Editor and Publisher reports: “The San Francisco Chronicle is asking for 125 employees to consider taking a buyout package before the end of the year … The buyouts extend to employees who are represented by the Northern California Media Workers’ Guild as well as non-union staffers.” Read more at E&P. [thx nik]
Stories in Newspapers:
Notebook: Smut, honors, anger, hope and business
Sunday in San Francisco: Dirty Words: Litquake’s Tribute to Smut, “a giddy homage to titillation and obscenity … a fundraiser starring a who’s who of Bay Area writers.” Details.
Congratulations to Heyday Books founder Malcolm Margolin on his San Francisco Foundation’s Community Leadership Award. From the Heyday newsletter: “The Helen Crocker Russell Award recognizes individuals and [...]
Notebook: fREADom, “real” literacy and black humor
About Uncle Bobby: In Uncle Bobby’s Wedding a niece worries that her uncle’s upcoming wedding will change her relationship with him. P.S. The characters are guinea pigs. P.P.S. Uncle Bobby is gay. One Colorado library patron wrote the local paper to say the children’s picture book was a “slap in [her] face” and urged other [...]
Can the LA Times Book Review be saved?
Author Celeste Fremon talks about the prospects for an eleventh-hour turnaround with former LAT Book Editor Steve Wasserman at her Witness LA blog. Freeman also cites some key facts about why keeping the Book Section is a smart business move.
Curious as to where Los Angeles stands as a book buying market, yesterday I called the [...]
American newsroom 2008
New from the Pew Research Center and the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a look at the American daily newspaper of 2008, derived from a study of newspapers in 15 different cities from four distinct regions of the country and a survey of senior news executives from 259 newspapers.
“It has fewer pages than three years [...]
Book editors protest demise of LAT Book Review
LA Observed reports that four past book editors of the Los Angeles Times — Sonja Bolle, Digby Diehl, Jack Miles, and Steve Wasserman — have released a letter protesting the elimination of the paper’s Sunday Book Review. “We urge readers and writers alike to join with us as we protest this sad and backward step,” [...]
Bought out? Laid off? Leaving the news biz?
CJR is seeking parting comments from staffers leaving American newspapers, where hundreds of jobs have vanished this summer.
If you are among the members of that very large group, which hundreds of journalists joined in the last few days alone, your colleagues would like to hear your thoughts about the state of our business. What are [...]
In case you missed it: Does LA need the LAT?
Last week, LAT Chief Russ Stanton visited KRCW’s “Which Way LA?” to discuss the question with Warren Olney and panelists Emma Schafer, Public affairs consultant who runs Los Angeles Current Affairs Forum, Marc Cooper, Visiting Professor of Journalism at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Patrick Frey, Blogger, Patterico.com. From KCRW:
After the Chandler family sold [...]
No place like home: California authors on California
A commitment to the terroir: On June 30, University of California Press released Wines & Wineries of California’s Central Coast by William A. Ausmus (I ordered mine today) and the Los Angeles Times’ Corie Brown uses the occasion to offer an interesting look at the University of California Press’ move into wine books — they’ve [...]
Media meltdown (continued)
Newspapers are their own worst enemies right now. They’re panicking all over the place and that public desperation just makes them look pathetic.
Today LAObserved brings word that the Orange County Register is outsourcing copyediting to India.
And look at the terrible way LA Times writer Patrick Goldstein introduces his new entertainment blog, also from LAO:
As you [...]
Good idea
RJ Smith at Los Angeles magazine interviews the six living ex-editors of the Los Angeles Times about the paper’s past, its unpredictable new owner, and its prospects for the future. The story isn’t online yet, but LAObserved posts some choice morsels.
Saucy schemes and new stories
Isabel Allende’s memoir is just out: The Sums of Our Days… novelist Tobias Wolff is on the cover of Poets and Writers magazine (though the story is not yet available online)… Veronique de Turenne teams up with Ernest Marquez to chronicle Southern California’s century as a maritime hub in Port of Los Angeles… former Islands [...]
In the future, we will all be online journalists
In an especially dreary week of newspaper layoffs, buyouts and bemoaning, the Word Count blog serves up a timely and very interesting Q&A with Michelle Nicolosi, “One Writer’s Journey From Print to Online News.”
Michelle, formerly a reporter at the Orange County Register, is an assistant managing editor at the Seattle P.I. She runs the [...]
Duh
Craig Whitney, the NYT’s standards editor, sends an email telling the newsroom staff to avoid single-source profile stories in the wake of the Margaret Seltzer homegirl hoax because, um, well, people lie. “Live and learn,” Whitney concludes.
Live and learn?
You woulda thought the NYT would have learned that lesson a long time ago. It’s reporting 101. [...]
She never leaves home without one
Author and columnist Patt Morrison shares her trademark chapeau collection in a video at the Times website. “You wear the hat,” says Patt. “You never ever let the hat wear you.”
Books by the Bay
Frances Dinkelspiel, host of the Ghost Word blog, checks out the new San Francisco Chronicle Book Review and sez “I must pronounce it a success.”
The Chronicle’s editors reduced the size of the section to save printing costs, but it has the unintended consequence of making the review feel more intimate and cohesive. Editor Oscar Villalon [...]
Headline of the day
From LAObserved: “Zell delivers ‘psychic bloodbath’ in DC bureau.“
**And the next day folo: (Bleep) you … including David Horsey’s Zell cartoon strip in the Seattle P.I.
From today’s e-mail
A friend laments, “Man, it’s depressing scanning LaObserved — LA Times layoffs, Daily News layoffs, OC Register desperation…” Yeah, and it’s only Wednesday.
Book notes and a few random links for writers, foodies, and readers with sore throats
Dan Weintraub chronicles the governor’s Party of One … Michael Pollen shares his simple secrets … Charlie LeDuff leaves LA … Cody’s owner Andy Ross tries the agent biz … Jonathan Gold updates his must-eat list … plus: Kate’s flu tips, the Pinball Hall of Fame, and an all-expenses-paid adventure to India, [...]
Slice of Life
The New York Times just launched a first-person series about making a home in a foreign country. The first piece ran today — Emily Prager on moving to Shanghai — and it’s terrific. Prager writes:
…there is a grace about living here that I love. People do things here that machines do in America. Instead of [...]
Notebook: Smut, honors, anger, hope and business
Sunday in San Francisco: Dirty Words: Litquake’s Tribute to Smut, “a giddy homage to titillation and obscenity … a fundraiser starring a who’s who of Bay Area writers.” Details.
Congratulations to Heyday Books founder Malcolm Margolin on his San Francisco Foundation’s Community Leadership Award. From the Heyday newsletter: “The Helen Crocker Russell Award recognizes individuals and [...]
Notebook: fREADom, “real” literacy and black humor
About Uncle Bobby: In Uncle Bobby’s Wedding a niece worries that her uncle’s upcoming wedding will change her relationship with him. P.S. The characters are guinea pigs. P.P.S. Uncle Bobby is gay. One Colorado library patron wrote the local paper to say the children’s picture book was a “slap in [her] face” and urged other [...]
Can the LA Times Book Review be saved?
Author Celeste Fremon talks about the prospects for an eleventh-hour turnaround with former LAT Book Editor Steve Wasserman at her Witness LA blog. Freeman also cites some key facts about why keeping the Book Section is a smart business move.
Curious as to where Los Angeles stands as a book buying market, yesterday I called the [...]
American newsroom 2008
New from the Pew Research Center and the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a look at the American daily newspaper of 2008, derived from a study of newspapers in 15 different cities from four distinct regions of the country and a survey of senior news executives from 259 newspapers.
“It has fewer pages than three years [...]
Book editors protest demise of LAT Book Review
LA Observed reports that four past book editors of the Los Angeles Times — Sonja Bolle, Digby Diehl, Jack Miles, and Steve Wasserman — have released a letter protesting the elimination of the paper’s Sunday Book Review. “We urge readers and writers alike to join with us as we protest this sad and backward step,” [...]
Bought out? Laid off? Leaving the news biz?
CJR is seeking parting comments from staffers leaving American newspapers, where hundreds of jobs have vanished this summer.
If you are among the members of that very large group, which hundreds of journalists joined in the last few days alone, your colleagues would like to hear your thoughts about the state of our business. What are [...]
In case you missed it: Does LA need the LAT?
Last week, LAT Chief Russ Stanton visited KRCW’s “Which Way LA?” to discuss the question with Warren Olney and panelists Emma Schafer, Public affairs consultant who runs Los Angeles Current Affairs Forum, Marc Cooper, Visiting Professor of Journalism at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Patrick Frey, Blogger, Patterico.com. From KCRW:
After the Chandler family sold [...]
No place like home: California authors on California
A commitment to the terroir: On June 30, University of California Press released Wines & Wineries of California’s Central Coast by William A. Ausmus (I ordered mine today) and the Los Angeles Times’ Corie Brown uses the occasion to offer an interesting look at the University of California Press’ move into wine books — they’ve [...]
Media meltdown (continued)
Newspapers are their own worst enemies right now. They’re panicking all over the place and that public desperation just makes them look pathetic.
Today LAObserved brings word that the Orange County Register is outsourcing copyediting to India.
And look at the terrible way LA Times writer Patrick Goldstein introduces his new entertainment blog, also from LAO:
As you [...]
Good idea
RJ Smith at Los Angeles magazine interviews the six living ex-editors of the Los Angeles Times about the paper’s past, its unpredictable new owner, and its prospects for the future. The story isn’t online yet, but LAObserved posts some choice morsels.
Saucy schemes and new stories
Isabel Allende’s memoir is just out: The Sums of Our Days… novelist Tobias Wolff is on the cover of Poets and Writers magazine (though the story is not yet available online)… Veronique de Turenne teams up with Ernest Marquez to chronicle Southern California’s century as a maritime hub in Port of Los Angeles… former Islands [...]
In the future, we will all be online journalists
In an especially dreary week of newspaper layoffs, buyouts and bemoaning, the Word Count blog serves up a timely and very interesting Q&A with Michelle Nicolosi, “One Writer’s Journey From Print to Online News.”
Michelle, formerly a reporter at the Orange County Register, is an assistant managing editor at the Seattle P.I. She runs the [...]
Duh
Craig Whitney, the NYT’s standards editor, sends an email telling the newsroom staff to avoid single-source profile stories in the wake of the Margaret Seltzer homegirl hoax because, um, well, people lie. “Live and learn,” Whitney concludes.
Live and learn?
You woulda thought the NYT would have learned that lesson a long time ago. It’s reporting 101. [...]
She never leaves home without one
Author and columnist Patt Morrison shares her trademark chapeau collection in a video at the Times website. “You wear the hat,” says Patt. “You never ever let the hat wear you.”
Books by the Bay
Frances Dinkelspiel, host of the Ghost Word blog, checks out the new San Francisco Chronicle Book Review and sez “I must pronounce it a success.”
The Chronicle’s editors reduced the size of the section to save printing costs, but it has the unintended consequence of making the review feel more intimate and cohesive. Editor Oscar Villalon [...]
Headline of the day
From LAObserved: “Zell delivers ‘psychic bloodbath’ in DC bureau.“
**And the next day folo: (Bleep) you … including David Horsey’s Zell cartoon strip in the Seattle P.I.
From today’s e-mail
A friend laments, “Man, it’s depressing scanning LaObserved — LA Times layoffs, Daily News layoffs, OC Register desperation…” Yeah, and it’s only Wednesday.
Book notes and a few random links for writers, foodies, and readers with sore throats
Dan Weintraub chronicles the governor’s Party of One … Michael Pollen shares his simple secrets … Charlie LeDuff leaves LA … Cody’s owner Andy Ross tries the agent biz … Jonathan Gold updates his must-eat list … plus: Kate’s flu tips, the Pinball Hall of Fame, and an all-expenses-paid adventure to India, [...]
Slice of Life
The New York Times just launched a first-person series about making a home in a foreign country. The first piece ran today — Emily Prager on moving to Shanghai — and it’s terrific. Prager writes:
…there is a grace about living here that I love. People do things here that machines do in America. Instead of [...]
Meet the authors of the California Authors Directory. Visit the directory to discover writers like Christina Meldrum, a Bay Area attorney whose book Madapple was just released this month. “In debut novelist Christina Meldrum's mesmerizing literary mystery, 