Dupuy to depart FishbowlLA

Tina Dupuy is leaving FishbowlLA to work at Crooks and Liars, a blog I'll add to my blog roll. Next stop, Gawker?

Four Friday

1. Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi gets slammed for arm-chair reporting on GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann - and the word "plagiarism" gets thrown about. City Paper

2. People like Andy Carvin and NPR wants to capitalize on that. Nieman Journalism Lab

3. Gene Weingarten skewers self-branding and journalists patronizing their readers. Washington Post

4. A Patch reporter doesn't break a story. fishbowlLA

Four Monday

1. Andrew Breitbart tells the L.A. chapter of the Republican Jewish Coalition that objectivity in journalism means surrender, and unveils plans to start a Big Jerusalem site. fishbowlLA

2. An ad in today's Miami Herald congratulations the Miami Heat, which lost the NBA championships. Miami New Times

3. AOL's Patch sites are busy, but not with muckraking stories. LAT

4. ABC's Chris Cuomo embarrasses himself as he rationalizes paying sources. Poynter

A return from the rapture

New duties at work have led to (an obvious) slowdown on the blog. Hopefully I'll find my rhythm again in a few weeks.Until then, here are some links to tide you over:

1. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg only eats the meat that he kills. He's taken to cutting goat and pig throats in a nod to sustainable farming. CNNMoney

2. NPR wants to know your platform preferences. NPR

3. "Long tails" in support of long tales online. Nieman Lab

4. AOL-Huffington Post announces a financial reporting team and a Canada-theme. Huffington Post (via LA Observed)

5. FishbowlLA co-editor Pandora Young said on Facebook that she got threats of legal retribution for reporting what people said about Finke. The "offending" post is here: FishbowlLA

6. Food writing, like all other forms of writing, is being changed by social media, Internet platforms, and dying newspapers. Poynter

7. You'll go broke going broke. Tribune Co. has paid $157 million to lawyers, bankers and advisers working on its bankruptcy case. WSJ

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.

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

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)

Another black eye for Patch

A stringer for AOL's Patch site in Palo Alto got caught poaching a business report from the website VentureBeat. The Palo Alto Patch acknowledged what had happened in an apology to readers.

Patch sites in West Hollywood and New Rochelle, New York have run into problems with stolen content as well, as FishbowlLA has reported.

The Patch network is largely decentralized, with individual editors running city sites under a regional editor. The model calls for the local editors (some of whom having journalism training, some of whom don't) to hire stringers (some of whom have journalism training, some of whom don't) to help produce content and keep the web pages filled. It's a system that invites people to cut corners.

As I just argued in the post below, Patch sites should not be graded on a curve - no excuses for plagiarism, no pats on the back for doing what they promised to do. But it only takes a few rotten apples to spoil the barrel. So AOL better get its shit together - it owes it to the Patch writers and editors who are doing a good job.

(found via FishbowlLA)

Four in the morning

1. A welcome respite from the Larry King love fest: "As refreshing as it has been that King generally checked his politics at the door, it also happens that he sometimes left his brain there too." LAT (via LA Observed)

2. The deal that gave the Tribune Co. to Sam Zell, and landed the company in bankruptcy, also made many executive rich(er). The Chicago Reader got a list - and points out that the bankruptcy court might claw back some or all of it. Chicago Reader

3. The whitewashed wall at MOCA that the LA Downtown News first reported on is finally starting to get the attention it deserves. fishbowlLA

4. The Rolling Stone website is no longer a complete mess. fishbowlLA

Reuters America created, Tribune Co. interested*

Thomson Reuters has launched a wire service, called Reuters America, to compete with the Associated Press. The content comes more cheaply and that caught the attention of the still-bankrupt Tribune Co., which signed up to be RA's first client. According to fishbowlLA, the contract could save Tribune, which owns the Los Angeles Times, up to $4.5 million a year - any effect on quality is yet to be determined.

*Noted: For those who worry Thomson Reuters might do its work on the cheap... Remember when head of Thomson Reuters said this about foreign coverage?: "Why does The New York Times need to have 600-700 journalists? Why not 30 journalists with 30 apprentices?"

Four in the morning

1. The MOCA whitewash story is waiting to break nationally. fishbowlLA

2. The battle over the Hollywood farmer's market. Which Way, LA?

3. AOL's Patch opens another shop in Long Beach. LA Observed

4. Huffington Post says it will turn a profit. Bloomberg

The anti-social court house network

The Los Angeles Superior Court has a Facebook page, but Facebook and other social media sites - Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube - are blocked on the court house's public WiFi, according to fishbowlLA blogger Pandora Young, who spent the day trying to surf the web as she did her jury service:

Stuck at jury duty in downtown Los Angeles, this fishie is tapped into the web via the courthouse wi-fi. Infuriatingly, they block access to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, and a number of other worthwhile websites. ... To the courthouse’s credit, they do not block access to Wikileaks.

AOL Patch finds another leafy town

AOL's Patch has added South Pasadena to its growing network. Sonia Narang, who's worked as an online producer for PBS Frontline and NBC News, will cover the leafy city known for its parks, virulent opposition to the 710 Freeway extension, and public schools that attract discouraged couples from Pasadena.

Indeed, Patch sites are springing up with greater frequency across the Southland, and mostly in towns with that single-family, real-estate rich, suburban feel. (You can find the list here.) Whether the Patch network ever earns a reputation for digging or watchdog reporting, it increasingly seems to me to be a stable model for a form of hometown news.

By hopscotching over cities that are too big to be covered by one person, or present challenges with low readership or lack of business (cities that deserve and need to be covered, by the way), Patch can avoid "wasting" resources. By paying a better wage than most area newspaper chains, it will earn a reputation among reporters as a step up, even if the coverage is softer and less newsy. And, most importantly, it has the ability to become the local newspaper, for lack of a better term, in cities with populations that have the time and inclination to read and talk about hometown news. Indeed, many of these places once had city papers before the chains came in to gobble them up.

The drawback - and the biggest challenge - is the mission. Single editors are being asked to do a lot with a little, including that fancy multi-platform journalism, which requires video and sound and images and words all neatly and compellingly sewn together by one person. Additionally, hometown papers often thrive because they are owned by a local with a deep investment in journalistic standards and civic life. For Patch, some editors will get it and others won't.

And as someone who started at a twice weekly in a leafy town (Claremont), I know how easy it is to beat the bigger guys and earn local respect. If AOL encourages this kind of journalism to flourish (and I have my doubts, having read some of the Patch work produced in West Hollywood, for example) this could be a useful service. If AOL sees Patch as a series of straws to siphon local ad dollars into a national bank account, it will only add to the misery visited upon local journalism by newspaper-chain gangs.

Of course, I still lament the loss of tough city reporting, whether it be South Pasadena or South Gate. Patch isn't a solution to this, but it can be something more than over-the-fence gossip and the latest senior center press release.

Two laid off at LA Times Magazine

Los Angeles Times Magazine has laid off senior editor Jod Kafkan and assistant editor Allison Kornberg, fishbowlLA reports.

Four in the morning

1. The Los Angeles food truck economy is blowing up - these days, any outdoor event that doesn't include a food truck is probably lame. Atlantic

2. KQED in San Francisco is boosting its ranks to boost its newscasts. SF Chronicle (via LA Observed)

3. Playboy is now safe for work (i.e., boring; i.e., what more proof do we need that the Internet is an online distraction zone?). fishbowlLA

4. Politico needs a corrections policy. Regret the Error (via Romenesko)

Four in the afternoon

1. Two from fishbowlLA: Los Angeles Times reporters warned to watch what they're tweeting (link); and Los Angeles Times blogger Andrew Malcolm is told to remove a link to the donation page of Sarah Palin's political action committee and, in doing so, takes the opportunity to once again promote Sarah Palin's political action committee (link and link).

2. ProPublica has video of the police detaining one of the news site's photographers while he was working on a story about BP. The video also shows police giving the photog's personal information to a BP security guard - apparently refineries are a special arm of government. ProPublica

3. Let the outsourcing begin: Gannett, the largest newspaper chain in the country, plans to design papers out of five strategically located hubs. No word yet on whether this means laying off local designers and copy editors. Gannett Blog

4. Track the Gulf Oil spill with AP's spillmeter. AP

Beverly Hills Courier is anti-LAT

Somehow I don't think the Beverly Hills Courier is a destination paper even for laid-off Los Angeles Times reporters. But just in case, the Courier has made clear in its online help-wanted ad that former full-time staffers "need not apply." Interestingly, the small daily pays better than many of the larger MediaNews Group newspapers in Los Angeles. fishbowlLA

Four in the morning

1. You might want to curb your sexting while at work, thanks to a unanimous ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court. LAT

2. Get to know the semantic web - before it gets to know you. Nieman Journalism Lab

3. Faced with a lagging number of contributors, Wikipedia plans to change protocals for editing "sensitive" articles. NetworkWorld

4. The L.A. Press Club bets on celebrities. fishbowlLA

Comings and goings

Los Angeles Times reporter Phil Willon is leaving the City Hall beat and will become a "roving" state reporter for the newspaper based in the Inland Empire, where he currently lives (imagine his commute).

Taking his place on the City Hall beat will be Patrick McDonnell, a veteran Times reporter with a good deal of experience overseas. Most recently, he's covered labor issues for the paper - which seems quite appropriate for someone covering L.A. politics.

Read the memo at fishbowlLA.

Masters to THR

Kim Masters, host of KCRW's "The Business," will become an editor-at-large for The Hollywood Reporter. fishbowlLA