Martin Weinberger, long-time Courier publisher, has died*

Martin Weinberger, long-time owner and publisher of the Claremont Courier, died early today after a period of failing health. He was 82.

Weinberger was a patron of local journalism - a last bastion of quality in a sea of chains and community-based fluff. He put real stories on the page for decades (though his affinity was photography). The mere fact that he survived the newspaper bloodbath is testimony to what he'd built. Courier alumni include Los Angeles Times reporter David Zahniser and Times photographers Genaro Molina and George Rose (Rose is no longer at the Times).

I worked for Martin as a reporter and editor between 1997 and 2002. He was of another age: He was still pasting up the paper the year I left. When he recited the axioms of our newsroom heroes, he got the words right and meant what he said. Claremont City Hall never truly understood him and it never ignored him. He will be missed by those who knew him, and by a world that's leaving his hard-earned wisdom behind.

*Update: From the Courier's Facebook page:

The COURIER staff is sad to report that owner Martin Weinberger died July 5th at 12:20 a.m. Mr. Weinberger bought the COURIER in 1955 and remained at the helm until his retirement in 2008. He is survived by his wife, Janis; his son, Peter, the current publisher; his daughter-in-law, Betsy; and his grandchildren, Matthew and Collette. Service arrangements are pending.

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 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

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.
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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.

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

Jack Kyser dead at 76

Jack Kyser, the guru of Southern California economic analysis and go-to expert for media here and around the world, died Monday. He was 76. Marc Lacter at LA Biz Observed has a short look at his career.

Political consultant Joe Cerrell dead at 75

Longtime Democratic political consultant Joe Cerrell, a former adviser to President Kennedy and fixture in California politics, has died. He was 75.

Here's the press release from Hal Dash, CEO of Cerrell Associates:

“We are deeply saddened to announce that our company co-founder, mentor, political legend and friend Joe Cerrell passed away this morning in Camarillo following a brief bout with pneumonia.  His family was at his side to say goodbye.

Joe was a larger-than-life figure in California politics and public affairs for the past half century, beginning as a USC college Democrat and building a career in which he was an advisor to presidents, governors and political figures at all levels.  His legacy as a counselor, confidant, and close friend to thousands of people in politics, the business community, as well as in the public relations and non-profit arenas, especially the Italian-American community in Los Angeles, will not be forgotten.

Along with his beloved wife Lee, Joe built Cerrell Associates into one of the most respected and successful public affairs and political consulting firms in the nation.

Today, we celebrate this great icon of California and national politics, his life and many accomplishments, even as we mourn his passing.

 Rick Orlov at the LA Daily News has an obit here.

Sad state of the Mexican press

The drug war in Mexico has claimed the lives of at least 56 reporters in the last five years; 90 percent of the media-related crimes go unpunished, according to a recent report from the Committee to Protect Journalists. In response, one newspaper to ask the drug lords what exactly they want it to publish. From the New York Times:

It was by turns defiant and deferential, part plea and part plaint, a message as much to the drug gangs with a firm grip on Ciudad Juárez, the bloodiest city in Mexico’s drug battles, as to the authorities and their perceived helplessness.

“We want you to explain to us what you want from us,” the front-page editorial in El Diario in Ciudad Juárez asked the leaders of organized crime. “What are we supposed to publish or not publish, so we know what to abide by. You are at this time the de facto authorities in this city because the legal authorities have not been able to stop our colleagues from falling.”

In Mexico’s drug wars, it is hard to pinpoint new lows as the atrocities and frustrations mount. But Ciudad Juárez belongs in its own category, with thousands killed each year, the exodus of tens of thousands of residents, the spectacle of the biggest national holiday last week observed in a square virtually devoid of anybody but the police and soldiers, and the ever-present fear of random death.

The question now is whether anyone there will dare to continue documenting the turmoil in Ciudad Juárez, a smuggling crossroads across from El Paso that is battled over by at least two major criminal organizations.

The Committee to Protect Journalists is meeting with President Felipe Calderon on Wednesday to discuss the constant and dire threat journalists face. The group's report on journalists deaths in Mexico is here.

Plot a massacre, pass the adobo

Planning murder will apparently make one hungry. From the New York Times:

The clan accused of orchestrating the Philippines’ worst political massacre — also considered the single worst killing of journalists on record — plotted the attack over a family dinner, a longtime housekeeper testified at the start of a long-delayed trial here on Wednesday.

The patriarch of the clan that has long controlled the province of Maguindanao in the southern Philippines, Andal Ampatuan Sr., gathered his sons, brothers and other guests at the dinner table six days before the killings of 57 political rivals and journalists last November, the witness, Lakmudin Salio, said.

Veteran newsman Daniel Schorr dead at 93

Veteran broadcast journalist Daniel Schorr, an NPR political analyst and original member of Edward R. Murrow's CBS news team, has died. He was 93. The NPR obituary is here. NPR president Vivian Schiller had this to say in a note to his colleagues:

It’s impossible to overestimate Dan’s impact on journalism – from his early days working with Edward R. Murrow, to the founding of CNN, to the last 25 years as NPR’s news analyst, a familiar and beloved voice to millions of listeners. Every one of us who happened to see Dan coming in to work -- walking a little more slowly with time but with a razor-sharp wit and warmth that never dimmed – learned a lesson in the dedication, determination, and integrity that it takes to be the best. He was.

Bring out your dead

The drug wars in Mexico have left thousands of people dead - often the result of gruesome killings - and one tabloid, El Nuevo Alarma!, has made it its business to feed the appetite of readers who want to see the gory aftermath.

From the Daily Beast:

With every ritual execution, with every decapitation, the editors of Mexican tabloids like El Nuevo Alarma! (warning: graphic photos) snap into action. Alarma! is Mexico’s most shameless tabloid, like the New York Post with one-100th of the editorial discretion. Since 1963, Alarma! has specialized in publishing graphic photos of Mexico’s dead, and, now, the drug cartels have handed the paper an unending stream of bodies. “Ellas También,” reads the cover headline of a recent issue, alongside the photo of two youngish women who had been murdered by the cartel that calls itself La Familia. The editor, Miguel Ángel Rodriguez Vazquez, told me the photo piqued his interest, because it’s not every day he sees a woman so casually executed.

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Alarma! is a weekly newspaper. It claims a circulation of 80,000, with 15,000 to 20,000 of those copies sold in the United States—the bulk of them in southern California, Texas and New York.

Thai army assault on anti-government protesters

On May 19, hundreds of Thai soldiers moved in to clear anti-government protesters from downtown Bangkok. Reporter in Exile blogger Todd Ruiz filmed the operation, which left at least 15 people dead:

Dawn-to-dusk footage from the Bangkok crackdown from reporterinexile.com on Vimeo.

Bangkok explosions

At least five explosion hit Bangkok, killing one and wounding 75 others, according to the New York Times.

Reporter in Exile blogger Todd Ruiz, former Pasadena Star-News reporter turned expat, is providing updates here.

Protests in Thailand turn violent

A cameraman for Reuters is among the 15 people killed as anti-government protesters and army troops clashes in Bangkok. AP has the latest. Todd Ruiz is following the action over at Reporter in Exile.

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

Canadian journalist killed in Afghanistan

Canadian journalist Michelle Lang, a 34-year-old reporter at the Calgary Herald, was killed Wednesday along with four soldiers when a roadside bomb hit the armored vehicle they were traveling in:

She is the first Canadian journalist to die in the Afghan war since Canada joined the international mission in 2002, and is believed to be the first Herald reporter ever killed on the job in the paper’s 126-year history.

She was on a six-week assignment in Afghanistan.

The dangers of reporting south of the border

The Los Angeles Times had a chilling piece earlier this week about the perils of being a reporter covering Mexico's drug wars:

The government assigned bodyguards to the crime reporter for El Tiempo newspaper in Durango, but as time wore on and there were so many other crises, the escorts were withdrawn. A couple of days later, he was snatched by gunmen; his strangled, bruised body was discovered at nightfall.

With the corpse was a hand-scrawled message: "This happened to me for giving information to soldiers and writing too much."

Antuna, who died last month, was the third journalist killed in Durango since May and one of as many as 12 reporters and media workers slain in Mexico this year...

Mike Penner dead at 52

Los Angeles Times sportswriter Mike Penner has died. He was 52. The apparent cause of death is suicide.

Penner made headlines in 2007 when he announced he was a transsexual and began writing under the byline "Christine Daniels". In 2008, he reclaimed the "Mike Penner" byline.

Here's Times editor Russ Stanton's memo to staff on Penner's passing:

Colleagues:

I am very saddened to report that Mike Penner, whose work graced our pages for two-and-a-half decades, passed away last night.

We've posted a short story on the site this morning http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/ and a longer piece will follow for both the web and tomorrow's paper.

Mike was a first-rate journalist, a valued member of our staff and we will miss him. He respected our readers a great deal, enough to share with them his very personal journey. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.

Death of a newspaper

The Lemoore Advance in Lemoore, California (west of Visalia) closed its doors last week after 121 years in business. (via Newspaper Death Watch)

Jim Long was 46

Jim Long, who worked as a sports writer for the Victorville Daily Press and San Bernardino Sun, died on Thursday at Kaiser Hospital in Fontana. He was 46.

Paul Oberjuerge, one of Long's former colleagues, remembers Long and his career:

He never in his life had what most of us would consider an “easy” day. He was born with Type 1 diabetes and palsy, suffered from lung cancer in his 30s (and lost half a lung) … and then battled strokes and cancer, again, over the past two years.

Yet he accomplished as much as most of us who have none of the issues he dealt with, and he never once complained, in my presence, about how he had been dealt a bad hand. In fact, he fought Mother Nature to a standstill for nearly 45 years, entered a profession for which he was perfectly suited, succeeded in it and, eventually, became the sports authority for the huge tract of territory (stretching from Hesperia to Baker) known as the High Desert — the San Bernardino County side of it, anyway.

He was mentally tough, impossible to intimidate, a good writer, an excellent researcher — and fully committed to the idea of print journalism, which he loved.

He was my first hire. He was one of my best hires, as well. He took himself and his job seriously and was utterly loyal to the newspaper and the San Bernardino Sun sports section. He never considered any assignment beneath his dignity. He covered preps, local colleges, California League baseball — and even some “downtown” events — and brought the same enthusiasm to all those assignments.

Oberjuerge says he'll update his post when the funeral arrangements and cause of death become known. The full post is here.