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 Jobs/labor relations:
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 [...]
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 [...]
A desktop for the launch pad
Think publishing is a high pressure biz? Here is my new desktop image, made from one of our photos taken earlier this month at the March Reserve Air Force Base, Airfest 2008. The Airfest airshow is a type-o-rama of warnings and designations. This one seemed like just what I needed during the last days of [...]
Writers’ strike optimism abounds
From this morning’s LAT: “The Writers Guild of America leadership recommended Saturday that striking writers approve a contract offer from television networks and movie studios, signaling a likely — but not immediate — resolution to the crippling labor impasse.”
And the Washington Post: “Jubilant screenwriters declared victory Saturday in their 14-week-old strike, hailing the [...]
Deal or no deal?
Writers vote tonight on a tentative pact to end the three-month-old strike, sez Mark Lacter at LABizObserved.
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, [...]
Front lines
LAist chronicles the five-day-old Writers Strike in photo galleries here and here.
New gig
LAObserved reports that former La Times Book Editor Steve Wasserman is the new book editor at TruthDig.
Nobody says it better
Novelist Carolyn See fires off a note to the LA Times’ out-of-town owners.
So I hear you guys forced out Al Martinez. Good going! Too bad Jack Smith, Matt Weinstock and Art Seidenbaum aren’t alive so you can fire them too.
Why don’t you just cut to the chase, close down the paper and go [...]
(Sad) Sign of the Times
Kevin Roderick reports that LAT columnist and author Al Martinez is being pushed into a buyout as the paper axes 57 newsroom spots. “Of all the stupidities committed by the new owners of the Los Angeles Times,” writes former Times City Editor Bill Boyarsky, “the dumping of Al Martinez is one of worst.”
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 [...]
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 [...]
A desktop for the launch pad
Think publishing is a high pressure biz? Here is my new desktop image, made from one of our photos taken earlier this month at the March Reserve Air Force Base, Airfest 2008. The Airfest airshow is a type-o-rama of warnings and designations. This one seemed like just what I needed during the last days of [...]
Writers’ strike optimism abounds
From this morning’s LAT: “The Writers Guild of America leadership recommended Saturday that striking writers approve a contract offer from television networks and movie studios, signaling a likely — but not immediate — resolution to the crippling labor impasse.”
And the Washington Post: “Jubilant screenwriters declared victory Saturday in their 14-week-old strike, hailing the [...]
Deal or no deal?
Writers vote tonight on a tentative pact to end the three-month-old strike, sez Mark Lacter at LABizObserved.
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, [...]
Front lines
LAist chronicles the five-day-old Writers Strike in photo galleries here and here.
New gig
LAObserved reports that former La Times Book Editor Steve Wasserman is the new book editor at TruthDig.
Nobody says it better
Novelist Carolyn See fires off a note to the LA Times’ out-of-town owners.
So I hear you guys forced out Al Martinez. Good going! Too bad Jack Smith, Matt Weinstock and Art Seidenbaum aren’t alive so you can fire them too.
Why don’t you just cut to the chase, close down the paper and go [...]
(Sad) Sign of the Times
Kevin Roderick reports that LAT columnist and author Al Martinez is being pushed into a buyout as the paper axes 57 newsroom spots. “Of all the stupidities committed by the new owners of the Los Angeles Times,” writes former Times City Editor Bill Boyarsky, “the dumping of Al Martinez is one of worst.”
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, 
You can shop online from your local independent booksellers. 
July briefs: censorship, fires, new fiction and a b-day
No room for Freedom in Perry, Indiana. A veteran high school teacher in Perry, Indiana has been suspended without pay for teaching The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them. The book by Long Beach, California teacher/author Erin Gruwell and her students [...]
File under: Author profile, Bookbloggery, Booksellers, Commentary, Education/literacy, Fiction, Freedom to read, Interviews, Jobs/labor relations, Libraries, Movies, Museums, New Release 2008, Nonfiction, Politics/government, Sad, San Francisco, Schools, Short stories, Writing