Your Daily News columnists

LA Observed has posted the new columnist lineup for the Daily News of Los Angeles. The link is broken, so I'm quoting LAO's post:

Former editorial writer and reporter Kerry Cavanaugh returns from a nine-month fellowship at Columbia University to take over a new Tuesday front page column spot. "Cavanaugh has always sought to give voice to Valley residents. Now she plans to answer their questions about the news of the day, and find the truth amid the bureaucratic, bizarre and bewildering world of government," editor Carolina Garcia says in a front-page note that ran Sunday.

Also, Al Martinez bumps up to the front page two days a week — Mondays and Fridays — and Doug McIntyre stays on Sundays and Wednesdays. Editorial page editor Mariel Garza's column "examining state and regional politics and trends" will return to the Sunday opinion pages after being dark for awhile. They are "veterans with a unique and inquisitive perspective who will write about Valley issues and who will attempt to unravel complex governmental topics," says Garcia.

Personality journalism

The resignation of blogger David Weigel from the Washington Post has the commentariate in an uproar: Was the Washington Post fair to accept his resignation (de facto firing)? Should fishbowlDC have published emails written on a listserv that wasn't meant to be public? What is the role of a blogger versus a "normal" columnist?

To me, this is the predictable consequence of the celebrification of journalism, as papers looking to increase traffic turn to personalities (brand-name journalists) who are able to rise up through the fractured mediascape. In this case, a well-known libertarian writer was caught sending untoward messages about well-known conservative commentators on a server used by well-known liberal commentators. In a media world context, this was a celebrity cat fight, with name brands facing off in the newest electronic bubble.

Expect it to be a trend.