Press-Telegram losing sports, photo, features*, **

The Long Beach Press-Telegram is eliminating sports, photo and features departments from its already skeletal newsroom. The duties will be turned over to the P-T's sister paper, the Daily Breeze in Torrance, two sources tell me. At least two sports writers, a features writer and a photographer will lose their jobs. I'm told the staffers can reapply for their positions in Torrance.

*Updated: A little more detail about the change. I'm told photo is being moved from Long Beach to the Daily Breeze and there will be one fewer photographers, and sports will likewise be moved with two fewer staffers. The P-T's features department will be eliminated, which means Al Rudis is out of a job.

In their place, the Daily Breeze plans to hire a news editor and a presentation editor and to create two new city reporter positions.

**Updated 4/30: The fog is beginning to clear on the Long Beach Press-Telegram. A story in the Long Beach Post makes clear that two people were laid off yesterday: executive city editor John Futch and day city editor Rose Fitzpatrick.

Additionally, the paper has lost its photo, sports and features departments. This will affect more people than I originally reported. There are five photographers, six sports writers and columnists, and three features department employees who will be terminated and then asked to reapply for jobs at the Daily Breeze. As reported above, there will be one fewer photographers, two fewer sports slots and, apparently, no features openings at the Breeze.

Richard McKee, First Amendment activist, has died (*updated)

Richard McKee, the quiet chemistry professor who smiled as he chewed through walls of government secrecy, has died. He was 62.

Details of his death are murky. What little I know comes from a post written by Emily Francke at Californians Aware, a statewide First Amendment watchdog group McKee helped start:

It is with deep regret and a very heavy heart that I must report that our dear friend and colleague, Rich McKee, suddenly passed away today, April 23, 2011. I have no further details at this time, but I will share what I can as it becomes known to me in the coming days and weeks. 

Rich was one of our greatest champions throughout the years, and we truly could not have done any of this without him. I hope you will join me in sending support and prayers to his family and friends as they learn to cope with this incredible loss.

McKee fought every day to ensure California lived up to a simple and obvious idea. He believed the public has a right to know what the government it elected is doing. This meant more than reporting out a final vote after a closed door meeting, it meant giving the public the same information a legislative body relied on to come to a decision - before the decision was made. It meant giving the public the right to speak before government officials made up their minds. It meant taking officials to task when they tried to skirt the fundamental sunshine laws of the state. Control freaks in City Halls and County buildings across California buckled at his passion, because he knew what he was talking about, he was never demagogic, and he always had law on his side.

It was a simple idea, and yet McKee spent more than a decade fighting nearly identical battles in city after city, county after county, as craven government officials decided it was easier to conceal than to reveal. The salary scandal in the City of Bell - the one that won the Los Angeles Times a Pulitzer - shows what happens when people like McKee are not around. He not only fought his battles, but he fought countless battles on behalf of people who did not know they had rights.

Indeed, I would say that every City Hall reporter in California who has ever requested sensitive documents or emails in the last 13 years has Richard McKee to thank - either because he offered the reporter free advice, or because he fought at the reporter's side in court when officials said no, or because he left behind a legacy of court decisions that made the reporter's job easier. I know from experience.

He was genuine, he was good, and will be missed.

*Updated 4/25: The Daily Breeze has more on McKee's death, including the fact that he died of natural causes. The story also has a comment from Terry Francke, head of Californians Aware and former general counsel at the California First Amendment Coalition:

McKee died of natural causes Saturday at his La Verne home, according to Los Angeles County Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter. An autopsy is pending. Family members did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Francke described McKee as an outspoken and dedicated advocate for public participation in local government.

"He was a big guy in personality, in generousness and in enthusiasm for opening up government to public participation," Francke said. "He was very good humored and very gentlemanly. He was a skilled persuader."

McKee fought for public access to government records and documents and educated public officials in more than 100 cities across the state about open-meeting laws and the California Public Records Act. He filed nearly 30 lawsuits against public agencies in the last 16 years, winning the vast majority.

Four to break the silence

The blog has been quiet for most of the week, as my new job has required much more of my time. That said, here are some links to get you through Good Friday:

1. Yahoo! News Network helps prove once again that you don't have to best to be first. According to the number crunchers at Poynter, the online network is the top destination for news and information on the web, besting CNN by about 6 million unique hits a month. Poynter

2. Forbes surmises that the unpaid bloggers at Huffington Post provide more value to the site than Arianna Huffington wants to admit. Although they don't drive enough traffic to boost ad revenues in a significant way, they are the reason that Google treats HuffPo as a news site rather than a content farm, Forbes concludes. That means HuffPo stories get ranked alongside the New York Times and Los Angeles Times in a Google News search, rather than pushed down to the Demand Media level. And if you look at the Poynter link above, you'll see Huffington Post is sixth on the list (and partner AOL News is fourth). Forbes

3. As the use of wireless mobile devices increases, the companies that make them want to claim a wider swath of the broadcast spectrum from television broadcasters. The lack of public debate in the process is notable. New York Times

4. The news that Oscar-winning filmmaker Tim Hetherington had died in a mortar attack in Libya came from a fellow photographer's posting on Facebook. Wired

Today is Pulitzer day*

The 2011 Pulitzer Prizes winners will be announced at 3 p.m. Eastern today. Names will be posted here.

*Update: The Los Angeles Times won in the public service category for its reports on the City of Bell salary scandal. The investigative award went to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, and the Chicago Sun-Times won for local reporting. In the latter category, the Pulitzer board mentioned that Marshall Allen, formerly of the Pasadena Star-News and now with ProPublica, was a finalist, along with his coauthor Alex Richards.

AOL-Huffington might double its Patch force

Arianna Huffington, now the editorial voice behind AOL's news team, has announced the company will hire as many as 800 writers to work on its 800 or so Patch sites across the country, Bloomberg reported. From the story:

“Each site will now have its own team,” Huffington said in an interview. “It’s always greater and better to have a team.” Until now, content for each Patch website has been produced by a single full-time local editor and freelancers.

Teams also help prevent exhaustion from setting in. Individual Patch editors do almost everything necessary to publish their city-based sites. That is tiring and can lead to myopic story selection.

An extra body could also pick up slack for projects, since it's likely there will be Patchwide stories and series. For example, I'm told California's Patch sites paired up with California Watch to help localize the latter's series on earthquake safety in public schools - "sloppy" and "mess" were some of the words one Patcher used to describe the process. It may just be growing pains.

Here's more from the Bloomberg story:

“We are basically going to make Patch a lot more social,” said Huffington, 60. “It’s a great way to have people in the town, from the mayor to high-school kids, engaged.”

That sounds nice. I don't know what it means.

Sidney Harman has died at 92

Sidney Harman, the man who bought Newsweek for $1 and its debt, has died. From the LA Times obit:

Harman died Tuesday night in Washington, D.C., of complications from leukemia, according to a statement from his family on the website of the Daily Beast, which Harman merged with Newsweek. He was married to former Democratic Congresswoman Jane Harman of Venice.

The path of Harman's long career took him from the electronics industry to government, academia and, finally, the Fourth Estate. His passion for the arts and philanthropic impulses led him to provide funding for Washington, D.C.'s Sidney Harman Hall, a popular performance space. An indefatigable reader and thinker who was fascinated by creative geniuses, Harman also at age 92 founded the Academy for Polymathic Studies at USC. From heart, he could recite long passages from Shakespeare, or Abraham Lincoln or Maxwell Anderson, and would often embroider a thought or regale dinner-party guests with an apt quote.

In November 2010, when Harman was being hammered by critics skeptical of his deal to merge Newsweek with Barry Diller's Daily Beast website, he offered, in an interview, a quote from Lincoln's speech before Congress in 1862: "The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation."

Four things that won't surprise you

1. Journalist and pundit Jonathan Alter is leaving Newsweek, possibly for a gig at Bloomberg.

2. Visits to the New York Times homepage are down between 5 percent and 15 percent since the paywall went up.

3. Tribune Co. and MediaNews Group are the leading bidders for the Orange County Register.

4. A freelancer has sued on behalf of unpaid contributors to AOL-Huffington Post.

(All links found via Romenesko)

Our man in Bangkok

Todd Ruiz, former Pasadena Star-News City Hall reporter, lives in Thailand, where he samples real street food on a daily basis - not the kind that comes in a fancy truck, but the kind that comes from someone who pays a monthly bribes to keep his gutter-side restaurant open.

From the post:

So I noticed foodie Evan Kleiman of KCRW in that other City of Angels has unilaterally declared May 1st Global Street Food day. Good to see America tasting some of its much-celebrated diversity. Although the hipster horde of Los Angeles may have recently discovered catering trucks serving up lengua and all-things con carne, the joys of street food are largely absent from the American diet. I'm sure health codes and dysentery dissonance are factors.

But while Americans focus on 'square' meals in carefully scheduled nutrient-consumption rituals, much of the world cruises through life grazing from stalls, booths, mobile kitchens and gutter-kettles tended by stooped oldsters.

Four Monday

1. David Grann is a fascinating journalist. Slate makes the wise decision to profile him and his work. Slate

2. NPR has a digital strategy that supposed to help local stations. If you have the patience to read about it, click: Nieman Journalism Lab

3. If you "like" the New Yorker, they'll let you behind the paywall. Bloggasm

4. Privacy isn't all that it's cracked up to be ... online, anyway. Farhad Manjoo

"Frontline" prepares to move online

"Frontline" has hired a veteran newspaperman to help prepare the show for the post-broadcast world. As radio and television move online, there will be a convergence with text. Perhaps this is where the writers, marginalized by shrinking print products, get their second life. Huffington Post

Journalists ordered out of Libya*

*While talking to Warren Olney on today's "To The Point," New York Times reporter David Kirkpatrick, who's in Tripoli, received word that he and some 25 other journalists are being ordered out of Libya. A message slipped under Kirkpatrick's door informed him that he must be out of the country by tomorrow morning. He and the other journalists are "staying" at the Rixos Hotel in Libya's capital city. The entire interview can be heard here.

Here's a clip of Kirkpatrick's report:

  Western journalists ordered to leave Libya by KCRW

*Update: NPR has received the same report from its reporter in Tripoli, Lourdes-Garcia Navarro. "Things are subject to change," NPR added, "Some reporters have been told in the recent past that they were being expelled, only to later be allowed to stay."

Painter ties for first

The Associated Press Sports Editors awarded Daily News sports writer Jill Painter a first place prize for column writing.

AOL puts the "free" in freelancing*, **

AOL plans to fire all of its freelancers at Moviefone and Cinematical, but wants them to know they're still welcome to write for the sites - for free. In other words, the Huffington Post blogger model. Here's part of the email (via fishbowlLA) to the freelancers:

We will, indeed, be moving away from a freelancer model and toward one relying on full-time staffers. Sometime soon -– this week, I believe –- many of you will be receiving an email informing you that your services as a freelancer will no longer be required. You will be invited to contribute as part of our non-paid blogger system; and though I know that for many of you this will not be an option financially, I strongly encourage you to consider it if you’d like to keep writing for us, because we value all of your voices and input.

AOL-Huffington, redefining "value" one website at a time.

*Update: I'm told AOL Patch freelancers still get $50 a pop, so this policy has not hit them yet.

**Update II: The AOL editor who sent the above email was fired for its "erroneous" tone, the Wrap reports. Apparently, freelancers aren't being invited to become unpaid bloggers. They're being invited to apply for paid positions. However, if they don't get them, and they want to continue writing for Huffington Post or another AOL platform, they are free to do so. For free.

Texas paper spikes column critical of major advertiser

Romenesko has linked to a troubling story about the Hearst-owned San Antonio Express-News and its decision to spike a column from a veteran writer that took the HEB supermarket chain to task for the dilapidated condition of stores in predominantly black neighborhoods, and the shoddy quality of meats sold there.

Challenged by a writer for the Plaza de Armas news site, Express-News Editor Bob Rivard said this:

You are free, of course, to campaign against us by asserting without any evidence that we are not publishing what you want us to publish because H-E-B is a major advertiser. I’d suggest instead that we approach any story about H-E-B based on its long-standing and well-deserved reputation in the city, region and state as a best-in-class business, leading corporate citizen, and a company and ownership with an unrivaled record of philanthropy and support for public education in Texas.

So... it's not the company's money that led to the column being spiked, it's the company's influence that led to the column being spiked... influence that stems from making lots of money.

Circular logic does not get the paper around its responsibility to keep a watchful eye on all powerful corporate citizens, even the "leading" ones - "without fear or favor" does not work well when editors pick favorites.

(Let me disclose that I tried to buy a six-pack of beer at an HEB grocery store in Elgin, Texas a couple years back and was refused because I had an out of state ID. Pointing out that the beer also came from out of state did not change the manager's mind. So, one could argue I'm less than objective about the chain.)

Four links

1. Almena Lomax, civil rights activist and founder of the Los Angeles Tribune, has died. LAT (found via fishbowlLA)

2. The Center for Public Integrity will launch an investigative journalism website. NYT

3. ProPublica is hiring. ProPublica

4. Small town reporters don't just do small stories. LAT

Tired of bad press, city of Vernon buys the good kind*

To ensure a long and lucrative life in political office, city officials Vernon reportedly handpicked their constituents. So, it comes as no surprise that these same officials, faced with mounting scrutiny over alleged self-dealing and outrageous salaries, would feel justified in handpicking their news coverage.

Which is what happened when former state attorney general John Van de Kamp was asked by Vernon City Administrator Mark Whitworth to talk to a local newspaper about proposed city reforms. Van de Kamp, who was hired by the city to improve its image, later discovered the reporter wasn't a reporter and the story wasn't a story. It was an "advertorial," better known as a paid advertisement.

The ad, which can be seen here, is made-up to look like a news story, complete with photos, columns and a byline. The ad ran in several Los Angeles Newspaper Group (LANG) publications, including the Pasadena Star-News, Los Angeles Daily News, and Long Beach Press-Telegram.

From the LA Times:

Van de Kamp said the city arranged for him to be interviewed by a reporter. But officials did not tell him it was for a large, full-color advertisement touting the virtues of the embattled city. He said he didn't know about the ad until he saw it in Pasadena Star-News on Thursday morning. 

"I'm not here to…flak for the city," Van de Kamp said. "We're out here trying to do a straightforward, objective job. So that format is a problem for me."

This isn't a case where a government agency bought space from the paper and then created its own promotional ad. Instead, the newspaper's advertising department hired a writer to "report" on Vernon's supposed reform agenda and then ran the fake story in a way that misleads readers into thinking it went through the normal editorial process. Adding to the confusion, the byline belongs to Edward Barrera, a former editor and reporter in the LANG chain.

Asked about the confusion over the ad, Barrera told the Times that he never identified himself as a reporter to Van de Kamp. He elaborated in an email to me:

I get why the Times asked the question. Someone should have told Van de Kamp (including, probably, me). But it was a simple mistake. This was a generic and transparent promotional Q and A. It's why my name is on it.

Why would a newspaper even consider such an ethically fraught service? The money cannot be worth the negative publicity and newsroom hair pulling. And if Vernon is truly on the path of reform, a real reporter could do a real story about that. Thus far, LANG's newsrooms have done little reporting of any kind about Vernon, save an uncritical Star-News column about a state plan to disband the city.

(Full disclosure: I worked for the Star-News as a reporter and later served as an editor in the San Gabriel Valley alongside Edward Barrera.)

*I should note that this isn't my first experience with a LANG advertorial. In the early 2000s, while working at the Claremont Courier, I broke a story about mismanagement at the Three Valleys Municipal Water District. The Los Angeles Times followed up on the story and ended up funding a public records lawsuit. The LANG chain, represented by the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, largely ignored the story, even though a reporter there had the goods. However, Three Valleys did buy several promotional ads in LANG papers for tens of thousands of dollars.

Bill Bell, editor and soul of the Whittier Daily News, is dead

Bill Bell, former editor and columnist at the Whittier Daily News, has died of complications from a stroke. He was 77 years old.

Whittier Daily News editor Tim Traeger has the obituary:

Bell cut his journalistic teeth in hardscrabble and hard-drinking newsrooms like the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner and the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. 

He covered the Watts Riots in 1965, the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968 and the 1971 Sylmar Earthquake. One of his biggest stories was the 1987 Whittier Narrows Earthquake, which leveled buildings in Uptown and caused millions of dollars in damages.
-snip- 

After his stint at the Tribune, Bell was hired as editor of the Victor Valley Daily Press in 1975 and he moved his burgeoning family to Apple Valley. When that paper was sold in 1979, Bell worked for various weekly publications in Hesperia and Apple Valley before being hired as editor of the Whittier Daily News in 1982. 

For Bell, it was both a homecoming and a salvation. He battled alcoholism and often credited Whittier with saving his life. He gave up alcohol for good upon the birth of his first grandchild, Sarah, in 1984.

Employee remembrances here and here.

My influence is profound

Washington Post staff writer Ezra Klein asked readers of his Wonkbook blog to come up with a name for his daily list of five headlines published every morning. I suggested "Five in the morning," a recommendation that proves my creativity is limited to plagiarizing myself* and adding one. From Klein:

Housekeeping: “High Five” and “Fab Five” were definitely the most popular suggestions to replace “Top Stories.” I also liked “Starting Five” and “Gang of Five.” But the winner, from Gary Scott, managed to flatter the odd hours Dylan, Michelle and I keep to bring Wonkbook out. So, introducing:

Five in the morning

*I haven't yet decided whether to retire my occasional "four in the morning/afternoon" list. I probably should, and take the opportunity to "innovate" on my own blog.

Oh, and since I'm self-promoting - today is my first day as supervising producer at KCRW. Here's the note Warren Olney sent to staff:

Gary Scott has been promoted to the new job of Supervising Producer for "To the Point" and "Which Way, LA?"  He'll be in charge of editorial issues and centralized planning, including development of our New Media activities and their integration with what we do on the air. His duties will also extend to KCRW's other news operations on "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered."  Karen Radziner will continue to be our Managing Producer. 

The "other news operations" he refers to are the local news reports that run in the breaks of Morning Edition and All Things Considered.