L.A. Herald Examiner Reunion, Part 1

March 13, 2008

Old friends from the filing cabinets

By Susan Christian Goulding, Columnist
Daily Breeze

As the event neared, the thought of it produced butterflies in my stomach.

A roomful of people whose paths intersected during a poignant stage of life. A roomful of people whom I hadn't seen in a zillion years. A roomful of people who knew me then.

Should I get Botox, or at least a new outfit? I settled for the new outfit.

No, it was not a high school reunion. Even more intimidating, it was a reunion of Los Angeles Herald-Examiner alumni. Our dramas and triumphs and mistakes were those of young adulthood rather than adolescence, making them all the more significant. [Click for MORE]

The Herald Examiner is Back in Town

Patt Morrison, KPPC, March 13, 2008

[ Click to Listen ]

For the past 19 years residents of Los Angeles have relied on the LA Times as their one and only city-wide newspaper. However, two decades ago there was a competitor in town. Based in the heart of LA- The Herald Examiner was the largest afternoon newspaper circulating the country. After a detrimental strike and dropping numbers of subscriptions, the paper was forced to print its last page in 1989- but not without former employees flourishing to top positions at other prestigious news organizations. Today, former HerEx alumni's are gathering at "A Return to Corky's: The Ultimate Herald Examiner Almost-20th Reunion Party"- a distinguished discussion panel celebrating the paper's long lasting influence. Patt speaks with some of the former employees to reminisce about the good old days in the newspaper industry.

• Alex Ben Block, event producer and moderator. He worked at the Examiner for 5 years, from 1979 - 1984.


• Ron Kaye, Editor, Daily News. He was on the city desk at the Herald Examiner from 1980 - 1983.


• Chris Woodyard, currently a reporter for USA Today. He was a reporter at the Examiner from 1983 - 1988

Keven Roderick on the Her Ex

KCRW, March 14, 2008

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This is Kevin Roderick with LA Observed on KCRW.

It's probably hard for many of you to imagine this. But Los Angeles used to be a real newspaper town.

Before television and the Internet, there were newsrooms downtown full of feisty scribes in fedoras who scrapped and battled for scoops.

They'd put out several editions of their papers every day. Then pull a bottle of whiskey from their bottom drawers and brag about beating the pants off the Mirror or the Evening Express.

I mean, who do you think came up with those made-for-headline nicknames on scandalous crimes like...The Black Dahlia? It wasn't the police.

Last night, I listened in as a theater full of latter-day reporters and editors tried to agree who among them dubbed the Night Stalker. It was one of the last big LA serial murder headlines that stuck.

Richard Ramirez -– the Night Stalker -- terrorized the city in the mid 1980s. He was a maniac who killed 14 times before being nabbed. Sometimes he'd break in, other times he would accost his victims as they drove.

Police called him The Valley Intruder. Some headline writers tried The Midnight Stalker. But in the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, he was the Night Stalker. And that's the name that caught on.

The Her Ex was the last of the big number two papers in downtown LA. It had started in 1903 as the Examiner -- a tool of newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst, of Citizen Kane and Spanish American War fame.

The Hearst Company closed down the Her Ex in 1989, two decades after a nasty strike cost the paper its best reporters. And guaranteed it would never rival the Times in circulation or clout.

The final incarnation of the Herald was part throw back. And partly ahead of its day.

The Herald mixed bright reporters and editors with tabloid tendencies. It had gossip columns about Hollywood and about politics. It could be snarky.

In some ways, the Herald was a precursor of blogs. It wouldn't always get the whole story, but it would often break the part that people were talking about.

And of course, Herald editors liked nothing more than beating the LA Times. They enjoyed tweaking the bigger paper's nose -- and even came up with a very blog-like way to refer to the competition. The Whale.

At last night's reunion, credit for The Whale line was unanimously bestowed on Jim Bellows, the paper's former editor.

He was the journalism muse for many of the alumni who attended. The reason they adopted Los Angeles.

Bellows came as the legendary editor who had gathered writers like Tom Wolfe and Jimmy Breslin at the New York Herald Tribune. He revived interest in the Herald Examiner when the paper appeared to be dying.

Bellows had that knack for convincing young talented writers to work for a lot less money than they could earn at the Times –- where many went later when they decided to settle down and raise families and needed a better salary.

Last night's affair was convened mostly to honor Bellows, who has been in poor health.

His legacy still runs deep in Los Angeles media. Graduates of the Herald Examiner include the editor in charge of the LA Daily News, the closest thing left to a print alternative to the Times, if only a shell of what the Her Ex used to be.

KCRW's own Joe Morgenstern is another alumnus –- he wrote a column for a few years and got up at the reunion to tell some stories. The LA Times was represented by more than a dozen former Herald journalists.

Ray Richmond, a columnist for the Hollywood Reporter, gave the evening the right perspective.

When he worked at the Herald, everybody couldn't wait to get somewhere better. But now, with memories fading – and newspapers with them – the Her Ex sounds like the greatest paper there ever was.

The truth? Well, it lies somewhere in between.

For KCRW this has been Kevin Roderick with LA Observed.

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Media Messages

> Blogging and newspapers, a lesson in how not to brand and market
> Take the news out, put the new in
> Gannett CEO gets $7.9 million in 2007
> Bloggers and bloggers and blogs, oh my!
> Newsprint delivers -- except on the bottom line
> It’s time for newspaper publishers to reset targets
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Tribune Chairman May Consider Sale of Assets

Sam Zell addresses employees of The Baltimore Sun. [Sun photo]

A difficult economy and a steeper-than-expected decline in revenue could prompt the new leadership of Tribune Co. to re-evaluate its plan to keep all of the media giant's assets, Tribune chief executive Sam Zell said yesterday.

Zell, the motorcycle-riding real estate mogul who took control of Tribune in an $8.2 billion sale in December, has previously said he intended to keep Tribune's core newspapers. Besides The Sun, those papers include the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Newsday and smaller papers in Florida, Virginia and Connecticut.

Zell didn't rule out the possibility of asset sales. Asked if he would consider selling The Sun, Zell responded, "I don't know. The goal was to keep all of the assets together." But those goals were set with the expectation that revenue would be down 2 percent to 3 percent year over year, he said, not the 16 percent to 18 percent decline Tribune newspapers are experiencing.

"If that trend continues, we may have to re-evaluate a lot of our decisions," Zell told the crowded meeting. [Click for MORE] Sphere: Related Content

Poynter's Wonders of the Journalism World

If you have trouble nominating a wonder, click here.

Now it's your turn: What does not belong on these lists? What is missing? What is out of order? Below you will find links to each of the categories. Add your feedback/suggestions in the comments section of each post: Story forms and shapes, institutions/organizations, technologies, documents, people. Sphere: Related Content

CNBC's Jim Cramer In Tears Over Spitzer

Jim Cramer, the wild man of cable's "Mad Money" financial advice show, was once a cops reporter for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. Sphere: Related Content

An Homage to the Last Great Newspaper Editor

By Ron Kaye, Daily News editor-in-chief

HE called his memoir "The Last Editor ..." but the whole truth is that Jim Bellows was the last great American newspaper editor.

Bellows' witty sensibility, his nose for news, his journalistic pizazz were relics of a dying era when he took over the New York Herald-Tribune in the 1950s and turned it into what is widely regarded as the nation's best newspaper - ever.

He was a Zen master talking in haiku and koans that were incomprehensible to many, the path to the light for others.

He spotted talented writers and editors and gave them the permission and support to break through the conformity and mediocrity that became the hallmark of corporate monopoly journalism in America in the 1950s and 1960s.

It was in that era that television destroyed the business model of newspapers, just as the Internet is doing today. The result back then was that roughly half the papers in the country failed, and the danger today is that something similar might well happen again.

Bellows is being honored tonight at the L.A. Press Club by the staff of the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, which closed nearly 20 years ago. I worked for Bellows there in the early 1980s and was lucky enough to work with him again when he became a consultant here at the Daily News a few years back.

It was a humbling experience to work for a news genius. Bellows had X-ray vision for the news behind the news, inside the news, the angle that hit readers between the eyes,

in the heart, in the guts.

In New York, and everywhere, he attracted great writers like Tom Wolfe and Jimmy Breslin and many others who liberated newspaper writing and reporting and took their craft to new heights.

At the Washington Star, he brought style and attitude to the nation's capital and Capitol. Later at the Herald-Examiner in Los Angeles he resurrected a newspaper from the grave, and came closer to capturing the ethos of this city than anyone before or since.

Yes, all three papers are long since gone. For it was Jim Bellows' karma to be the underdog, to be given the reins of papers that faced impossible odds against giant newspapers with unlimited resources.

The full title of his memoir captures the irony: "The Last Editor: How I saved the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times from Dullness and Complacency."

I'm not sure I agree totally that those or any other major American newspapers were really rescued from their arrogance, and that may be the biggest reason we are all in trouble today.

But I do know that if Jim Bellows had ever had the chance to run one of those papers, especially the Los Angeles Times, where he was once a top news executive, they would not be like they are today.

They would be surprising, provocative and daring. Many of the writers would seem like friends who dropped by to share a laugh, a tear, a story you'd never heard before.

That's what Jim Bellows taught the journalists who worked for him.

And he did it in cryptic phrases and words:

Tom Wolfe told an interviewer Bellows' teaching was: "Keep going and don't stop."

Former Herald-Examiner columnist Randall Sullivan recalled Bellows teaching him the difference between New York and Los Angeles: "In New York people want to know where you work; in L.A. where you live."

Bellows' message to me was simply: "Stick with your passion."

Ron Kaye is the Daily News' editor-in-chief. Write to him by e-mail at ron.kaye@dailynews.com.

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Out, Out, Out!

> Maine Newspaper eliminates 27 positions, laying off 15
> Washington Post 'regrettably' forced to offer more buyouts
> Greg Hladky Laid Off By New Haven Register; One of Best-known Capitol Reporters Of The Past 25 Years
> D.C. bureaus cut costs, coverage
> Picketting At The L.A. Times
> Star-Telegram to outsource 26 jobs

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NY Times Chief Says Asset Sales Possible

New York Times Co. Chief Executive Janet Robinson said "there are no silver bullets" for turning around its business, in a presentation seemingly aimed at hedge funds that are seeking to overhaul the company's board and strategy.

Addressing a Bear Stearns media conference, Ms. Robinson also didn't rule out selling businesses outside its flagship newspaper -- something the dissident hedge funds have suggested -- but she outlined several financial and strategic hurdles to doing so. [Click for MORE]

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AP Editors Debated How To Release 'Drug-Tainted Water' Series

Associated Press editors knew today's blockbuster series on drug-tainted drinking water would be a great scoop. But only if it was handled carefully, with news outlets given enough time to disseminate the information, but not so much time that the exclusive could be lost. [Click for MORE]
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Testing Over, Hulu.com to Open Its TV and Film Offerings

Hulu.com, the long-gestating Internet joint venture between NBC Universal and Fox, emerges from limited testing on Wednesday to make its catalog of TV shows and video clips available to anyone on the Web.

The streaming-video site displays free, ad-supported shows and feature films from NBC, Fox and more than 50 media companies, including Sony Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

On Wednesday, Hulu is also planning to announce that the Warner Brothers Television Group and Lionsgate will add content from their libraries. Hulu will also give sports fans highlights from N.B.A. and N.H.L. games, and full-length N.C.A.A. men’s basketball games from the last 25 years, the company said. [Click for More]

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Charting 4-Year Circulation Plunge at Major Papers

The Los Angles Times lost 20% of daily circulation or more than 200,000 copies over the past four years, while up the coast the San Francisco Chronicle's daily circulation dropped almost 30%.

The Boston Globe plunged about 20% and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution almost 17%. The Washington Post took an 8.8% hit. The New York Times is down a more palatable 7.2%. [Click for MORE]
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Bee Launches Buyout Offers

The Sacramento Bee announced Monday that it will offer voluntary buyouts to a limited number of employees.

"At the end we expect that less than 2 percent of our work force would be approved to participate in the program," said Ed Canale, the paper's vice president for business development. [Click for MORE]

> Columnist, two editors to leave Globe
> Star-Telegram to outsource 26 jobs

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Hot Off the Press: Spitzer scandal editions

From Gannett Blog:

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's use of a high-end prostitution service was huge news in the state. How Gannett newspapers (and the New York Post!) looked this morning:

The Democrat and Chronicle was among a handful of newspapers urging -- or nearly urging -- Spitzer to resign. "Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been too vague about his role in a high-class prostitution ring,'' the paper said. "He must step forward today to flatly disavow implications that he was involved in the illegal activity or resign."

The Journal News in White Plains . . .

The Poughkeepsie Journal . . .

And the New York Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., which also owns the Fox News network.

> NYT apologizes for lifting from Manhattan Media story Sphere: Related Content

How It Was: Death At Kent State

National Geographic Channel

	Peter Jedick
	Author - HIPPIES

I was a junior at Kent State University on May 4th, 1970. On that day Kent State was transformed from an unknown college in the middle of the heartland into an international rally cry to end the war in Vietnam.

The sad part was that four students had to die to do it. The events leading up to the shooting of four college students by the Ohio National Guard have been well documented. It was an anti-Vietnam War protest gone haywire.

Like the majority of Kent’s students I was more of a spectator than a participant. Yet we learned a great deal from the experience.

For one thing, we discovered that the media covered its subjects though a filtered lens. For two years prior to May 4th television cameras were often seen on campus, chronicling the anti-war protests. Yet, when we sat around our off-campus duplex watching the evening news, the sights on our little black and white television barely resembled what we had just witnessed with our own eyes. The boob tube, as we called it, made a hundred protesters look like our entire campus was filled with radicals. It did not play well with our parents back home.

We also learned how important it is to choose the best leaders in Washington D.C. We were not aware of it at the time but we were merely pawns in an international power struggle. Just like today, there were forces at work in the world that were beyond our comprehension. Yet they affected our lives deeply. That those forces would somehow come to clash on a quiet hillside in Kent, Ohio still amazes me.

In 1970, countries around the world were shocked that the American military would fire upon its own citizens. It was not supposed to happen here. I remember that a friend of mine from Kent was studying in Germany when she heard the news of May 4th. She saw it on a Times Square style electronic bulletin board in downtown Berlin.

Of course, the Kent tragedy sparked a huge outcry across our great nation. And the event fired up our entire generation’s interest in government and politics. An interest that we have carried throughout our lifetimes. I am still friends with my old college roommates. Though we live in far flung states we manage to schedule a reunion every few years.

Eventually, I wrote a novel titled HIPPIES based on my experiences at Kent State University. I used my campus friends as models for fictional characters but I placed them in historically correct scenes. I tried to show what a wild and crazy time it was to be a college student. How much fun we had protesting against the war. How no one would have been hurt if only the Ohio National Guard had followed the script being played out at other colleges across our country.

You can find information about Peter Jedick's book, HIPPIES, at HippiesBook.com.

How It Was: Death at Kent State Premieres Tuesday, March 11 at 8p et/pt



More about the shootings at Kent State, click HERE.

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MediaNews Cuts Met by Protests, Warnings

Newsroom budget cuts by MediaNews have been met with protests in Southern California and a warning from the Society of Professional Journalists in Northern California.

In Southern California, MediaNews is merging the 65,000-circulation Torrance Daily Breeze and the 88,000 Long Beach Press-Telegram, which will eliminate 19 jobs and put the two papers under the same local management based in Torrance, according to AP. Staff at the Long Beach paper who were not immediately laid off were told to go to the Torrance office for interviews for their same positions, according to a report in the Cal State Long Beach 49er. The Long Beach operation, once a jewel in the Knight Ridder crown, will essentially become a bureau for the Torrance paper. [Click for MORE] Sphere: Related Content

Yahoo Loses a Possible Partner

One of Yahoo's potential white knights in its struggle to avoid being taken over by Microsoft just put his charger back in the stable.

News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch told a Bear Stearns conference in Palm Beach, Fla., Monday that he's not going to battle the Redmond, Wash., software giant for Yahoo.

"It would be fun to beat Microsoft," he said. But "we're not going to get into a fight with Microsoft. They've got a lot more money than us." [Click for MORE] Sphere: Related Content

Assignment for March 12

Here are the stories your instructor would like to see in your portfolio on Wednesday:

• Interview
• Bank Rob
• Primary Advance
• Primary
• Nude on Fwy.
• Cockatoo
• Wild Party
• Fire Dog
• Seeing-Eye Dog
• Rocketdyne (or alternate meeting/speech)
• City Council
• Kurt

No need for a fancy presentation. A cheap binder will suffice. If you are missing a graded story but have the original in your computer, make a fresh printout. Remember, your instructor will aways accept a rewrite when you are seeking to improve your writing as well as your grade. Sphere: Related Content

Moorpark College Raider Rundown

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Star Closes Spanish Publication Mi Estrella

The final edition of Mi Estrella, the weekly newspaper for Ventura County's Latino community, was delivered Saturday, announced George H. Cogswell III, publisher of The Star, which owned and published Mi Estrella.

It will be replaced on March 19 by a new, all-Spanish weekly newspaper that will include a rich mix of local and international news, plus sports, entertainment and feature stories, he said. Details about the new publication will be announced next week.

After four years of publishing Mi Estrella, Cogswell said, it was evident that the community was interested in a different publication that also had broader reach.

The Star eliminated three positions with the closure of Mi Estrella.

"The Star recognizes its obligation to the area's growing Spanish-language community," Cogswell said. "We also believe that the market has strong economic promise. With our new direction, I think The Star is set to serve the community in a way that will be beneficial both to our readers and to our company." [VC Star]

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Sold Out In Santa Barbara

The documentary Citizen McCaw opened Friday night to a sell-out crowd of 2,200, reportedly including Wendy McCaw's sister, said to have remarked that she loved the film. Afterward, the crowd gave a standing ovation to the former News-Press journalists who went up on stage to be acknowledged. Blogger Craig Smith, who has followed the McCaw saga all along, posts his take and a link to TV coverage up there. A rumor had McCaw driving by the theater. Smith also reports that the National Labor Relations Board filed suit Thursday to force McCaw to immediately reinstate eight reporters ruled to have been fired illegally. [LAO]

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