Covering Obama in California

Given the fact that California's newsrooms are in tatters, it is fitting that the panel set to discuss how best to cover the Obama administration at a time when California's newsrooms are in tatters consists mostly of cast-offs from California's tattered newsrooms.

The discussion, hosted by the Los Angeles Press Club, begins tonight at 7:30 p.m. and will be held at the Steve Allen Theater, at 4773 Hollywood Blvd. The speakers are Beth Barrett, a reporter who left the Los Angeles Daily News in August; Susan Pinkus, a pollster who got laid off from the Los Angeles Times in December, and Jonathan Wilcox, a USC communications professor and former speechwriter for Gov. Peter Wilson. The discusion will be moderated by Ron Kaye, who was laid off as editor of the Daily News in April.

For whom the bell curve tolls

Gary Langer, polling director for ABC News, marks the passing of the Los Angeles Times' polling unit, a victim of Tribune Co. budget cuts. The Times put out its final poll nine days ago; it was an analysis of the growing economic uncertainty felt by many Americans in this economic recession*. The Times poll started 31 years ago and has been overseen by Susan Pinkus since 1995. She and her staff are being laid off.

Langer writes:

Does the loss of a single polling outfit matter? If it’s a good one, sure it does. Even when well done, a single poll often is insufficient to illuminate public opinion fully; like a flashlight on the road, it takes a bunch of them, shining in the same direction, to show the way. Without the L.A. Times Poll, our path forward will be a little less well-lighted.

*A link to the poll results. Americans are very down on Wall Street firms handing out bonuses this year.