KCET to sell Sunset Boulevard studios

KCET, which three months ago divorced itself from PBS, plans to sell its 300,000-square-foot headquarters on Sunset Boulevard to the Church of Scientology for $14.1 million, the Los Angeles Times reports. From the story:

The Los Angeles television station, which is struggling to rebuild viewership after its recent split from PBS, plans to move its operations to a smaller location, real estate brokers said. Station officials have been touring potential sites, brokers said.

-snip-

Dropping the PBS brand meant getting rid of the dues burden but also losing signature shows such as "Sesame Street," "News Hour" and "Charlie Rose." ...

The effect was immediate. KCET's ratings have plunged without its familiar schedule. And individual donations — the lifeblood of any public broadcaster — have taken a sharp hit as well. March pledge drives raised much less money than expected, according to a station insider who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Google wants you to "like" them, too

In response to the Facebookification of the internet, Google has decided to move ahead with a competing ubiquity initiative to keep up with the Facebook "like" button. Google calls it +1 and it sounds just vague enough to fail. But what do I know? Mashable has a description of the new feature here.

Paring the roll*

I'm going through the blog roll at right to delete dead blogs and add new ones. I've noticed that the two union blogs devoted to the Daily News and Press-Telegram newsrooms (the Daily News[room] and Stress-Telegram, respectively) are now defunct. They've been cut.

Let me know if you have any recommendations.

*Note: As I was going through the list, I noticed that Joe Bageant, journalist and author of "Deer Hunting with Jesus" has died. Bageant was smart, funny, and Southern as hell. We had him on "To The Point" a couple times to talk about the rise of the tea party and social conservatism in the South. Fred Reed wrote a remembrance on Bageant's blog.

Hacked?

The blog went down this morning for an hour or so. I'm still trying to find out why. Possible hack job - though it could be a Google glitch. Stay tuned.

Former Neon Tommyer goes to TPM

Former Neon Tommy Editor-in-chief Callie Schweitzer has accepted a job as assistant to the publisher at the liberal news blog Talking Points Memo. She'll work under TPM founder/editor/publisher Josh Marshall.

For those unfamiliar, Neon Tommy is the online news site run by USC's journalism school. Schweitzer's new job was reported by Gorkana.

Baeder steps down at SGVN

Ben Baeder has stepped down as deputy managing editor of the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group, which includes, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Pasadena Star-News and Whittier Daily News. Baeder decided to leave the paper shortly after last month's layoffs at the Tribune were announced. His final day is today.

Baeder took the editing job in May, 2008 after a hiatus from newspapers. He'd been a reporter at the Tribune before that. I'm told he's leaving the newspaper profession once again.

Rebecca Kimitch, a political reporter at the Tribune, is slated to take over some of Baeder's editing duties.

Los Angeles Times rides the public document wave

The Los Angeles Times has launched an online public documents clearinghouse that offers readers a chance to learn more about what government documents are available under the California Public Records Act and how to obtain them. Readers are also asked to share records they've gotten from public agencies.

The project follows the Times reporting on the City of Bell salary scandal, which made use extensive use of such public records as executive employment contracts.

The Times, in my experience, has sought out public records in a public way. When I worked at the little Claremont Courier, the Times stepped in to sue for some public records denied to our paper. This obviously gave the Times reporters a crack at a story they might otherwise have missed, but the lawyers for the Times (Karlene Goller, Alonzo Wickers III, etc.) were extremely helpful and kept me, and by extension our readers, abreast of the case.

My hope is the Times expands the project to include the several nonprofits that do the heavy lifting when it comes to lobbying for more sunshine (CalAware, California First Amendment Coalition, CNPA, etc.) as well as other publications (at least nonprofits). Of course, the paper doesn't need to tell everyone what documents it's use for active stories, but once the stories are published, they can join the cloud-sourcing pile.

Ninth Circuit strikes down Stolen Valor Act

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down the 2005 Stolen Valor Act in reviewing a case brought against Xavier Alvarez for lying about winning the Medal of Honor during his made-up tour of Vietnam.

The law, which made it a felony, to claim an un-earned military medal, was used by prosecutors to charge Alvarez for statements he made in 2007 as a member of the Claremont-based Three Valleys Municipal Water District board of directors. Alvarez faced jail time and fines for violating the law.

The court ruled the law to be unconstitutional. From the LA Times:

"If false factual statements are unprotected, then the government can prosecute not only the man who tells tall tales of winning the congressional Medal of Honor, but also the JDater who falsely claims he's Jewish or the dentist who assures you it won't hurt a bit," Kozinski wrote in defense of the 1st Amendment.

"Phrases such as 'I'm working late tonight, hunny,' 'I got stuck in traffic' and 'I didn't inhale' could all be made into crimes," Kozinski argued. "Without the robust protections of the 1st Amendment, the white lies, exaggerations and deceptions that are an integral part of human intercourse would become targets of censorship."

I'd argued back in 2008 that the prosecution was a waste of time.

Four New York Times journalists released by Libya

Libya has released four New York Times journalists captured by pro-Gadhafi forces six days ago near the city of Ajdabiya. The four were handed over to the Turkish ambassador in Tripoli and are expected to be moved to Tunisia today.

From the Times:

The journalists are Anthony Shadid, The Times’s Beirut bureau chief, who has won two Pulitzer Prizes for international reporting; two photographers, Tyler Hicks and Lynsey Addario, who have extensive experience in war zones; and a reporter and videographer, Stephen Farrell, who in 2009 was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan and was rescued by British commandos. 

The four journalists were found on Friday, but their situation became tenuous after the UN Security Council voted to implement a no-fly zone over Libya.

(photo found via the National Journal. pictured from left are Farrell, Hicks, Turkish ambassador Levent Sahinkaya, Addario, and Shadid)

Awards

The Las Vegas Sun's "Do No Harm" series, written by former Pasadena Star-News reporter Marshall Allen and Alex Richards, won the best investigative reporting award from the Scripps Howard Foundation.     The Los Angeles Times won the public service award for its "Grading the Teachers" series, and USC journalism professor Joe Saltzman won teacher of the year.

The Society of American Business Writers and Editors awarded the Orange County Register two top honors: "Immigrants and the California Economy" won for explanatory reporting and "Reversal of Fortunes" won best feature. The Sun "Do No Harm" series won for investigative reporting here as well.

Four New York Times journalists found in Libya

Turns out the four New York Times journalists who went missing in Libya were captured by Col. Moammar Gadhafi's forces. The Libyan dictator's son says they will be released today.

From AP:

The journalists are Anthony Shadid, The Times' Beirut bureau chief and a two-time Pulitzer-prize winning foreign correspondent; two photographers, Tyler Hicks and Lynsey Addario, who have extensive experience in war zones; and a reporter and videographer, Stephen Farrell, who in 2009 was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan and was rescued by British commandos.

Gadhafi has reportedly called a cease-fire in his country, a day after the UN Security Council passed a resolution to allow "all necessary measures" to stop his forces from attacking civilian rebel groups.

House votes to end NPR funding

The House of Representatives today voted 228-192 to end funding for NPR and its affiliate stations. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., is likely to stall in the Senate, but is likely to be used as pressure to carve out public broadcasting funds in a larger budget bill.

Meantime, Meghan Daum at the LA Times tells NPR to get a backbone.

(Disclosure: I work for KCRW, an NPR-affiliate station.)

The paywall debuts at the New York Times

In a letter to readers, New York Times Arthur Sulzberger Jr. explains the newspaper's paywall system, which launches today in Canada and will come to the U.S. and the rest of the world March 28.

 Boiled down, readers who pay for home delivery of the paper will have access to everything. Browsing front pages online remains free. Online readers can open 20 stories a month for free - after that, they will be prompted to become a digital subscriber (plans and pricing are here). Different points of access - smartphone app, tablet app, the words - come at different prices. Then there's this interesting tidbit:

Readers who come to Times articles through links from search, blogs and social media like Facebook and Twitter will be able to read those articles, even if they have reached their monthly reading limit. For some search engines, users will have a daily limit of free links to Times articles. 

This will ensure that other news outlets and aggregaters will continue to link to Times articles and give the paper the free publicity that comes from that. Of course, intensive aggregaters will be forced to pay for the plus-20 access.

The strategy obviously is to push people who read the Times frequently to subscribe. Casual readers will still see the articles for free. Will it work? If it does, expect to see a similar model come to a paper near you.

Pulitzer winner plagiarizes at Washington Post (*updated)

 The Washington Post has apologized in an editor's note for a case of "substantial" plagiarism in two of its stories. In both, passages were lifted from the Arizona Republic. The author of the reports, Sari Horwitz, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, received a three-month suspension, Washington Post media writer Paul Farhi has reported.

Is an old hand going to be the new face of NPR?

There are whisperings (such as in this Guardian piece) that Kevin Klose will be offered the dubious job of president and CEO of NPR, replacing Vivian Schiller, who was forced out last week.

Klose previously served as NPR president from 1998 to 2008 and is currently dean of University of Maryland's journalism school.

House targets NPR funds in divide-and-conquer move

House Republicans wanted to end funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which stakes public radio and television stations around the country, in addition to giving funds directly to NPR and PBS (two-thirds of CPB money goes to public television).

The slow grind of the budget process and resistance from the Democratically controlled Senate have thus far made a complete gutting of CPB impossible. So, the GOP has a new strategy, with Republicans in the House planning an "emergency" vote to cut only the funds that go to NPR and its affiliate stations (this includes KCRW, of which I am an employee). The bill must first go through Rep. David Dreier's Rules Committee. That vote is scheduled for today.

The James O'Keefe heavily edited sting video of Ron Schiller is the impetus for the new strategy. By stripping PBS out of the fight, Republicans hope to peel off the more powerful public broadcasting lobby in Washington. It will be interesting to see whether public television folks will continue to stand with NPR given the embarrassing foot shooting NPR execs have done in recent months.

All of which puts an even uglier spin on David Carr's recent story noting the successes of NPR in a world of shrinking news:

According to the State of the Media report, NPR’s overall audience grew 3 percent in 2010, to 27.2 million weekly listeners, up 58 percent overall since 2000. In the last year, total staff grew 8 percent, and its Web site, npr.org, drew an average of 15.7 million unique monthly visitors, up more than five million visitors. Its foreign bureaus and global footprint continue to grow while other broadcasters slink home. 

And while NPR receives a small portion of its operating budget through government money, millions of people also think that its journalism is worthy enough to pay for through contributions, a trick that the rest of news media have had trouble figuring out, to say the least. 

Trouble is, NPR has often been better at breaking news than running a news outlet. The current problems started five months ago when Juan Williams, a longtime NPR commentator, was hastily fired for remarks he made about Muslims making him fearful in airports. Then in January, Ellen Weiss, senior vice president for news, resigned after a report to the board found her management of the affair wanting.

Four today

1. Four New York Times journalists are missing in Libya, including two-time Pulitzer-winner Anthony Shadid. NYT

2. Pew's State of the Media report for 2011. Pew

3. KPCC is looking for a web designer/developer. APM

4. A neo-Nazi rally is planned for March 19 in Claremont to "respond" to a pro-immigration rally at the Claremont Colleges. Daily Bulletin

Sports teams increasingly doing their own publicity*

Sports journalism has carried more than a few newspapers through fat and thin times. Readers might intend to care about Congress or city council, but somehow they jump right to the sports page. Television and radio news have similar rhythms. Which is why the push by professional and college sports leagues to hire their own reporters to cover their own business has led to court battles and First Amendment arguments, as Paul Farhi reports in the Washington Post.

Aside from the money issues, this burgeoning battle raises questions about what sports journalism should look like. Is there a more adversarial form the non-team media could employ to counter the in-house PR? Would it keep the audience? Perhaps this new reality could free reporters from the PR transcriptions no one likes to do. But there are risks: After all, people root for "their" teams, they don't often root for Congress. Adversarial coverage could drive people away.

From the story:

“The larger picture is that sports lives in this uncomfortable space between news and commerce,” says Rich Gordon, a journalism professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School. “Journalists want to think of sports as news, but at the end of the day, it’s about entertainment and making money.”

This isn't strictly true. There are cultural and social identity issues tied to sports. Human drama, too. People spend lots of time thinking and watching sports teams for reasons that go beyond simple entertainment. Which is why, having the "entertainment and making money" side of the equation controlling coverage is a bad thing - and why self-reflection is a good thing.

The relationship is already troubling, however. News organizations sometime make deals to ensure their coverage does not impinge upon the money making. As professional sports grow in profits, these conflicts are going to multiply. A possible concern: Do news organizations start making deals to run the sports team-owned coverage on their websites or on air. After all, if the Lakers inside news crew gets the best photos and footage, wouldn't there be a temptation for, say, KTLA, after being shunned from the building, to run it?

More troubling still is the fact that this proprietary coverage is reaching down through college and into high school. Prep sports are the bread and butter of local papers, so this could sting badly. Then there's the nauseating thought of "monetizing" sports teams at public high schools - something budget-crushed districts are likely to consider. But, hey, then newspapers will have something else newsworthy to report on.

*Update: Former colleague Edward Barrera sent me a story that illustrates what happens when sports teams own their own news. From the New York Times:

Chris Botta, who publicized the Islanders for 15 years, had his credentials to cover the team on his blog revoked Tuesday, a day after the last-place franchise fired Coach Scott Gordon. 

“I was about to leave for practice, and I got a text from Kimber saying they would never issue me credentials for games and practices,” Botta said by telephone Thursday, referring to Kimber Auerbach, the team’s manager of communications. Botta said the only reason that Auerbach cited was management’s increasing concern that he had gone from “reporting the news to making the news.”

Oh, and in case you were hoping for some AOL convergence:

Botta spent 15 years in public relations with the Islanders before leaving in 2008 to start his blog, NYI Point Blank, which the team financed for a year. The blog has helped fill a media void for the moribund, publicity-starved team. 

The blog is now sponsored by AOL FanHouse, where Botta is a senior N.H.L. reporter.

Four today

1. Ever wonder why some news stories sound like press releases? Sometimes it's because the news stories basically copy huge blocks of text from press releases. A new site, churnalism.com, will help watchdog this shameful habit. PBS

2. Governments employ many layers of lawyers to figure out how not to tell people what's going on. ProPublica has gone through the excuses used to skirt the Freedom of Information Act to show just how its done. ProPublica

3. What's in a name? In the case of Medill journalism school, way too much. Daily Northwestern

4. AOL/Huffington Post is becoming fair and balanced. fishbowlLA

James O'Keefe's heavily edited version of the truth

James O'Keefe and his Project Veritas crew like to edit things.

For instance, in the surreptitious video O'Keefe made of NPR fund-raiser Ron Schiller and his lunch date with fake Muslims, Schiller says he thinks NPR will be fine without federal funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In the unedited video, Schiller says something quite different. Here's what NPR's David Folkenflik reported:

Upon their release last week, O'Keefe's videos gave fresh life to the push by Congressional Republicans to strip federal funding for public broadcasting. In the shorter video, Schiller appears to be saying that NPR would do just fine without federal dollars, though some stations would go dark. On the longer tape, it's clear Schiller says it would be disastrous in the short term.

There's more. In the edited tape, Schiller says very little about his role as a fundraiser who has no influence over the NPR news department (which O'Keefe and his cohorts were really targeting). But Schiller made repeated references to his role. Again, from Folkenflik:

"There is such a big firewall between funding and reporting: Reporters will not be swayed in any way, shape or form," Schiller says on that longer tape, in one of several such remarks.
Tompkins found that meaningful, noting that Ron Schiller was a fundraiser, not an official affecting the newsroom.
"The message that he said most often — I counted six times: He told these two people that he had never met before that you cannot buy coverage," Tompkins said. "He says it over and over and over again."

Most concerning, Schiller's comments about conservatives and the tea party - the comments that led to his and NPR President Vivian Schiller's being fired - were taken completely out of context. Folkenflik:

Take the political remarks. Ron Schiller speaks of growing up as a Republican and admiring the party's fiscal conservatism. He says Republican politicians and evangelicals are becoming "fanatically" involved in people's lives.
But in the shorter tape, Schiller is also presented as saying the GOP has been "hijacked" by Tea Partyers and xenophobes.
In the longer tape, it's evident Schiller is not giving his own views but instead quoting two influential Republicans — one an ambassador, another a senior Republican donor. Schiller notably does not take issue with their conclusions — but they are not his own.
-snip-
Menz, the digital forensics consultant, said he found some of Schiller's actual remarks disturbing. But by analyzing time stamps, Menz concluded that many of Schiller's remarks in that shorter video are presented out of sequence from the questions that were posed.
"For me, in my background, it immediately puts things into question," Menz said. "You really don't know what context these were in, what was going on in the 20 minutes before and after this question was asked."

In other words, the O'Keefe gotcha video is total bullshit. Nothing that O'Keefe has "reported" can be trusted. If he worked for one of the many newsrooms he simultaneously criticizes and says he's emulating (in terms of journalism standards), he'd be fired and left in a heap of shame. This is the problem with agenda journalism - the agenda drives the ethics (and usually runs them over) and very little in the way of journalism results.

The NPR board needs to do some serious soul searching over it's terrible crisis management. And everyone should do as Eric Alterman of CUNY suggested on "To the Point" the other day: Wait a couple days before reacting to an O'Keefe-style "scoop." You'll avoid embarrassment and severely stupid decision-making. I put myself in this group - when I first blogged about the O'Keefe video, I headlined my blog post: "NPR exec tells conservative pranksters exactly what they want to hear." Obviously, he didn't, or the conservative pranksters wouldn't have had to edit the video. And I failed to add my own context: O'Keefe is shady and his reporting is as crooked as a dog's hind leg.

Say what?

KCRW General Manager Jennifer Ferro talked to the Los Angeles Times about the threat to the station if Congress ends federal funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Her doomsday scenario hits kind of close to home.

If the station loses that government support and can’t raise the money elsewhere, it would likely have to cut its most costly operations—local news and information gathering, Ferro said. A couple of producers hired in November to create more local news stories would have to go, she said, as might some staffers who help create talk shows like “To the Point” and “Which Way, L.A.?” both popular mainstays, hosted by veteran newsman Warren Olney.

AOL readies the axe (*updated)

AOL bought Huffington Post for $315 million. The deal went through Monday. Today, All Things Digital reports that AOL plans to "lay off up to several hundred staffers starting tomorrow" and that the targets include editorial employees. Some of the layoffs are meant to clean up "redundancies" caused by the Huffington Post acquisition. The report also hints that certain areas of the country, perhaps where AOL media is having a hard time getting traction, will see cutbacks.

*Business Insider got hold of AOL CEO Tim Armstrong's memo to employees. Turns out 900 employees will be canned overall, 200 of them on the editorial side. An example of Armstrong's spin: "The structural changes at AOL are possible because of the progress we have made as a team in the last 12 months." Progress leads to layoffs in the corporate world.

Meantime, Arianna Huffington, now editorial director for all of AOL, has some plans of her own. Again, from All Things Digital:

Sources said she is likely to be making some dramatic changes, likely to be announced soon, to the way editorial products are created and presented to consumers.

The vague "dramatic changes" is enough to send shivers up most people's spines, especially when preceded by layoffs and prepared by someone who thinks exposure is a good substitute for a pay check. However, given AOL's own track record at handling editorial content (see here), the changes could be an improvement.

Bidding deadline for Freedom Communications approaches

Bids to buy Freedom Communications, the publisher of the Orange County Register, are due by tomorrow, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Bids for assets of the Irvine, Calif., media company, which owns the Register as well as other newspapers and local television stations, are due Thursday, the people said. Possible bidders include Denver Post publisher MediaNews Group Inc.; Tribune Co.; Gores Group; and Platinum Equity, owner of the San Diego Union Tribune, these people said.

-snip-

It remained unclear what prospective bidders might offer for Freedom's assets and which pieces each might pursue. The entire company won't likely fetch more than $1 billion, said people familiar with the matter.

Political columnist David Broder dead at 81

David Broder, the Pulitzer Prize-winning political writer who came to be known as the dean of Washington journalists, has died at age 81. Washington Post

NPR chief resigns

NPR President Vivian Schiller has resigned in the wake of yesterday's release of an embarrassing video in which an NPR business exec is caught deriding tea party politics.

Four today

1. Hello walls. The Belo-owned Dallas Morning News is charging for online content: Newsonomics; The New York Times is set to launch it's own paywall: MarketWatch; and Gannett now wants to charge, too: Bloomberg

2. James Fallows embraces inevitability. Atlantic

3. A way to rescue investigative pieces from stagnation? Nieman Journalism Lab

4. Actor seeks intern to help with new job hunt. Internships

Allen wins national investigative reporting prize

Two Las Vegas Sun reporter have won the 2011 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting for a series on substandard medical care in Las Vegas. Splitting the $25,000 prize are Alex Richards and Marshall Allen, a former Pasadena Star-News reporter, who has just taken a job with ProPublica.

(Allen is pictured at far right.)

Allen and Richards took top honors over the highly celebrated duo of Ruben Vives and Jeff Gottlieb, who helped break the story of the salary scandal in the city of Bell, as well as an intensive investigation into massive buildup of America's homeland security apparatus after 9/11 done by the Washington Post. A link to the Sun series is here.

The Sun, which was revitalized by an infusion of money from Brian Greenspun and the leadership of editor Drex Heikes, who helped win the paper a Pulitzer before heading to the LA Weekly, has certainly proven that a newsroom with a free hand to do good work will do good work. Let's hope Heikes can repeat the magic at the Weekly - and that the Weekly owners are paying attention.

NPR exec tells conservative pranksters exactly what they want to hear*

Yesterday, NPR's president gave a speech about the future of public radio at the National Press Club. But no one is talking about that. Instead, it's the words of NPR fund-raising executive Ronald Schiller, that are ringing out across the interwebs today.

Here's a summary of what went down from the New York Times:

The executive, Ronald Schiller, was recorded secretly by the Republican filmmaker and mischief-maker James O’Keefe. On the videotape, Mr. Schiller tells people posing as Muslim philanthropists that the Republican party has been “hijacked” by the Tea Party and that Tea Party supporters are “seriously racist, racist people.” Mr. Schiller indicates that he is sharing his personal point of view, not NPR’s.

Dana Davis Rehm, a spokeswoman for NPR, said in a statement Tuesday, “We are appalled by the comments made by Ron Schiller in the video, which are contrary to what NPR stands for.”

The release of the video comes at a sensitive time for NPR. Republicans in Congress who view NPR as biased are trying to cut federal funding for its local stations across the country. They are likely to seize on the video as further evidence of their views and further reason to reduce funding for the stations.

Schiller, who is no relation to NPR President Vivian Schiller, was already on his way out at NPR after taking a job with the Aspen Institute. But, well, whatever.

*Update: If you want to see how conservatives are playing this story, here are two links the influential Heritage Foundation recommended in its daily email blast: "Bad Timing for NPR" and "NPR's Diversity Doublespeak". All of this comes as public radio advocates, including KCRW's Jennfer Ferro, urge the Senate to keep the Corporation for Public Broadcasting funded.

Investors don't seem to be betting on AOL-Huffington Post deal

AOL's stock dropped to a new low on the same day that the $315 million purchase of Huffington Post closed. Is this coincidence or commentary? The Los Angeles Times speculates:

The decline in stock price may show a lack of investor confidence in Chief Executive Tim Armstrong's attempt to turn AOL around. Much of that plan is pinned on the combined vision of Armstong and Arianna Huffington, who is becoming president and editor in chief of a new Huffington Post Media Group inside AOL. 

AOL, looking to capitalize on the success of the Huffington Post website and brand, is putting the majority of its online publishing properties under Huffington's control.

(found via fishbowlLA)

Four in the morning

1. Utah wants to limit the pesky public from making requests for public documents. Poynter

2. Huffington Post names six new reporters, including former Yahoo-er Michael Calderon. Romenesko; Arianna Huffington says "meh" to the threat of unpaid bloggers going on strike (i.e., some people doing free work deciding not to work for free). fishbowlLA

3. Most media outlets are the worst at covering themselves - still, the New York Times ombud says it's about time the paper did some reporting on its highly anticipated paywall plan. NYT

4. For those living and voting in Los Angeles, the city will suspend parking restrictions on Election Day. City Maven (found via LA Observed)

Possible layoffs in Orange County (updated*)

I'm told the Orange County Register laid off at least one newsroom employee, a photographer, yesterday and LA Observed has reported that buyouts and possible layoffs were brought up at the paper's staff meeting Thursday. I'm also told that bought-out employees are being asked to sign an agreement not to go work for competing media outlets. More when/if I get it.

*Update: Here's a posting on sportsjournalist.com that appears to explain what happened at the Register. Boiled down, nine laid off from the newsroom:

The ax dropped at The Orange County Register again on Thursday as nine associates in the newsroom were laid off. Another six from elsewhere in the building are expected to be let go in the near future. 

Sports was hammered, losing three -- two writers and one copy editor -- Curtis Zupke (Ducks, golf), Chris Tobolski (preps) and Alan Petersen (copy desk). 

The other six were a photog, news copy editor, advertorial writer, two Web editors and another desk editor who already announced his upcoming retirement. 

Layoffs were solely OCR, not Freedom-wide. Apparently there is a rumor that the OCR newsroom was the second largest in the state, behind only the L.A. Times and ahead of bigger papers in San Diego and the Bay Area. So corporate slashed based on that.

There's nothing said about a non-compete agreement.

Allen goes to ProPublica*

Former Pasadena Star-News reporter Marshall Allen, whose work at the Las Vegas Sun has made him a finalist for the 2011 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, has taken a job with ProPublica. Allen will start at the nonprofit news outfit next week. He'll continue covering health care to start.

*In addition: Former Pasadena Star-News reporter Cindy Chang was promoted to special projects writer at the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Previously, she worked on the paper's city desk. In her new position, Chang "will be the lead author and coordinator" of the paper's investigative projects.

On writing emails that might get read

Marc Ambinder, White House correspondent at the National Journal, expects some of his emails to Kurt Bardella, former spokesman for Rep. Darrell Issa, are in the hands of New York Times reporter Mark Leibovich, who's writing a book about the coziness between Washington and the Washington press corps. Ambinder doesn't think Leibovich will find them useful. Because while he hopes his sources to be discreet, he doesn't bet on it:

There is a general understanding, a hidden law, a common presupposition, that e-mail isn't intended for forwarding. Reporters and sources have a mutual interest in being honest and upfront with each other, so each assumes that, if they consider the relationship important, they would not violate this implied confidentiality.

This is all an ideal. Unfortunately, a lot of journalists and many sources face extreme pressure to be information dealers, to trade information they get for better information, to "blow up" one source in favor of another. This tension is exacerbated by the competitive landscape for news organizations. Bardella knows that the snowflake scoop, the micro-scoop, the gossamer-thin scoop that leaves no imprint the next day, is the bread and butter of many of a news organization.

-snip-

When I interact with a source, I hope the source will be discreet - that he or she won't pre-empt my query by giving a story to someone else, or that he or she won't share my style of journalistic flirtation with others.

But I do not expect discretion. I expect just the opposite: I expect my e-mails to be shared with others. I hope they aren't but I write them with the expectation that they will be. That's not ideal, but that's the way it is.

Down for the hit count at The Daily

Rupert Murdoch's The Daily, a tablet-only news digest in need of subscribers, has a hard-hitting story up about a stripper therapist. A version of the story is available online, along with video - it doesn't include actual nudity, or any actual therapeutic advice. Here's the words-only summary:

Sessions begin with White fully clothed. As the hour proceeds, she asks if the patient (who are, unsurprisingly, mostly male) minds if she removes her shirt.

Then her skirt. Then her bra and underwear. The patient rarely minds.

One-hour sessions cost $150, and at first are conducted over webcam. Once a level of trust has been established, patients can book in-person sessions, though the price increases fivefold.

The same writer, using the same participatory style, recently did some hits-hunting work for the New York Post, where he profiled a masturbation meditation class.

(found via Gawker)

Four in the morning

1. Liberal columnist Frank Rich bails on New York Times, goes to New York magazine. NY

2. A map of 17 "muckraking" bloggers having an impact on world affairs. Daily Beast

3. The Denver Post continues to sue bloggers for using its content without permission - and catches a destitute writer in its dragnet. Westword

4. Los Angeles Times reporters Jeff Gottlieb and Ruben Vives win the Seldin Ring Award for Investigative Reporting for their city of Bell stories. USC