What ZevPost costs

So how much does Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky spend to run the county news website his office launched last month? According to Chief Deputy Supervisor Alisa Belinkoff Katz, $113,400 a year.

She broke it all down in an email:

The website is paid for utilizing funds from Supervisor Yaroslavsky's office budget. We have two part-time Web News Writers who are paid $3,000 a month each. We currently have a contract with a web developer for $3,000 a month. We also have a contract for hosting of the website that costs $450 a month (it would have cost us $1200 a month had we used the County's servers for this purpose). Special Project's Deputy Joel Sappell edits the site in addition to his many other duties. Finally, each of our staff members contributes ideas and, occasionally, copy and photos for the site.

ZevPost launches

You don't need two hands to count the number of reporters who cover the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors - which governs most populous county in the nation - on a daily basis. And, since L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky now has a staff of former journalists working for him that rivals some local newspapers, he's unveiled his own site to chronicle county doings.

From his inaugural blog entry:

Let me be clear, we’re not purporting to be a journalistic organization or to end-run traditional news outlets with propagandistic content. We are simply offering you another stop on your daily journey through the web for deeper coverage in areas we’ve long considered priorities: health, transportation, the environment, arts and culture, public safety, social services and the economy.

As long as readers (who I'm sure will mostly be media types and other government officials) take the above statement to heart and approach the site with a healthy dose of skepticism, ZevPost should be a net positive to county coverage. And if it further reduces press-release journalism in our staff starved newsrooms, all the better.

There are pitfalls, of course. How does the site operate during campaign season (and how is it paid for)? Does Zev restrict access to journalists in favor of his own friendly writeup - or point reporters to his site rather than agree to answer tough questions? Do news sites disseminate his reports, spin included, and call it news?

The big worry is that this type of site lets a politician leap frog the media filter. But I think this just makes the filter more vital. And given the fact that some of the other supervisors live inside protective bubbles, let's hope this experiment increases the level of scrutiny given to all five members of the board.

(found via LA Observed)

Bringing the watchdogs inside

As James Rainey of the LA Times pointed out a few months ago, there are fewer full-time reporters covering the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors (4) than there are supervisors (5); and there are almost as many former journalists (2) working for a single supervisor, Zev Yaroslavsky.

Now LA Observed reports that Yaroslavsky's staff has looked out onto the new media landscape and decided to overhaul the supervisor's website to give it a more newsy feel. The office plans to hire a part-time writer "with sharp editorial skills" to produce stories on a variety of topics that will "connect and communicate with constituents on issues that impact their lives and intersect their interests."

The opening is listed on JournalismJobs and Joel Sappell, former reporter and editor at the LA Times, is heading up the project.

Combining political savvy with journalistic talent is certainly nothing new - David Axelrod might be the best and latest example of that. But as professional journalism and impartiality diminish, we're likely to see much more of this partisan-institutional journalism filling the void. After all, they're willing to pay for it.

City-without-a-newspaper panel

SPJ in LA has expanded its "Imagine a City Without a Newspaper" panel. Here's the latest list of guests:

Carolina Garcia, executive editor, Daily News

David Lauter, editor of the California section of the Los Angeles Times

James Rainey, reporter, Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky

Geneva Overholser, director, USC Annenberg School of Journalism

Fox TV's John Schwada will host.

The event takes place on Feb. 18 and will be held at the Metropolitan Water District, 700 N. Alameda, starting at 6:30 p.m. For tickets or information, call (323) 593-3350, or email spjlosangeles@gmail.com.

Going paperless

The SPJ of Los Angeles is hosting a round-table discussion on Wednesday, Feb. 18 entitled "Imagine a City Without a Newspaper" with LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and Geneva Overholser, director of the USC Annenberg School of Journalism. John Schwada of Fox television will moderate.

Yaroslavsky, you'll remember, took issue with Los Angeles Times Publisher Eddie Hartenstein's decision to kill the California section.

The event will be held at the Metropolitan Water District, 700 N. Alameda, starting at 6:30 p.m. For tickets or information, call (323) 593-3350 or email spjlosangeles@gmail.com.