March 2008 Archives

no. it ain't what you think. But it did remind me of one of the most famous headlines from the April 15, 1983 NY Post: Headless Body in Topless Bar.

Preps sports has been a leader in using online tools and continues with a live stream coach interview on Monday. Readers can ask questions in real time for Preps sports editor Fred Robledo and there will also be a taped version later. We'll use this on the news side eventually, probably for local election coverage.

connection in fatal shooting. The Times said last week that it had uncovered new details about the 1994 beating and shooting of Shakur that involved Diddy, who has completely denied the tale. Diddy refused to talk to the reporter before the story ran. Smoking Gun says there are problems with the documents. I don't know the truth here, but I do know that there have been questions about Chuck Philips, a pulitzer-prize winning reporter, in the past. It's an editor's greatest nightmare having such a big story being seriously questioned.
Update: Times apologizes for errors.
Update II: Patterico has more details on the controversy. He is a Los Angeles County deputy DA.

Some (BO supporter?) throws a wobbly dart at Hillary Clinton. It's too good not to be true, right?

Actually, we should have been clearer when we did this story about the ethnic shifts in cities such as Rosemead. Numbers for the population change came from the U.S. Census Bureau. Callers have complained that the percentages don't add up. That's because we should have clarified that residents could check multiple boxes for ethnicity.

We'll be be covering this very interesting trial next month. Meanwhile, at FCBlog, Murray Bessette, a Ph.D. candidate at Claremont Graduate University, will be doing posts on the story.
Love the banner.

because the LA Times just ran a political campaign ad disguised as a story about her. Oh, wait, she is running (not 'considering' as the story says) for Assembly. Well that's sure fortuitous. I'll wait for the stories about these other candidates for the 61th: Paul Avila, Maurice Ayala, Benjamin Lopez, Michael Mendez, Richard Todd and Ken White.

Newspapers and, especially, TV news love all things pets. Dog saves boy; boy saves cats. whatever. They are rating boosters. We try to limit it, but sometimes.... That almost happened when we heard Friday that a CHP officer saved a box of kittens that was in a burning SUV in South El Monte. Some newspapers picked up a wire story. KFWB ran with a short story, and FOX 11 had video of the aftermath. Except, according to our reporter Brian Day, the CHP and firefighters said it never happened. There was a burning car and a box of kittens, but the twain never did meet. A local freelance stringer had video of the kittens and the burned out car, but apparently no one called to verify if what the videographer was peddling was true. The story was too good, I guess.
As an aside, shortly after the kittens, Fox11 tried to double its animal quotient by showing pandas. The story was about the "wild ways" Chinese officials are using to help pandas reproduce. The video? Showed pandas going at it. I thought the anchorwoman was going to swallow her tongue. It was hilarious.

will come in the 60th District, says the Ventura County Star. Chino Hills Mayor Curt Hagman and Larry Dick, an Orange County water district director are battling it out for district being vacated by Assemblyman Bob Huff. The District covers Anaheim, Chino Hills, Diamond Bar, Industry, La Habra, La Habra Heights, La Mirada, Orange, San Dimas, Villa Park, Walnut, Whittier, Yorba Linda.

is the Associated Press is bulking up its LA celebrity coverage. Whew. Well at least the importance stuff will be covered.

Claremont Insider points to this NY Times story and our favorite water guy. Alvarez heads for trial next month for violating the Stolen Valor Act of 2005, which makes it a crime to lie about having received certain medals. (via FCblog)
While Alvarez should be ashamed of duping people, I'm still uneasy about jailing a man because of something he said that didn't cause anyone physical harm or immediate danger, such as inciting a riot. But apparently, a free speech argue isn't exactly rock solid here.
- Rodney A. Smolla, the dean of the Washington and Lee University School of Law and the author of several books on free speech:
“My instinct is that there probably would not be a winning First Amendment defense because of the confluence of two factors,” Professor Smolla said. First, he said, it is hard to identify anything positive Mr. Alvarez contributed to any debate. Second, he said, “the integrity of the honors that the military bestows is very important.”

This week is Sunshine Week across the country, and this story points out how government e-mails rarely get released. I wrote a story about a school board member's hijacking the district's construction and had previously asked for all district-related e-mails about construction over two years. I got none. The district lawyer, who is still that district's lawyer by the way, said none existed. Someone later leaked me e-mails running into the hundreds covering exactly what I asked for.

NY Times enfolds the Eliot Spitzer fall.
Update:Hooker/singer was ready to strike gold when news broke

Reporter Maritza Velazquez tried to do a nice little story about Azusa resident Noriega after he failed to advance on American Idol. Apparently, that's not in the cards.

In connection to this story about about Soto's replacement, a local city official noted that Soto more than "sort of mentored" Torres. In fact, this official said that Soto has long had power in Pomona even after she left the city council and has helped Torres for a long time. One interesting tidbit was that Soto, before her current health problems, was going to endorse Torres and then run for Pomona mayor, this official said. Looking over the list of challengers, I can't see anyone else who has a chance.

Some comments questioned if NY Times reporters ever wondered about the motivations of the tipster who led the paper to the Spitzer hooker story. The irony is that an Albany paper got in trouble and lambasted for not vetting a tipster when the paper wrote about a state senator's travels last year The connection? It was Spitzer's people who leaked it and who are now under investigation for it.
Most reporters and editors take into account motivations behind leaks, but it's usually the veracity and importance of the tip that trumps. And the reality is that state senator, Joe Bruno, is still being investigated by the FBI.

In a world where everything you write, whether to an office colleague or to a friend, has potential to be blogger fodder, it's too bad Eliot Spitzer didn't take his own advice.
UPDATE: Just read a story about this and there are 26 reporters attached to it. Pulitzer Prize material has many fathers and mothers. But can you imagine if we could throw half of that to a breaking story.

“The best thing we can do to help journalism have a tomorrow is by doing the best journalism we can today.”

It has been a brutal few weeks for the paper. Layoffs, buyouts and anger welling up from staff due to circumstances beyond our control. I’m not going to rehash it or minimize it; we will be doing less with less. But we can - and will still - do some serious journalism. We, as editors, need to encourage and listen to our reporters. We need to allow the ones who show enthusiasm and talent the time to look outside City Hall.
We need to remind ourselves as well as staff to focus on today. Focus on our readers. Forget what can happen tomorrow or next week or next month.
Because, unlike recently retired Green Bay Packer quaterback Brett Favre, I believe our noble, albeit frayed, profession still has some good throws left.

As foothill Cities is learning, it's not unusual for form 460s, campaign contributions, to be improperly filled out. Inspired by FCBlog, we should do a database of one reporting period for councils, school boards and water districts. hmmmm.

Centinel and reader AA put together a nice Java display of where the money comes from in Pasadena politics.
It's the sort of thing the Internet was made to do.
I noticed that while most of the zip codes are California zips there appears to be contributions from out of state as in Colorado or Utah.. .that's sort of interesting...
Anyway, nice job dudes.
UPDATE: The city of Glendora, which won (ahem) the Darkness award last year, does have its compaign contributions online. Unfortunately, they're scanned copies of the print version and somewhat difficult to read. But they should get props for even trying.