February 2008 Archives

According to the LA Times, "If Zell's point is that the real money is in local news, the recent experience of the Daily News, the Orange County Register and the regional dailies ringing the Bay Area -- all more locally oriented than The Times -- has been a discouraging counter example. Their inability to keep ad revenue from falling at double-digit percentages year over year has led to staff reductions that further hobble local news coverage."
- I think, outside of OCR, the Times is confusing Medianews financial troubles with the premise that local news gives a paper a unique opportunity as opposed to others outside its area. No offense to pro sports writers, but look at how ESPN and Foxsports covers teams. They have some staff writers, who only do analysis. The facts of games are written up by wire reporters. But you can't do that for local stories. Outside of some bloggers, newspapers have (albeit shrinking) resources to cover local stories. The only question is if we are going to be allowed to leverage that opportunity for the future. (h/t LAO)

From sister-paper San Jose Mercury, an explanation of how a previously reported $14.5 billion was the state's projected budget deficit through the end of the next fiscal year, June '09, became an $8 billion deficit.

"A couple of weeks back, the legislative analyst said that the deficit was actually closer to $16 billion. However, she had actually done her analysis before the state Legislature and Governor took action to reduce the deficit as part of the emergency session. That's when lawmakers made some program cuts, deferred some cost of living raises to elderly, disabled and welfare families, and the governor borrowed $3.3 billion. The reality, according to the legislative analyst, is that those actions probably have cut her projected deficit of $16 billion in half. So, the most accurate thing to tell readers is that the projected deficit is $8 billion.
That's an important number because that's the amount the legislature now needs to come up with (through cuts, more revenue, etc) to balance the budget that they have to submit to the governor in June. It's also the amount the governor will be seeking to come up with when he presents his revised budget plan in May (known up here as the May Revise). So, bottom line: $16 billion isn't accurate and it would give readers the false impression that that's how much the governor and legislator have to cut/raise to to balance the budget, when in fact it's closer to $8 billion."

But newspapers are so boring. How can you read a newspaper that starts with a 51-word lead sentence? They’re trying to prove they went to college," according to Jimmy Breslin, a bullrushing reporter (he hates the word journalist). YouFace is probably a smashing of Youtube and Facebook. Some other good lines: "Jonathan Alter, he’s a nice fellow. [David] Brooks, worst I ever read in print. And the other guy, [William] Kristol. He should be arrested if caught writing a postcard. Wolfey—Tom Wolfe—called the father [Irving Kristol] Irving Statistics. But that’s when people could turn phrases.
* Btw, LAObserved gives a shout out to Jennifer Mclain's Water story.

The Times wrote an editorial about the woman found in the van story. While understandable, publius wonders:
"Of all the things for the Los Angeles Times to start talking about regarding Pomona… (What about the fact that the city and surrounding areas aren’t being represented in the Assembly and no one knows or cares?)"

Vallejo "currently has a $135 million liability for the present value of retiree benefits already earned by active and retired employees and an additional $6 million a year as employees continue to vest and earn this future benefit, Tanner said."
- I think this local tale has not been covered all that well in part because of the vague way cities have done their accounting. But soon, municipalities will have to quantify their unfunded liabilities, including pension and health care costs for the future. I think this will get worse.

Torres and Police Chief Joe Romero have had battles in the past, but it seemed quiet until this. A Covina woman was found died in a van at a Pomona courthouse Friday. Cops found the van, and called the family. The family then found the woman. Now questions are being raised as to why the police didn't do it.
LA Times: According to Romero: Officers had followed proper protocol. When the van was located, Romero said officers were sent to inspect the vehicle. After running a check of the license plate, they learned it was part of a missing person's report filed in Covina. He said the officers called Covina police and were told to release the van to the family or it would be impounded.
"There is no way the officers could have known" there was a dead body inside, Romero said. "There's no mistake on our part. We have no right to go inside the vehicle."
Torres: Said she wants to know more about the department's protocols in dealing with such cases.
"It's certainly upsetting to hear, and my heart goes out to the family, who had to discover the body," Torres said. "I have a lot of questions that require follow-up."
UPDATE: "A parolee gang member relative of the husband of a Covina woman who was found murdered in her van on Saturday has been named a "person of interest" in the case by Pomona Police.
Police said Joseph Orta, 34 has not been officially named as a suspect in the murder of 22-year-old Eileen Ponce-Orta, who was found fatally stabbed in the neck on Saturday

Rod Leveque, who broke this story and is a court reporter for the Daily Bulletin, will be on Warren Olney's show at 7 p.m tonight, talking about the beef recall connected to a Chino slaughterhouse.
UPDATE:Here's the podcast. One thing I didn't know was that Rod asked the USDA two weeks ago if they were going to track down any of the beef sold from Westland. Officials said no.

According to a press release: Assemblymember Mike Eng, D-Monterey Park, Chair of the Assembly Select Committee on Hate Crimes, and civil rights organizations such as Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Lambda Legal, Project 10, and Transgender Law Center will be convening a press conference to discuss the murder of Lawrence King and announce legislation that will be introduced next week to address the issue of bias-motivated incidents in schools.
Since this killing was pretty recent, obviously the legislation has been in the making long before.
UPDATE:Here's some of the details. More later.

NYTimes: "At least 17 Danish newspapers published a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb as a turban, a day after the arrest of three men accused of plotting to kill the man who drew the cartoon." The republished cartoons predictably aroused anger in the Middle East.
In 2006, Danish embassies were attacked and people died in rioting after newspapers published the cartoons. Nearly all U.S. papers did not publish the cartoons then, including us.

I imagine it's not as clear cut as that. According to the Primrose blog, the city promised signs to slow down traffic, but some residents apparently were cool on the idea. Most though want it.

for Monrovia residents on Primrose Avenue?

Frazgo comments on an e-mail detailing the ripple effect from the gang feud.
UPDATE:And apparently Monrovia vs Mayberry is no more.

You don't judge a man's character when things are going well but when they're not. Based on that, Leo Greene consistently proved himself both principled and courageous.
Leo, an award-winning journalist and genuine nice guy, died sometime Friday night. He had ALS. The 62-year-old won two Emmys at KCET public television in Los Angeles and shared a Peabody Award for investigative reporting at KARK-TV in Little Rock, Ark.
I met him as a reporter at the Daily Bulletin. He was the quietest guy in the room, but I soon realized he was one of the most respected. Nearly everyone in the room, at one time or another, went to him for advice. He never boasted of his past, nor lamented his stumbles.
His battle with addictions cost him dearly, but he acknowledged his errors and tried to make amends. With the newspaper industry in turmoil, he didn't despair. He embraced change. And when he was diagnosed about a year and half ago with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, any fears were partly funneled into a massive project to enlighten readers. Leo, who graduated from Bonita High School, truly believed that journalism was a noble profession.
Knowing that most ALS victims don't live past two years, Leo once said in a column:
"Having a notion of when the end might come allows time to prepare, to adjust priorities.
Spiritual knowledge can be found in an awareness of the life around us."

Some minority cartoonists plan to highlight the paucity of their numbers in newspapers. We have Baldo by Hector D. Cantu and Carlos Castellanos. While I understand their perspective, I agree with this view:
McGruder, who is African American, "The industry itself is struggling. It's like they're the black passengers on the Titanic protesting to get to the top deck, and overlooking the fact that the whole ship is sinking."
- Considering the amount of vitriol sent our way when we changed the comics in the past, it's the last place I want to be.

Cool database put together by reporters Fred Ortega, Dan Abendschein and online editor Esther Chou. It gives a breakdown for each city in the San Gabriel Valley. Interesting note, Industry had no votes, according to the Registrar of Voters.
UPDATE: Also, Primary Countdown was an experiment on political blogging the past few weeks. The experiment was successful, getting a number of online readers. So we're going to keep it, though change the name to Election Countdown, since so much political news is going to happen this year.

While we gave Anthony Portantino a better chance, the SacBee puts him in the dark horse category for Assembly speakership.

Reporter Fred Ortega at Primary Countdown tells an election tale that could lead to a lawsuit.

Drudge says "The board of elections failed to deliver voting equipment to polling places ALL OVER LOS ANGELES... Developing..."
Frank Girardot called Registrar of Voters, which said voting equipment was sent two weeks ago. They said it was more likely people were going to past polling places that are no longer being used.
UPDATE:It's no longer on the site. But you got this, "At the Westside Jewish Community Center on Olympic Boulevard, officials didn't get voting equipment until 12:20 p.m. -- more than five hours after the polls opened" and then, ack, this connected with voting issues in Los Angeles County, "If that does not happen, we will see a possibility of legal challenges taking place."
UPDATEII: The Dan and Fred blogging team point out that maybe I should be reading their blog before the LA Times.

We'll be posting election results here, and our primary countdown blog will post throughout the day here.

How dare Frazgo think that he should be treated as a real reporter in Monrovia!
Except of course that the the courts have decided that bloggers are "disseminators of the news," and "petitioners' Web sites are highly analogous to printed publications" and should enjoy the same legal protections against divulging their sources."
- If cities were smart, they would promote more voices rather than fewer. The major complaint from our readers is that we don't have enough local news. City councils, school districts, so on. Here you have someone actually paying more attention not less. I find it goes a long way if you have a little respect for others even if you disagree with them. As for what a real reporter is, outside of the legal jargon, standards, etc, basically, journalists are members of the 'public' asking questions for print. That's why it's called public meetings, public records and public information. (h/t FCB)
Update: I'm not saying most bloggers can replace journalists. But some can enlighten and add to the conversation.

Sam Quinones does Monrovia. Interesting line:
"At one community meeting, a woman said her husband was a teacher in Watts, where his students were buzzing about gangs in Monrovia."

LA Times stopped delivery to a Boyle Heights home because gang members apparently threatened the delivery person. (h/t LAObserved)
While the comments seem sympathetic to the homeowner, I'm not. No one should be putting their lives on the line, or believe they are, to deliver a newspaper. In Pomona a few years ago, the US Postal service stopped delivering mail down a notorious gang-claimed block. They set up a temporary mailbox at the end of the street. I'm not sure about paper deliveries down that street, but it wouldn't surprise me if the same thing happened.