Layoffs in San Gabriel Valley

At least five, and as many as seven, newsroom employees have lost their jobs in the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group. Layoff notices went to three from the copy desk, one photographer, and the city editor at the Pasadena Star-News.

The layoffs come as the papers' owner, Denver-based MediaNews Group, is being asked to up its offer for the Orange County Register.

The newspaper group includes the Star-News, San Gabriel Valley Tribune and Whittier Daily News.

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.

Technical difficults lead to one-day merger of LANG sports sections*

Readers of the Long Beach Press-Telegram awoke today to find the front page of their sports came from the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, a sister paper in the Los Angeles Newspaper Group. No, this isn't another consolidation measure, but the result of a LANG-wide computer glitch.

Here's the note to readers:

Due to major technological issues, the print edition of your Press-Telegram is incomplete today. The inability to transmit several pages in multiple sections forced a decision to substitute some similar content from some of the P-T's sister papers in the L.A. Newspaper Group. All efforts will be made to get you all the content you missed via the website and/or the Saturday morning print edition, preferably both. We realize this resulted in the exclusion of some important local content (high school sports, local news) and some shortened versions of other stories. We regret the inconvenience that this has caused.

While a computer glitch could affect any publication, the fact that Press-Telegram substituted the Tribune as backup is a reminder of just how consolidated the LANG papers already are. After all, the two sports sections are designed and edited on a single copy desk based in the San Gabriel Valley. When a computer problem hits the Press-Telegram copy desk, it hits all of the paper's copy desks.

*Update: One-for-all indeed. Both the Daily Breeze and the Daily News had non-local sports pages as well due to the same glitch (Notes to readers in the DB and DN). h/t LA Observed.

JPL privacy lawsuit fails at Supreme Court

A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal government's right to conduct extensive background checks on contract employees, rejecting a suit brought by employees at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada-Flintridge that said the checks violated privacy rights.

The Washington Post has the story here.

Digression: I once had the pleasure of interviewing the lead plaintiff in the case, JPL image analyst Robert Nelson, about his Quixotic effort to get national media attention for his analysis of Bush's infamous bulge (the one on his back in his 2004 debate with John Kerry. Here's a Salon story for reference). My article got spiked, and then erased from the computer system, by former San Gabriel Valley Tribune executive editor Tal Campbell for being too political. Memories.

Comings and goings

San Gabriel Valley Tribune reporter Maritza Velazquez is leaving the paper to return to school. She will be studying journalism at Cal State Fullerton.

SGV Tribune article leads to charges

The LA District Attorney's Office has filed criminal charges against four current and former city officials in Irwindale in response to revelations first reported in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

Councilman Mark Breceda, former city manager Steve Blancarte, finance director Abe De Dios, and former Councilwoman Rosemary Ramirez have been charged with using roughly $14,000 in city funds to pay for baseball tickets and Broadway shows while visiting New York between 2001 and 2005.

A 2007 Tribune story written by then-reporter Jennifer McLain (today's Tribune article misspelled her name - *now fixed) documented the unusual expenses and questioned their legality. According to the Los Angeles Times, a anonymous tipster sent the story to the DA's Public Integrity Division, triggering an investigation.

McLain has since left the newspaper to pursue a degree in public administration at USC.

Comings and goings (catchup)

A departure I missed a couple weeks back: James Wagner, who covered Diamond Bar and the City of Industry (including the city's NFL bid) for the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, has moved on to cover high school sports for the Washington Post. Wagner came to the Tribune in June, 2009. Before that he was in metrpo at the Los Angeles Times and interned at the Wall Street Journal.

Haakenson opts out

Long Beach Press-Telegram sports editor Joe Haakenson has decided to quit his job rather than take a pay cut and be moved out to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, two sources say. Haakenson, a long-time Angels beat writer for LANG before taking the editor's post in 2006, apparently would have lost his title in the move and forced another person out of a job.

Small gains in the SGV

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune and Whittier Daily News reported small circulation gains in the last six months, according to the latest ABC numbers. The Tribune, which didn't report on last year's circulation losses, carried a story yesterday about the increases:

[The] Whittier Daily News posted a total paid daily circulation of 14,129 in March, up 3.5 percent from 13,645 a year earlier, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune's daily circulation rose 0.5 percent to 36,041 compared with 35,867 in March of last year.

The third paper in the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group, the Pasadena Star-News, saw circulation slip 0.3 percent to 25,410.

Comings and goings

*Downtown News reporter Anna Scott has taken a job with the Los Angeles Daily Journal. She's set to start there March 1.

*Frank Girardot, metro editor for the three-paper San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group, will take over as editor of the Pasadena Star-News. Here's part of the memo:

This is a homecoming for Frank. He worked at the Star-News for many years in the 1990s, so he knows the community well. He's just the man we need in Pasadena to be the public face of the Star-News and ensure the community regards the Star-News as its indispensable source of local news. City Editor Hector Gonzalez and the entire editorial staff of the Star-News will report to Frank.

*San Gabriel Valley Tribune reporter Rebecca Kimitch was promoted to political editor for the paper.

*Pasadena Star-News reporter Alfred Lee has accepted a job with the Los Angeles Business Journal.

Comings and goings

The Pasadena Star-News has hired a new reporter. Brian Charles, formerly of The Signal in Santa Clarita, started at the paper on Monday.

Caroline An, who covered education for the Star-News, has moved over to the paper's sister publication, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

Andrea Woodhouse is leaving the Daily Breeze in Torrance for a gig with the Santa Clara Office of Education. Her departure comes just days after Gene Maddaus announced he was leaving the paper for a job at the LA Weekly.

Late circulation update

Back in October, I posted the circulation numbers for most of L.A. County's daily newspapers. I wasn't able to get numbers for two of the papers until now. Here's the update:

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune saw its weekday circulation fall to 33,387, down from 37,594 a year ago. That's an 11 percent drop. The Whittier Daily News fell to 13,076 from 14,563, a decline of 10 percent.

A small sliver of a silver lining: The Pasadena Star-News saw a 1 percent increase in Sunday circulation and the Whittier Daily News saw a 2 percent increase.

Four in the morning

1. Remember when Dean Singleton said that it no longer mattered "whether your [news] desk is down the hall or around the world"? Well, more and more newspaper owners find themselves in agreement as they make plans to outsource their news desk functions. Alan Mutter

2. The New York Times plans to lay off as many as 26 editorial employees in the coming days to reach its goal of eliminating 100 positions - 76 newsroom staffers agreed to take buyouts. NY Post

3. The metro editor for the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group reviews the "Climategate" controversy and concludes that global warming is a hoax. SGV Tribune *(McClatchy has a primer on "Climategate" here.)

4. Time magazine and CNNMoney "de-clutter" their web pages to make room for bigger ads and cross promotion: "Time.com is also pushing its content partners like Huffington Post, AOL, and others in a prominent box of current headlines in the right rail of the page." min online

Rhoades out at the Daily Pilot

Daily Pilot Editor Brady Rhoades is leaving the paper for unspecified reasons after a year on the job. A brief in the paper said Glendale News-Press editor Dan Evans will serve as interim editor until a replacement can be hired.

The Daily Pilot is part of the six-paper Times Community News chain that includes the News-Press, Huntington Beach Independent and Burbank Leader.

Before he started at the Pilot, Rhoades was an editor at the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

SGV Tribune loses a reporter

Tania Chatila, who worked her way up the ranks to become a reporter and a sometimes editor at the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, posted a note yesterday to let readers know that she has left the paper for a communications job at USC.

From her Leftovers at City Hall blog:

I've been working in professional newspapers since I was 19, but I have to say no newsroom has been quite like this one. Working in the San Gabriel Valley gave me a crash course in real crime, real politics and real people.

And now it's really time to go. This isn't to say I won't ever return to journalism (readers out there are either smiling or cringing at that thought) -- journalism and writing has always been my passion.

It's the art of storytelling that compels me. But for now, the transition is right for me and my future.

Her departure strikes me as a scary reminder that even good journalists are searching for a way station where they can wait out a storm that might never pass. It's also more evidence of the broken-ladder theory of journalism, one that should worry larger papers that hope to maintain their standards.

Coincidentally, the woman with whom Tania started the Leftovers from City Hall blog, Jennifer McLain, left the Tribune earlier this year and is now a student at USC.

A new kind of deadline

The folks at the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group are serious about their time cards. Here's a memo sent yesterday to editorial employees:

Time cards are due tomorrow at 5:00 pm. If I do not receive your time cards, you will receive written warning in your files and disciplinary action up to and including termination will begin.

Tribune reporter heads back to school

San Gabriel Valley Tribune reporter Jennifer McLain signed off Unisys for the last time on Friday. She's leaving the paper after three years on the job to study public administration at USC. Here's her parting note to readers on the Leftovers from City Hall blog:

Today marks my last day with the San Gabriel Valley Tribune after working here for three years and a month. My time as a reporter here has been extremely rewarding and what I always hoped it would be. After all, the San Gabriel Valley is heavy on crime and has its share of political controversy. What's not to love?

My time as a blogger, on the other hand, has been extremely humbling. After 933 blog posts and the 4,696 comments that followed since we started the Leftovers from City Hall blog, I had to swallow my pride many a time, whether because I was a little too honest or had a post with one too many errors or, well, you get the picture.

Readers, thank you for your patience and your attention. It is my experience at the Tribune, the government accountability stories and the many contacts I've interviewed through the years that have inspired me to pursue a career in public service. Beginning Aug. 24, I will attend USC to pursue a master's degree in public administration. Thanks for dealing with me through the years.

Sincerely,

Jennifer McLain

I had the pleasure of working with McLain in my brief stint as an SGVN editor. I wish her the best in a new career.

The City of Industry gambit

The budget deal struck by the governor and the leaders of the state Legislature included a provision to allow cities to extend the lifespan of redevelopment zone by 40 years, provided the cities pass 10 percent of their earnings on to the state. Observers argue the provision is designed to help out one specific project, the planned NFL stadium in the City of Industry.

From the Los Angeles Times:

...adding decades to the life of the redevelopment area would allow Industry to use hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to build roads, sewers and other facilities to help accommodate the stadium and commercial projects, said Christine Minnehan, legislative director of the Western Center on Law and Poverty.

The County of Los Angeles has already moved to sue the state to block the provision from taking effect. The San Gabriel Valley Tribune quotes County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky:

Opponents said the state is violating the Constitution because redevelopment money is only allowed to be invested in blighted neighborhoods.

"They've done their job," Yaroslavsky said of Industry's redevelopment agency. "They've removed their blight. Instead you're providing subsidies to private landowners."

New reporter in San Gabriel Valley

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune has hired a new reporter who will cover the southeast side of the valley. LA Observed reports:

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune filled its reporter opening with James Wagner, a former LAT MetPro who interned at the Wall Street Journal and speaks Spanish. He covers Diamond Bar, Walnut, Rowland Heights, Hacienda Heights and Industry as well as Majestic Realty's NFL plans.

Final pitch for the 32nd

The 12-way race to replace Labor Secretary Hilda Solis in the 32nd Congressional District comes to a close tomorrow*. Los Angeles Times reporter Jean Merl looks at the role endorsements might play for the two heavyweights in the contest - Board of Equalization member Judy Chu and state Sen. Gil Cedillo - given the expected low-voter turnout. Rebecca Kimitch at the San Gabriel Valley Tribune checks out the campaigns' ground games heading into the final weekend.

*If no one wins a majority of the vote tomorrow there will be a runoff in July between the top vote getters in each party. Given the partisan makeup of the district, the top Democrat is expected to win easily.