-year-old restriction for carrying a firearm.
Should more states allow firearms on campus?
Guests:
Matthew Kirby, West Coast Regional Director, Students for Concealed Carry - a national advocacy organization
Paul Neuharth, Criminal Defense Attorney with an emphasis on Constitutional safeguards (2nd, 4th and 5th Amendments) based in San Diego
Roberta Valente, legislative firearms policy expert, National Domestic Violence Hotline
Amazon takes on Disney and Hachette with pre-order policies
Amazon’s prohibitive sales restrictions and stall on pre-orders is now affecting Disney. Amazon halted pre-order sales for Captain America, Maleficent, and other films, a tactic the company uses often to negotiate with media companies.
Although consumers can pre-order the Disney films from other sites and even stream them on Amazon, the site has notified users that they will be notified when the movies become available.
This tactic has sped along financial disputes with other companies, including Time Warner Films, but has been more protracted with publisher Hachette. Amazon has come under fire for refusing to discount Hachette books, stopping pre-orders, and delaying shipments. This weekend, a group of over 900 authors joined together to sign a letter published as a paid advertisement in Sunday’s New York Times speaking out against Amazon’s policies.
Amazon argues that Hachette should be criticized instead: the site wants to sell Hachette’s e-books for less money, claiming that a digital copy has less value and that Amazon is taking the same percent of the profits -- it’s Hachette that doesn’t want to pay its authors. As the standoffs continue, anger at the situation is clearly rising.
How do Amazon’s disputes with Disney and Hachette affect consumers? Who should be making pricing decisions for online sales of books and media? How will the conflicts resolve?
Guest:
Greg Bensinger, reporter for the Wall Street Journal
How South Korea manufactured cool en masse
When a South Korean music hit swept the globe in 2012, it was confirmation the country's transformation was massive - and nearly as rapid as the beats of "Gangnam Style."
Author Euny Hong remembers her schools days in Seoul's posh Gangnam neighborhood in the mid-1980s. Strict dress codes, regular brownouts and water shutoffs were commonplace at school and home. Then at the turn of the millenium South Korea hurtled rapidly into the 21st century, repaying of billions of dollars in loans to the IMF, wiring the country for fast Internet and creating a Ministry of Culture to propagate brand Korea.
How did the country go from miniskirt bans to mass producing boy bands? How influential was the success of Samsung, formerly known as "Samsuck?" What's next for Korean culture?
Guest:
Euny Hong, Author, “The Birth of Korean cool: How One Nation is Conquering the World Through Pop Culture;” Journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, International Herald Tribune, and more.