Press-Telegram journalist Larry Allison was 77

From the Press-Telegram obit:

LONG BEACH — A newsman to his core and to the end, Larry Allison spent 54 years in Long Beach journalism and worked in it until just days before he went into the hospital.
Allison died Sunday night from complications after a two-week battle with pneumonia. He was 77. 

Beginning as a reporter at the Independent, Press-Telegram in 1957 and working in virtually every department in the paper through editor. He was until his final days both a voice of the community and the official voice of the paper as Editorial Page Editor. 

Regardless of the positions he took for the newspaper, Allison was hailed by representatives from varied political and social viewpoints as invariably fair and accessible. His positions were seen by most as reasoned and journalistically sound. ...

Long Beach Press-Telegram update

Three newsroom employees at the Long Beach Press-Telegram lost jobs this week as their departments were absorbed into the Daily Breeze. According to the Long Beach Post, sports columnist Frank Burlison and photographers Steven Georges and Diandra Jay received pink slips. (This post clarifies an earlier post.)

Other LANG layoffs

In addition to the seven people who lost jobs in LANG's San Gabriel Valley group, I'm told the Los Angeles Daily News cut a position in its circulation department, and three or more newsroom staffers at the Long Beach Press-Telegram were laid off. I believe the PT layoffs are part of a consolidation plan announced in April, but I'm still awaiting details.

Press-Telegram losing sports, photo, features*, **

The Long Beach Press-Telegram is eliminating sports, photo and features departments from its already skeletal newsroom. The duties will be turned over to the P-T's sister paper, the Daily Breeze in Torrance, two sources tell me. At least two sports writers, a features writer and a photographer will lose their jobs. I'm told the staffers can reapply for their positions in Torrance.

*Updated: A little more detail about the change. I'm told photo is being moved from Long Beach to the Daily Breeze and there will be one fewer photographers, and sports will likewise be moved with two fewer staffers. The P-T's features department will be eliminated, which means Al Rudis is out of a job.

In their place, the Daily Breeze plans to hire a news editor and a presentation editor and to create two new city reporter positions.

**Updated 4/30: The fog is beginning to clear on the Long Beach Press-Telegram. A story in the Long Beach Post makes clear that two people were laid off yesterday: executive city editor John Futch and day city editor Rose Fitzpatrick.

Additionally, the paper has lost its photo, sports and features departments. This will affect more people than I originally reported. There are five photographers, six sports writers and columnists, and three features department employees who will be terminated and then asked to reapply for jobs at the Daily Breeze. As reported above, there will be one fewer photographers, two fewer sports slots and, apparently, no features openings at the Breeze.

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.

Press-Telegram gets a new editor

The Long Beach Press-Telegram will undergo a major personnel change on the editorial side at the end of the month. Rich Archbold, who has served as the newspaper's executive editor since 1997 and managing editor for 19 years before that, is leaving his job to become "community liaison director" - meaning he'll be the public face of the paper at community and civic events. Sue Schmitt, a former editor of the Daily Breeze in Torrance, will take over in a dual role as editor and general manager of the Press-Telegram. The press releases are here and here.

Fire at former Press-Telegram building

A fire damaged the former Long Beach Press-Telegram building on Pine Avenue. Two firefighters were hurt, one went to the hospital with a back injury. Arson investigators are on the scene; they believe the fire started in the old press room.

The building was slated to be turned into condos but the project stalled because of the bad economy.

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.

A Morales' tale

Press-Telegram boxing-beat writer Robert Morales, who used to stop by the Pasadena Star-News offices fairly regularly, is one of the nicest reporters I ever worked with - proving that former gang members are generally less uptight than most journalists. The P-T has a nice profile of Morales in today's paper. The story leads with the rough stuff.

Here's a snippet:

"I'm so lucky to be alive," says Morales, a 53-year-old Long Beach Press-Telegram sportswriter whose popular weekly boxing column appears in this newspaper and seven other MediaNews Group ones in Southern California.

Boxing is a sport rife with tough guys with mean backgrounds. But I doubt any of those men Morales has been chronicling for the past 16 years lived a more self-destructive existence than he once did when he engaged not only in gang-banging but also in frightening levels of alcoholic consumption.

At 15, Morales was one of the founders of an outfit called West Covina Trese, and routinely began getting into rumbles with rivals from nearby cities.

Four Sunday

1. The Associated Press plans to distribute the work of four nonprofit news organizations - ProPublica, the Center for Investigative Reporting, Center for Public Integrity, and the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University - to its 1,500 member newspapers. NYT, ProPublica

2. The Long Beach Press-Telegram will be moving once again. All operations, including the newsroom, will be consolidated onto the first floor of the ARCO Tower Building by the end of the month, and will be moved to an as yet undetermined site by the end of the year. Stress-Telegram

3. The Los Angeles Times chronicles the failures of LA County's child welfare program. LAT

4. More on the movement of mobile news. Newspaper Project

Four in the morning

1. Rand Corp.'s Chaibong Hahm, an expert on North Korea, thinks negotiators could win the release of jailed journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee before the end of the year. McClatchy (Related: UN imposes tough new sanctions on North Korea.)

2. The long lament of the languisaur - and the death of long-form journalism - from one-time Long Beach Press-Telegram reporter Candy Cooper. AJR

3. News organizations should reserve their vanity Facebook URLs - if only to prevent a squatter from doing it first. Poynter

4. An unhappy reader points out that the LA Times website this morning led with a story about a suit that OJ Simpson might or might not have worn to court the day he was acquitted of murder.

LANG launches e-editions

In the ongoing experiment that is monetizing online content, the Los Angeles Daily News, Long Beach Press-Telegram and Daily Breeze - together the Metro division of Dean Singleton's LANG chain - have launched e-editions of their newspapers:

The E-Edition lets you navigate an exact replica of the printed newspaper. You can flip through pages and skim headlines just as you would with the printed newspaper in your hands. View articles, photos, games and comics with the click of a button.

The subscription is $6 for those already getting the printed edition and $65 a year for those who want the e-edition only.

No word yet when LANG's Inland division papers will offer the service.

(h/t LBReport)

Guild agrees to furloughs*

I missed this Monday...

The guild representing newsroom employees at the Los Angeles Daily News made a deal with management on unpaid furloughs:

...the Guild agreed to accept five days of unpaid leave per bargaining-unit employee by March 31, 2009. Guild representatives proposed — and the company agreed — that in the event any unit member is laid off during that period, the company will pay the employee for time lost during the furlough.

*Correction: I originally reported guild members at the Long Beach Press-Telegram were part of the furlough deal. According to the Stress-Telegram, they are still in negotiations with management.

Union charges against MediaNews granted a hearing

The National Labor Relations Board has agreed to hear two complaints brought against MediaNews for transferring newsroom jobs from the unionized Long Beach Press-Telegram to the non-union Daily Breeze last March.

Union agreement in Long Beach

The guild representing editorial employees at the Long Beach Press-Telegram has reached a tentative contract agreement with LANG management, the Stress-Telegram reports. All that's left is for members to ratify the thing. Some details from the S-T:

The proposed contract calls for a 2/2/2 wage increase (two percent at ratification, and subsequent annual raises of another two percent), and perhaps most importantly, gives Guild-covered newsroom employees a one-year moratorium on layoffs. Given industry conditions at the moment, obtaining such a guarantee is no small accomplishment.

After a year, if employees are laid off, the team secured additional benefits and rights for our members, including 60 days advance notice (or pay in lieu of), additional severance, and extended health and tuition-reimbursement coverage.

Cuts at the Press-Telegram

Here are the names of those laid off at the Press-Telegram:

Joseph Dickson, online content manager
Brenda Duran, general assignment reporter
Scott Smeltzer, photographer

The Stress-Telegram has a little additional background on each.

New publication on the peninsula

Joshua Stecker, former editor of the now shuttered San Pedro Magazine, which was published by the Long Beach Press-Telegram, sent around an email announcing the launch of an independent magazine called San Pedro Today that will cover many of the same issues, but without the corporate interference. From the email:

Getting laid off is never fun or easy, but what's worse than me losing my job is watching the two newspapers that serve San Pedro officially abandoning our area. First it was MORE, now San Pedro Magazine.

Well, I wasn't going to sit idly by and let my hometown lose a magazine that was hugely popular, profitable, well-respected and incredibly fun to produce.

-snip-

Premiering the week of January 5, 2009, San Pedro Today will have the same great 30,000 copy circulation (still the largest circulated publication in San Pedro), free home delivery to homes and condos, the beautiful glossy cover and include all the great columnists and contributors who helped make the former publication the success it was. I’m taking the best parts of what made San Pedro Magazine great and enhancing it with all the features I wanted to do but could never get done working for my former corporation.

We won't , unless we do

Worried falling ad sales and a bad economy would lead to more layoffs, the guild representing the Press-Telegram and Daily News newsrooms asked LANG's head of human resources for any assurances he could give either way. Here's what the guild reported back to members:

In response to several inquiries about rumors of more lay offs at the Daily News, after one week, two email communications and a phone call Jim Janiga (Sen. VP of Human Resources) responded via email that there are no lay offs planned, but as the economy worsens we can expect there will be more. Also, he has no idea of what department(s) would be affected.

Hyperlocal media panel

Hey, is there something going on with local newspapers? A panel of experts will gather Saturday in Long Beach to talk about the travails of the industry and consider the future of the hometown press.

Layoffs in LANG?*, **

Looks like the revolving cost-cuts at MediaNews will result in three likely layoffs at the Long Beach Press-Telegram and Daily News of Los Angeles. In a letter to Southern California Media Guild members, guild reps note that as many as six layoffs were being considered, "which included content, production and supervisors," but "[t]he list has been trimmed to 3 and is still being reviewed."

*The letter leaves unclear whether both papers would be affected by the layoffs. I'm seeking clarification.

**From what I'm told, the layoffs would most likely occur at the Daily News.