A new Times on Monday*

Los Angeles Times subscribers will find a smaller, narrower newspaper starting Monday. The changes include the elimination of the Monday business section, an inch cut to the paper's width and earlier print deadlines. To compensate for the last, the paper will launch LATExtra, which is supposed to catch late-breaking stories that don't make the regular edition.

*Some of the changes won't take effect until tomorrow, according to LA Observed.

Dumb bills

Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, D-La Cañada-Flintridge and a Republican from Santa Clarita have authored a bill to designated the first week of March "Cuss Free Week."

The legislation comes three years after McKay Hatch of South Pasadena launched his No Cussing Club. Apparently, Hatch and his legislative allies think cussing is a gateway to greater sins. From the Sacramento Bee:

"McKay reasoned that if pupils could say no to cussing it would be easier to stay away from drugs, violence and pornography, and to turn their focus to positive aspirations and goals," the Assembly proposal reads.

Dial tones for debtors

MediaNews Group, doing business under the name Affiliated Media, is set to enter bankruptcy court on March 4. Before it does, it has made a few requests of the judge in the case. First, the company doesn't want to have to sign checks "Debtor-in Possesion." Second, and more important to people working in the chain's newsrooms, it wants to keep the phones and the Internet working.

From the Denver Daily:

MediaNews asked Judge Kevin J. Carey in a 23-page brief that “the debtor (MediaNews) cannot continue its operations without the continued services of the utility provider. Any disruption of the utility services supplied by the utility provider, for even a brief period, would be extremely costly to the debtor and harmful to its business.”

(Found via Westword)

LA Times goes back to school

Graduate students at USC's journalism school will become contributors to the newly revived homicide blog at the Los Angeles Times, the newspaper announced today. From the Times:

Under the partnership, students from USC will write dispatches for the Homicide Report. Among the goals is to provide more content for the blog and to offer crime-reporting experience to student journalists from Neon Tommy, the publication of Annenberg Digital News.

Marc Cooper and Alan Mittelstaedt will be heading up the effort on USC's side.

This is the second time the Times and USC have worked together on news coverage. Last year, the Times enlisted the USC College of Letters and Sciences to help conduct a series of polls on attitudes in California.

Seattle Times to Singleton: Time to sell

Once completed, the MediaNews Group's bankruptcy will leave banks owning most of the newspaper chain. Banks shouldn't own newspapers, the Seattle Times argues, and so it's time to break the chain apart and sell the pieces locally.

From the Times:

Newspapers report on the banks; they should not be owned by them. Newspapers should be independent. ...

If there ever was a way to kill the American people's appetite for newspapers, it is this. Make the paper nonlocal. Make it the same everywhere. Treat it as a "property," like a telephone-company bond or a share of stock. Don't sweat the long run because in the long run, as the economist said, we are all dead.

That is not the way to save newspapers.

Newspapers need to be in the hands of people who care about them. Those are almost always investors with a strong local connection. The San Jose Mercury News ought to be owned by people from San Jose — not by a company in Denver owned by another company in Denver owned by a bank in Charlotte, N.C.

Claim: For-profit HuffPo nests nonprofit HuffPo investigations unit

The commercial website Huffington Post is the only major news outlet to regularly use the work of the nonprofit Huffington Post Investigative Fund, according to a story in Gawker. Unless the latter can show that outlets other than HuffPo benefit from the fund's work, it could run into trouble over its tax-exempt status.

(found via LA Observed)

Bloggers and the corporate muddle

Whether one agrees with premise that journalism should be objective, or at least impartial, I doubt many would disagree that it should be free of corporate sponsorship. That is the realm of PR, and we wouldn't want to bigfoot.

Which is the reason I get queasy when Internet triumphalists push citizen journalism as the journalism 2.o. Tale a look at this description of a 2009 BlogHer convention in Chicago, where mommy citizen journalists got a chance to meet their biggest fans:

"Mommy bloggers were in the majority, and marketers such as GM, Walmart, Nikon, PepsiCo and Suave were pulling all the stops to woo us," reported Mile High editor Amber Johnson on her own blog. "Many women were gracious and grateful; others were not. One woman even allegedly threatened to blackmail a Crocs rep when he ran out of free shoes."

As stomach turning as the episode is from a journalist's standpoint, it's important to remember that blogging is not de facto journalism. ("Journalism" itself has a hazy and evolving definition.) Neither should this incident make us dismiss journalism done by people not on someone's payroll. But at some point, the case has to be made that if we don't define some standards for the new journalism and get the public to pay for it, then corporations will fill the void and it will be them dominating the discussion one product placement at a time.

Bombs in Baghdad damage LA Times, WaPost bureaus

The bomb attacks that hit Baghdad this morning did damage to the bureaus of the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times and injured some of their employees.

From the Post:

Three Post employees were wounded by flying glass. Two of them sustained head injuries, and a third has broken ribs and a broken arm. All three are conscious, and the injuries do not appear life-threatening.

At least one Times employee suffered similar injuries, according to Baghdad correspondent Liz Sly, who spoke with Warren Olney on today's "To The Point."

At least 36 people were killed and 71 injured in the blasts, which come as Iraq prepares for March elections.

Capitol Weekly, LA Times team up

Sacramento political coverage is increasingly dependent on blogs to push stories, everything from the Sacramento Bee's Capitol Alert to Rough & Tumble. With that in mind, the Los Angeles Times has joined forces with the Sacramento-based Capitol Weekly to produce a blog about California politics in the run-up to the November elections.

The blog is called, coincidentally enough, "California Politics," and the contents can be found here or here. The primary writer for the blog is Capitol Weekly editor Anthony York, but other reporters are contributing, including Shane Goldmacher, who was a driving force behind the success of the Sacramento Bee's Capitol Alert before he got hired away by the Times.

Pictures of disaster

Clark Hoyt, ombudsman for the New York Times, explains why the paper chose to run photographs depicting the dead in Haiti.

What happens after MediaNews's bankruptcy?

The Associated Press found a worrying tidbit in the bankruptcy filing for Dean Singleton's MediaNews Group.

Although Singleton has promised that the bankruptcy won't affect his newspapers, it appears the financial situation that brought about the bankruptcy could lead to more cost-cutting.

From AP (note: "Affiliated" is the holding company for MediaNews):

Affiliated is bracing for more tight times ahead. In a disclosure statement, the company discusses possible savings from farming out some production, newsroom and administrative jobs and imposing permanent wage cuts at some newspapers beginning this year.

Also noteworthy (emphasis mine): "MediaNews, based in Denver, says its newspapers ... and 8,700 employees won't be affected during the bankruptcy proceedings." In other words, once the company emerges from court, which is estimated to take between 30 and 90 days, the promise comes to an end.

None of which comes as a surprise. MediaNews has followed a cut-and-consolidation program for years and already has outsourced printing of its Southern California papers. Given the economic environment and past practices, it would be surprising if MediaNews didn't do more of this.

The AP also got the salary information for Singleton and company president Jody Lodovic:

The reorganization plan calls for Singleton to receive a $634,000 salary and an annual bonus of up to $500,000 as Affiliated's chief executive. He will also continue to be paid $360,000 annually under a separate agreement with The Denver Post Corp., according to court documents.

Joseph Lodovic IV, Affiliated's president, will get a $1 million salary, an annual bonus of up to $500,000 and 3 percent of the reorganized company's stock, according to court documents. He has already earned $500,000 in bonuses for overseeing recent changes at the Denver newspaper and helping to gather lender support for the reorganization. He is eligible for an additional bonus of up to $250,000, contingent on the timing of the plan's approval.

MediaNews goes to bankruptcy court

MediaNews Group today filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company, which publishes 54 daily newspapers in the U.S., including nine in Southern California, announced its intention to file a "prepackaged" bankruptcy last week.

Keeping us safe from the terrors of a free press

Los Angeles Times reporter Tina Susman said she and another reporter, Dionne Searcy of the Wall Street Journal, were detained and then bullied by Orlando International Airport president Larry Dale after they returned from Haiti. Susman said they had hitched a ride back to the U.S. on a cargo plane carrying Haitian evacuees and were detained as they were interviewing a nun on a bus.

From the Orlando Sentinel:

Susman, a national correspondent who was Baghdad bureau chief for two years and spent 11 years covering Africa, said [airport president Larry] Dale insinuated that she and Searcey could be stowaways or terrorists with fake credentials. She said he shouted at her to sit down and be quiet. ...

"I really am not impressed by bullies," Susman said. "All I know is if they take advantage of me like that, they're taking worse advantage of others."

The floodgates open

The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that corporations are free to spend their money to support political candidates and campaigns.

Public radio and the Internet

The following excerpt from LA Magazine's interview with KCRW General Manager Ruth Seymour paints a picture of the tensions inside public radio as NPR and affiliate stations contends with the realities of the Internet:

Today I would say that one of the major issues is the importance of maintaining and strengthening and recognizing local stations. In many ways, it’s emblematic of the country itself: Public radio is an extremely diverse, even anarchic system. It’s not centrally controlled. Every station is independent. For people who love order, this is a nightmare. For somebody like me, who celebrates diversity, it is a triumph. There are always those inside public broadcasting who would like to see a “well-managed system.” KCRW wouldn’t exist under their aegis. And the Internet has complicated everything. In public radio it is unseemly to talk about being competitive. You know: “We’re all one big system; we have trouble surviving as it is, so we’re not competing.” That’s nonsense. We are all competing with each other. KCRW has subscribers in every state and some abroad. The Internet makes us available in San Francisco, in New York. We are getting into each other’s markets. There have been attempts to gather us into one big group under NPR. We are not interested. We want to sing our own song. It costs money. The more successful you are on the Internet, the more you have to pay for increased bandwidth and increased staffing. We have a very large audience on the Web. I think it may be the largest of any single station that’s Webcasting. And it’s expensive.

What advice would you give to your successor about that?
It’s all radio. I guess that’s the first advice, because there is an enormous shifting away, a lack of investment in programming and increased investment in the new bells and whistles of digital technology. But the reason people listen is that they’re intrigued or fascinated or interested in the content. That’s the most important thing to remember, and it is the thing that increasingly concerns me—that independent producers, the people who are the creative types, are marginalized today in favor of the technology people. It’s a real failure not to understand that the business you’re in is programming.

At NPR, too?
NPR must invest in programming. It cannot simply invest in Morning Edition and All Things Considered. It must be seen—and it isn’t now—as a place that welcomes independent productions. NPR doesn’t have a program director right now who listens to new stuff. When This American Life began in 1995, Ira, who had worked at NPR, could not get NPR to take the program. That is not better today. It’s even worse. Instead the focus at NPR is online. The Internet gives NPR a voice to go over the heads of the local stations, OK? That’s the big danger.

Bankruptcies could make strange bedfellows in L.A.

Last Friday, Dean Singleton's MediaNews Group sent out a press release that said the company would file for bankruptcy. The message included reassuring language about the future and promises that the company's newspapers would be shielded from any fallout.

Such promises came up hollow since most of the company's collapsing bottom line has already demolished its newsrooms. But assuming Singleton holds to his pledge and closes no papers and cuts no jobs as a direct result of the bankruptcy, the future remains uncertain for MediaNews.

In trying to divine what it all means, media observers focused their attention on a couple of paragraphs in the Wall Street Journal's story about the bankruptcy:

...Mr. Singleton said he wanted to be aggressive in merging newspapers.

People in the industry have pointed to MediaNews's paper in St. Paul and the Star Tribune in Minneapolis as potential candidates for a combination, as well as to adjacent papers in Southern California published by MediaNews, MediaNews Group Co. and MediaNews Group Inc.

The media site FishbowlLA reasoned that this merging would inevitably lead to more layoffs:

It's hard to imagine how merging any of MediaNews's Southern California papers won't result in lost jobs - and a reduction of local coverage. Perhaps Mr. Singleton has a more active imagination than the rest of us?

Additional layoffs are always possible. But the fact is, MediaNews has already consolidated most of the operations of its nine Southern California newspapers. It's hard to see where else the company could squeeze. While individual newsrooms exist under different mastheads and in different offices (and fight to remain independent, sometimes to the point of mutual contempt), they're highly interdependent. The Los Angeles Newspaper Group (LANG), as they're collectively called, shares stories, relies on a single copy desk, operates under a board structure, outsources printing, and has almost no redundant beats.

The three papers in the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group (aka SGVN) are essentially one newspaper with three zoned editions. While each of the papers has its own news staffs and at least two pages of original content, editorial oversight and business operations are centralized. SGVN, in turn, has a close relationship with the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, San Bernardino Sun and Redlands Daily Facts. Together, they form the Inland Division of LANG. The other three LANG papers - Los Angeles Daily News, Torrance Daily Breeze and Long Beach Press-Telegram - form LANG's Metro Division.

So what's left to merge? Geography and local advertising warn against a single LANG newspaper or news site. But the bankruptcy could clear away business entanglements leftover from MediaNews's buying sprees. Notice the WSJ article mentions "MediaNews, MediaNews Group Co. and MediaNews Group Inc." This is because MediaNews has different investors for different blocks of newspapers, even with LANG. If the bankruptcy creates a single company, LANG papers might find ways consolidate further - or even partner with other papers.

On this latter point, MediaNews has already made overtures to share limited content with the Orange County Register (which also went bankrupt) and prints several of its papers on the Register's presses. Out in Riverside, the shrinking Press-Enterprise has largely ceded San Bernardino County to the Sun. It wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for the two papers to cross-pollinate.

A few media analysts have raised the prospect of a deal between MediaNews and the Los Angeles Times. The Times - it's bankrupt, too - has a shrunken newsroom and a smaller vision for itself. This could, theoretically, pave the way for a deal to distribute Times content through MediaNews properties.

Former Daily News editor Ron Kaye:

The only obstacle to the Times taking over the whole LA market and potentially salvaging the existing papers nameplates in localized editions is the U.S. Justice Department and laws against monopolies.

Former Knight Ridder exec Ken Doctor's take:

In L.A., Tribune’s soon-to-be-owners similarly may have little interest in staying the course. Maybe a L.A. combination, involving the Times around lowered-cost, higher-efficiency publishing -- Singleton’s once and future trademark – is the way to go.

Is it possible we've come to the point where rivals end competition and embrace collaboration? At one time, Singleton's papers were seen as stepping stones on the way to a job at a paper like the Times, but times have changed and economic woes have become a greater leveler. Furthermore, bankruptcies have a way of killing ego and the drive to compete, and shrinking papers aren't looking to be dominant anymore - they just want to survive.

Four in the morning

1. More eager gossip about Apple's iTablet - for journo-techs, this is the second coming. Time

2. The biggest loser in MediaNews Group's bankruptcy? Hearst Corp. Alan Mutter

3. LA Magazine profiles longtime KCRW general manager Ruth Seymour, who's stepping down in February. LAmag

4. Analyzing the collapse of the Washington Post. New Republic

NYT confirms its coming paywall

The New York Times confirmed today that it will begin charging some readers for access to its website. From the Times:

Starting in early 2011, visitors to NYTimes.com will get a certain number of articles free every month before being asked to pay a flat fee for unlimited access. Subscribers to the newspaper’s print edition will receive full access to the site.

But executives of The New York Times Company said they could not yet answer fundamental questions about the plan, like how much it would cost or what the limit would be on free reading. They stressed that the amount of free access could change with time, in response to economic conditions and reader demand.

Rotella leaves the Times for ProPublica

Investigative reporter Sebastian Rotella is leaving the Los Angeles Times after 23 years to work for the nonprofit newsroom ProPublica. Rotella was most recently a national security correspondent for the Times, having been called back to Washington from Paris last year when the Times consolidated its overseas operations.

From ProPublica:

In 2006, he was named a Pulitzer finalist for international reporting for his coverage of terrorism and Muslim communities in Europe. He won the German Marshall Fund's senior award for excellence in European reporting the same year. He was part of a team whose coverage of al-Qaida received an award from the Overseas Press Club and finalist honors for Harvard University's Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting in 2002. ... He is the author of Twilight on the Line: Underworlds and Politics at the U.S.-Mexico Border[.]

Another Times security reporter, Josh Meyer, just announced his departure, which leaves a gap on the Times' Washington desk.

Building walls

Despite Jeff Jarvis's incessant pleading, the New York Times plans to start charging for online content. The Times will follow the model of the Financial Times in which readers will get a certain number of stories free and then start getting charged.

Once the New York Times puts up pay walls, many smaller papers will consider doing the same. Given the number of bankruptcies, layoffs, consolidations and death spirals in the industry it's very likely that the smaller papers are ready to experiment sooner than later.

Whether this signals a wholesale shift from free content to pay content will depend more on what entertainment sites do.

Graphic numbers

Number of newspaper jobs lost in 2009: 14,845. That averages out to 40 a day. Here's the map from Paper Cuts.

Incidentally, the site has counted 721 cuts in 2010 - that's a mere 26 a day.

Avoiding the "B" word

The news of MediaNews Group's pending bankruptcy hit with a whimper inside many of the group's own newspapers. Most of the MediaNews stories I scanned yesterday used vague headlines, eschewed analysis or expert opinion of any kind, and downplayed the word "bankruptcy." They also relied on a single source for their information, a press release from MediaNews chairman Dean Singleton, to describe the deal.

The Denver Post, for example, ran the headline "Pact lets Post owner cut debt." The story didn't mention bankruptcy until the third paragraph. The Salt Lake Tribune dug deep into the word jar to keep "bankruptcy" out of the headline: "Tribune owner's holding company agrees to 'prepackaged' financial restructuring." That headline screams, "Don't read me!"

The San Jose Mercury News also played the story small, as the San Francisco Peninsula Press Club observed:

The Mercury News ran the news that its parent company was about to enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings on the bottom of the business page today. The headline, "Mercury News parent swaps debt for equity," was the smallest headline for a news story on the page, and it didn't mention the word bankruptcy. The first two paragraphs don't use the B word either. One line before the jump, the word "bankruptcy" can be found. In a letter to employees, CEO Dean Singleton said the "financial restructuring is a non event for readers and advertisers."

The Los Angeles Daily News, which ran a story written by the Torrance Daily Breeze, also used the "...parent swaps debt for equity" headline construction.

In the short term, the bankruptcy probably won't be noticed by readers, advertisers or newsrooms - and not just because of how the story was played. However, any time a business convinces lenders to take a $765 million hit the lenders will demand something in return. Now that the lenders own a stake in the newspaper chain, what kind of profit margins will they demand? Do they want to see MediaNews grow? Are they happy to be in the newspaper business? Or would they rather see the chain broken up and sold off? Time - and I hope some of these very same newspapers - will tell.

The new business of Editor & Publisher is business

The return of Editor & Publisher without its two most recognizable writers and editors, Greg Mitchell and Joe Strupp, raised a few red flags that the trade publication would be more about trade and less about news. That and the fact that its was bought by a company that publishes magazines about boats.

In an interview with the New York Times, the new owners confirms that he'll indeed shift the focus away from the news side:

Mr. McIntosh said in an interview that he wanted to shift Editor & Publisher’s focus toward the business and technology of the industry, with less emphasis on what happens in newsrooms.

(h/t E&P in Exile)

MediaNews to file for bankruptcy

MediaNews Group, which publishes nine newspapers in Southern California and dozens of others across the country, announced today that it will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

MediaNews chairman Dean Singleton said in a statement that the company has reached a deal with its lenders for a streamlined reorganization process that should take about 60 days to complete. The plan will reduce the company's debt by $765 million, cutting it to $165 million.

Singleton assured employees that the bankruptcy would not affect jobs or benefits and said that none of the company's papers will be sold or shuttered. Since the bankruptcy will be handled through a separate holding company (called Affiliated Media), Singleton said the papers would experience business as usual.

From Singleton's statement:

In our search for a new model that reflects the realities of today’s changing newspaper environment, we have come up with a solution that restores financial strength and flexibility to our balance sheet. It does not affect the operations of any of our newspapers or vendors or other operations. It gives us one of the strongest balance sheets in the industry. It gives us breathing space to create a new model for the newspapers we publish.

Here's some more detail from the Wall Street Journal:

Under MediaNews' plan, senior lenders will swap debt for equity, helping reduce the company's debt load from about $930 million to $165 million. Bondholders will get warrants for possible future equity. People familiar with the transaction said the company has been valued at roughly $200 million, including about $50 million of equity value.

Hearst Corp., the owner of magazines and newspapers, has at least $400 million in equity and debt tied to MediaNews, and the investment will be wiped out by the bankruptcy filing, according to people familiar with the matter. A Hearst spokesman declined to comment.

"We have worked side-by-side with Hearst on this," Mr. Singleton said.

-snip-

Mr. Singleton's ability to retain control over MediaNews represents a face-saving victory in the company's restructuring, and on Friday Mr. Singleton said he wanted to try to be the aggressor in merging newspapers.

Bankruptcies often result in board and management changes. Mr. Singleton, like many corporate executives, was sensitive to any negative fallout from a bankruptcy filing, according to people close to him.

MediaNews is the third newspaper company in Southern California to file for bankruptcy. Tribune Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times, filed for Chapter 11 in December 2008. Freedom Communications, which owns the Orange County Register, went bankrupt in September.

MediaNews owns the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, which publishes the Los Angeles Daily News, Pasadena Star-News, Daily Breeze, San Bernardino Sun and five others, and the Bay Area News Group in Northern California.

(This post was updated with the WSJ story link.)

L.A. Times national security reporter goes to college

Josh Meyer, national security correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, is leaving the paper to take a job at Northwestern's Medill journalism school. Meyer was a frequent guest on "To The Point" and his reporting will be missed. His new gig, however, seems timely and worthy indeed.

Here's part of his goodbye email to staff (via LA Observed):

I’ve decided to accept an offer from Northwestern University’s Medill journalism school to help it build a National Security Journalism Initiative.

It wasn’t easy, given how much fun it has been to work for The Times, and more recently, with my Tribune colleagues here in DC, and to watch the daily miracle of seeing so many talented people working together to create such great journalism, both in print and online.

But after much soul-searching, I decided that this is too important, and novel, an opportunity to pass up. We’ll be trying to create something that will play a key role in the urgent effort to figure out how to teach—and how to do—the all-important kinds of national security journalism in this changing news environment.

The complete memo is here.

Editor & Publisher revived*

It's not often that a publication gets to break the news of its demise and its resurrection all in the space of two weeks.

Turns out Editor & Publisher, which shuttered two weeks ago after parent company Nielsen Business Media sold it off, is back in business after its sale today to Irvine-based Duncan McIntosh Co.

From E&P:

E&P's new owners announced plans to publish a February print issue and continue the magazine's monthly print publication schedule. Online reporting on its Web site, editorandpublisher.com, began immediately upon the close of the transaction Thursday. ...

Mark Fitzgerald, a 26-year veteran, was named as E&P's new editor. He had most recently served as E&P's editor-at-large.

The story also included a little plug for the new owners:

Duncan McIntosh Co. Inc. is the publisher of several well-respected boating magazines and newspapers, including Boating World magazine; Sea Magazine, America's Western Boating Magazine; The Log Newspaper; and FishRap. The company also produces the Newport Boat Show in the spring and the Lido Yacht Expo in the fall.

Are there boating magazines out there aren't well respected? Anyway, good to have E&P back and out of exile.

*Update: The news isn't all good. Two of the most recognizable names at E&P were dumped as part of the deal. Greg Mitchell, the former editor, and senior editor Joe Strupp did not make the cut for some reason. (Strupp said in a Twitter post that it wasn't a good fit... you have to wonder if E&P is going to be more "publisher" than "editor".)

P-E lays off two

The Riverside Press-Enterprise laid off two newsroom employees yesterday: Southwest area reporter Aaron Burgin and photographer Rodrigo Pena.

Blind justice

The U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 today to indefinitely block cameras from California's Prop. 8 trial, overturning the trial judge's order to allow a limited broadcast of the proceedings. The court's conservatives voted in the majority. LAT

This news brought to you by...

The guy who came up with the Washington Post's failed "salon dinners" has another bad idea.

From Charles Pelton in PaidContent:

Could a film critic or arts editor moderate a readers’ discussion—live or virtual, about a new movie—something actually sponsored by AMC Theaters? You bet! Community-based discussions should be owned by metro (or national) media organizations. After all, they enhance brand equity by hosting local cultural discussions.

...If a media organization has a reporter covering the healthcare-reform debate, it should host a sponsored health-care seminar, and that reporter should suggest the speakers, program the event, and lead that seminar.

What does Pelton say to those who have ethical concerns about reporters trading on their sources?:

Many organizations still believe that merely assisting in such a program would compromise reporters and editors’ professional ethics. That’s balderdash. What counts is honest disclosure about such relationships, and holding reporters and editors accountable – just like sources are held accountable – for what they produce.

See, it's balderdash. All you have to do is tell the reader that you're selling out and, poof, ethical quandary disappears. Nothing to worry about. Now go out there, reporters, and talk to the kind of people most likely to draw a paying crowd and a big paycheck from private industry. That's news value.

The limits of art

A Colorado man is facing a felony charges for a prank involving 100 Gatorade bottles. Jason Kay replaced the labels on the bottles with a picture of Tiger Woods and the word "unfaithful." Is it crime? Or is it satire? Smoking Gun

Four today

1. The newest Senator from Delaware argues for a robust federal shield law for journalists. LAT

2. The San Francisco Chronicle claims that it has cut itself to profitability. SF Weekly

3. Caught in trap of naughtiness, Canada's second-oldest magazine will reluctantly change its name: "Market research showed us that younger Canadians and women were very very unlikely to ever buy a magazine called The Beaver no matter what it's about." Reuters

4. The sportswriter who outed Mark McGwire's steroid use gets some vindication. E&P in Exile

Haiti and MOCA on WWLA

On tonight’s “Which Way, LA?,” we’ll talk to local fire and earthquake experts, as well as community members, about efforts to help in the wake of Haiti's devastating earthquake. Also tonight, the Museum of Contemporary Art has a new director – we’ll hear from Jeffrey Deitch. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. on KCRW, 89.9 FM.

The guests on the Haiti segment are Matt Levesque with the Los Angeles County Fire Department; Tigeorges (George) Laguerre, owner of TiGeorges restaurant in Echo Park; Caltech seismologist Kate Hutton, and journalist Amy Wilentz, author of "The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier."

Haiti

The 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti yesterday caused massive damage and possibly mass casualties. L.A. County's fire rescue team is heading there to help.

Possible layoffs at the Bee

The Sacramento Bee plans to cut 25 jobs in the next couple of weeks. Management will first offer buyouts and will resort to layoffs if not enough people agree to leave. Sac Bee

Surprise! China used Google to spy on activists

Google has threatened to pull the plug on its operations in China after discovering that the emails of human rights activists had been hacked.

From AP:

The company disclosed in a blog post that it had detected a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China." Further investigation revealed that "a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists," Google's post said.

Google did not specifically accuse the Chinese government. But the company added that it is "no longer willing to continue censoring our results" on its Chinese search engine, as the government requires. Google says the decision could force it to shut down its Chinese site and its offices in the country.

Making journalism valuable for ordinary Joes

Ed Wasserman at Washington and Lee University questions whether it's wrong for news outlets to pay sources for stories. He notes a few potential downsides, and then argues that maybe the downsides are overstated. He also points to the (arguable) accuracy of the supermarket tabloids and professional news pundits as examples of payments that seems to work.

He writes:

Certain people are already richly compensated for being sources. Some even get paychecks, such as the new caste of on-air ``news consultants.'' But for many, many other members of the political, managerial and professional elite whose words and deeds constitute the overwhelming bulk of what we call news, getting called and quoted and covered is a boon to their working lives and a material factor in their career success.

They are rewarded, big time, thanks to the media's power to confer prestige, standing and importance upon them, and thanks to their own power to convert those intangible payments -- since that's what they are -- into hard currency.

When people condemn the evils of paying sources, they're really only talking about a certain class of sources -- not the professional sources who routinely cash in, but the ordinary Joe who has stumbled into a moment of celebrity and is suddenly standing on a chilly stage with a klieg light in his face, blinking in disbelief. Without any idea what this exposure might do or how badly he might humiliate himself, he's implored to submit to questions and scrutiny from glamorous strangers, who make unfathomable salaries for doing just that.

Even if we agree that ordinary Joes deserve compensation, the idea is completely unworkable. Is the local reporter supposed to head out to the fire or murder scene with a wad of cash? Do you pay only regular citizens or government officials as well? What about people accused of doing something wrong - do you compensate them only until they're proven guilty? Do you pay if a story is never published or aired? Should the fee be figured based on expected ratings or hit counts?

The true benefit conferred to average Joes will come if journalists spend their time working on stories that aid them by educating them, or pointing out injustices, or removing red tape or unnecessary barriers, or ensuring the corrupt are held accountable. That kind of compensation is harder to calculate, but it's a better value for everyone involved.

Gannett thaws frozen wages

The Gannett newspaper chain is apparently ready to lift a wage freeze implemented roughly a year ago, the Gannettoid blog reports:

Gannett has not commented on the expiration of the wage freeze, but executives have confirmed to Gannettoid.com the budgets are set with room for wage increases to begin in April.

Thawing wages will be welcome, but pitfalls remain:

Despite the upcoming return of raises, Gannett remains in a cutting mode. The round of layoffs [newspaper division president Bob] Dickey announced over the summer has yet to complete, employees are required to take five furlough days during the first quarter and the company is considering whether or not to impose another week of furloughs in the second quarter. The announcement last month that Westchester would lay off 166 employees when it outsources its printing is a part of the 1,400 planned layoffs Dickey announced over the summer.

Gannett is the largest newspaper chain in the country and USA Today is its flagship. Locally, Gannett owns the Desert Sun in Palm Springs.

Judges says LA City Council might have violated law

On Monday, a judge tentatively ruled that the Los Angeles City Council had violated the state's open meeting laws when it approved plans for a huge mall in South Los Angeles.

Essentially, the judge found the vote came without ample warning to the public - something that happens often as the council relies on "special meetings" for routine business.

If the judge holds to his initial ruling, the council would likely have to put the project back on the agenda and hold another vote.

Google kicks AP out of the house

Contract negotiations between Google and the Associated Press broke down a few weeks ago and, as a result, Google is no longer adding new AP content to its search results.

From the Business Journal:

The action apparently came before Christmas but wasn't noticed until Monday.

"We have a licensing agreement with the Associated Press that permits us to host its content on Google properties such as Google News. Some of that content is still available today," a Google spokesman said in an e-mail statement to CNNMoney. "At the moment we're not adding new hosted content from the AP."

In the news

Sarah Palin enjoys bashing the media. She railed against liberal bias, swatted at the attack-dog mentality, accused journalists for making things up and faulted them for reporting on things they didn't witness firsthand.

Her fixation on the media was such that when she formally stepped down as governor of Alaska she started her speech with a put down of the media.

All of which should have told us that there was nothing she coveted more than the chance to become a media pundit. And today we learn that she's done just that, signing a contract to become a regular commentator on Fox News. Here's her statement:

I am thrilled to be joining the great talent and management team at Fox News. It’s wonderful to be part of a place that so values fair and balanced news.

Fair and balanced is one goal, but as the Associated Press found when it checked her book, "Going Rogue," there's something to be said for getting your facts straight, too.

Our opaque justice system

The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned an order in the Prop. 8 trial that would have allowed the proceedings to be streamed to other federal court houses in the state and posted on YouTube.

The case, which got underway today, aims to overturn California's ban against gay marriage on constitutional grounds. After the federal judge in the case agreed to a limited broadcast of the proceedings, opponents of gay marriage filed an appeal to the Supreme Court, arguing that they could be subject to harassment from gay-marriage proponents. The Supreme Court's temporary restriction will remain in effect until Wednesday.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Justice David Souter offered the only dissent, saying there was insufficient evidence that broadcasting the trial would cause "irreparable harm" to supporters of Prop. 8.

Can one argue a law is constitutional and then claim the public is too unruly to hear that argument?

Skulls in the hills

The L.A. coroner's office has determined that the two skulls found near Christmastime in burned out gully in the Angeles National Forest belong to a man and a woman. One appears to have been pierced by a bullet and the other shows signs of trauma. Investigators are treating the cases as potential homicides. Watershed News

The painful and the obvious

Eleven newspaper articles that should never have been written. 11points

Four in the morning

1. Did the straight party-line vote for new Assembly Speaker John Perez reflect a bias against homosexuals? Capitol Weekly

2. Nondisclosure agreements for Los Angeles Times editors. LAO

3. Reuter's editor-in-chief says he spiked a story about a hedge fund manager that "could have run." Gawker

4. When hit counts trump ideology. LAT

L.A. Times to have earlier deadlines*

Not only will the Los Angeles Times be thinner and narrower once it closes its Orange County printing plant and moves all operations downtown, but it's newsroom will have to contend with much earlier deadlines.

LA Observed reports that Times publisher Eddy Hartenstein has made a deal to print the Wall Street Journal, which rents the Times' presses for its West Coast edition, later in the day than his own paper. That will push the deadlines for Times reporters several hours forward - possibly as early as 6 p.m. The result will be that some late-breaking news won't appear in the morning edition of the printed edition.

From LAO:

I'm hearing that the Times' off-the-composing-floor deadline of 11 p.m. (with updates until midnight) for the front news section will move earlier by several hours, perhaps to 6 p.m. This would be, I'm pretty sure, the earliest regular deadline in the paper's modern history — at a time when the pressure to be fresher and newsier is greater. It might also mean that the New York Times' deadline for getting breaking news from California onto its front page will be later than the hometown LAT's.

Under the Hartenstein plan, big news that happens late won't be on the front page or even in the A section — which, remember, is now also the LAT's only local news section. Late news will run in a new section-lite being called AA — and branded as LATExtra. For now, at least, Stanton is telling the newsroom that AA will usually run behind the front section, not wrapped around the front page. Stanton's sales pitch today to skeptical editors and reporters was that the trade-off would have been more layoffs.

I've experienced these kinds of early deadlines due to crowded printing schedules and they are demoralizing.

*Update: Editors had to sign nondisclosure agreements, LAO reports.

L.A. Times shutters Orange County plant, shrinks in size

In a continuing effort to cut costs, the Los Angeles Times today announced that it will close its printing plant in Orange County and consolidate operations at its press facility in downtown L.A. The 80 press workers at the OC plant will be fired.

The consolidation plan will lead to earlier press deadlines. As a result, the newspaper will create a new section to capture late-breaking news. From the story:

To accommodate earlier deadlines necessitated by the elimination of the plant, the paper will launch a new section dubbed LATExtra to run late-breaking news that was previously published in individual sections. LATExtra will appear Monday through Saturday, beginning Feb. 2, according to the memo.

The changes "give us the opportunity to expand and further showcase the terrific enterprise reporting of this newsroom, as well as produce the first new news section in many, many years," Times Editor Russ Stanton said in a memo to the newsroom.

The Times also plans to eliminate the stand-alone business section on Mondays, move the food section to Thursdays, and will cut the width of the newspaper to 44 inches, down from 48 inches.

Drudge, Reuters and the Breitbart connection

Gawker has an interesting story about a profitable arrangement between Reuters, Andrew Breitbart and Matt Drudge.

Here's the setup:

...a large percentage of the stories the Drudge Report links to are newswire stories, which can be licensed by any entity willing to pay for them. An Associated Press story, for example, may be carried on literally hundreds of sites – and Drudge is free to link to whichever one of those sites he chooses, for whatever reasons. In turn, the lucky site he links to is rewarded with a huge blast of monetizable traffic through no reportorial work of its own.

How does it pay off for Breitbart?:

Over the course of a year, the Drudge Report links to thousands of AP and other newswire stories. At some point, Breitbart realized this was basically like pouring money down a drain, only worse. It was like pouring money down a drain that some random newspaper publisher was sitting under, cackling gleefully as the money poured down on him.

Why, Breitbart must have wondered, couldn't he be that cackling publisher? A newswire portal would require little investment other than the newswire licensing fees, and yet with the Drudge Report sending it a thundering river of traffic every day, it could potentially make millions of dollars in advertising too.

And so, in 2005, Breitbart launched Breitbart.com, which is basically a portal for newswire stories. Links to Breitbart.com from the Drudge Report followed. A study found that in the year the site launched, 25 percent of the links on Drudge pointed to Breitbart.com.

So how did Reuters, a bastion of "liberal media," hook up with Breitbart, the self-appointed basher of "liberal media"? Well, Reuters was one of the wire services Breitbart had a license with. Then they broke up. Then Reuters came back with a new idea:

Typically, newspaper sites pay newswires to license their content, and that's what Breitbart was doing until Reuters cancelled its original contract with him. Now, it wanted to switch things up.

Under the terms of the new proposal, Breitbart would not be able to publish complete Reuters stories on his own website. Instead, he'd merely publish headlines and summaries that would link to Reuters' own page.

How did this change Drudge Report's link habits?:

The Drudge Report linked to Reuters.com just 29 times from January 1, 2005 to October 14, 2005. Then, Breitbart signed his new deal to drive traffic to Reuters.com for money. From October 15, 2005 to December 31, 2005, the Drudge Report linked to Reuters.com 229 times. ... In 2006, the Drudge Report linked to Reuters.com 1888 times.

Read the whole story here.

Another nonprofit watching California

In September, the Center for Investigative Journalism unveiled California Watch, a nonprofit investigative journalism unit, with the stated mission of exposing "injustice, waste, mismanagement, wrongdoing, questionable practices, and corruption" in California.

The Pacific Policy Institute today launched it's own version of the nonprofit investigative team called CalWatchdog. The Pacific Research Institute is a think tank with strong libertarian-leanings. The group promotes smaller government and free-market ideology and is associated with such think tanks the Cato Institute. But the nonprofit, investigative arm promises to follow traditional media standards:

CalWatchdog’s mission is to uncover governmental waste and shine the light on the misuse of taxpayer dollars. As part of a new wave of nonprofit, Web-based journalism, CalWatchdog adheres to traditional journalistic standards and focuses on improving government transparency.

The featured investigation on the site concerns the state water policy and was written by Wayne Lusvardi, a vocal libertarian and former MWD employee from Pasadena who's made his opinions known about state water policy known.

CalWatchdog's board of advisers includes former LA CityBeat publisher Will Swaim, former Republican analyst and now head of USC's Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics Dan Schnur, Chapman University professor Tibor Machan, conservative columnist Deroy Murdock, and Cathy Taylor, editorial director for the Orange County Register.

The more eyes on government, the better. But the genesis of this investigative unit does point up the increasingly blurry line between traditional newsrooms and ones born of ideological agendas. As we saw in the row over the Washington Post's partnership with The Fiscal Times, the blurred line can expose traditional media sources to charges of partisan favor. Nonprofit does not necessarily mean non-ideological.

Hitting bottom

James Rainey at the Los Angeles Times talks about the free fall in freelance pay and the stories that don't get told because of it. LAT

The home front

California leads the nation in home foreclosures, and there will be a lot more in the coming year. But banks aren't putting enough cheap homes on the market to satisfy the demand. We speak with Leslie Berkman of the Press-Enterprise, Rick Sharga of RealtyTrac, Tom Moon, founder of REObroker.com, and a frustrated would-be homebuyer. The segment starts at 7:34. Which Way, LA?

184th best, 17th worst

As we start the year off, let's look at where "newspaper reporter" ranks on Careercast.com's list of the 200 best and worst jobs to have in 2010...

Snuggled between "sailor" and "stevedore," the job of reporter is the 184th best job to have and, conversely, the 17th worst.

Some jobs that rank better than newspaper reporter: archaeologist (#50), janitor (#83), sewage plant operator (#117), and nuclear plant decontamination technician (#165).

Photojournalist ranks 189th. Public relations executive ranks 79th.

Careercast.com offers a complicated methodology for how the jobs were ranked, but the basic criteria were environment, income, employment outlook, physical demands and stress. Reporters did particularly bad on stress and employment outlook (ranked "very poor").

The average starting salary for a newspaper reporter is an astoundingly low $22,000, according to the study. The average jumps to $35,000 for a mid-level reporter, and tops out $77,000 - that's $28,000 less than a top-level philosopher.

Comings and goings

The Pasadena Star-News has hired a new reporter. Brian Charles, formerly of The Signal in Santa Clarita, started at the paper on Monday.

Caroline An, who covered education for the Star-News, has moved over to the paper's sister publication, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

Andrea Woodhouse is leaving the Daily Breeze in Torrance for a gig with the Santa Clara Office of Education. Her departure comes just days after Gene Maddaus announced he was leaving the paper for a job at the LA Weekly.

Nonprofit journalism carries political baggage

A dispute over the Washington Post's decision to use of stories from the nonprofit Fiscal Times highlights the potential pitfalls for traditional media in partnering with groups that claim editorial independence but rely on money from groups with agendas.

From Politico:

Critics are calling on The Washington Post to stop printing news articles from The Fiscal Times, a new “independent digital news publication” funded by Peter G. Peterson, a former Wall Street financier and longtime advocate of changes to Social Security.

The Post and the new publication announced an agreement last month to jointly produce content “focusing on budget and fiscal issues,” and the first article from The Fiscal Times appeared in the Post on Thursday. Headlined “Support Grows for Tackling Nation’s Debt,” it described growing momentum for “a special commission to make the tough decisions that will be required to dig the nation out of debt.”

In a letter to the Post’s ombudsman, 14 academic and public policy experts on Social Security said the newspaper should “rescind the partnership, reserve opinion pieces for the op-ed page, and not allow itself to be a propaganda arm for ideologues who use fiscal distress as a stalking horse to destroy social insurance.”

The dispute highlights the new questions that can be expected to arise as mainstream newspapers and websites increasingly partner with nonprofit groups as a source of engaging, inexpensive content. The Post and other newspapers also use stories produced by Kaiser Health News, a project of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

The group Campaign for America's Future has launched an email campaign to draw negative attention to the Post's partnership with The Fiscal Times.

Times shift

Out with the old former Los Angeles Times reporter and in with the new.

Eric Bailey, a 26-year veteran of the Times, will takeover as spokesman for the state's lead trial lawyer association, the Consumer Attorneys of California. He replaced Dan Morain, who left the Times after 27 years last February.

Morain has taken a job as columnist and senior editor for the Sacramento Bee's editorial board.

E&P lives in exile

Former reporters and editors of the shuttered Editor & Publisher have taken up residence at the E&P In Exile blog, which launched on New Year's Eve.

Four in the morning

1. LA Observed gets a makeover. LAO

2. Dallas Morning News editor endorses "integrating" business and news: "I'm pretty much a traditionalist about journalism, but I'm also a capitalist." DMN

3. The cost to see Sarah Palin at a Tea Party? $349 + travel and lodging. TPN

4. Punditry: All the political spoils without all the responsibility. Time