Early Times? Late Times? What Times?

For generations, newspapers have tried to cut the time between printing and delivery, giving readers the latest news — especially on big stories that often land on the front page. The Los Angeles Times is about to take a big step in the other direction. [Click for MORE] Sphere: Related Content

A Great Newspaper Gets Slutty

On a dare, an entertainment reporter steps into the shoes (and sultry zebra dress) of a 'Dancing With the Stars' contestant. In a grueling test of stamina and nerves, she discovers her inner shimmy. [Click for MORE] Sphere: Related Content

Video: Inventing LA -- The Chandlers and their Times

The film chronicles the epic saga of the most powerful family in Los Angeles history: the Chandlers. For four generations, they wielded unique influence through their newspaper, the Los Angeles Times. [Click to VIEW] Sphere: Related Content

A Sad 25th Anniversary

Here's an essay by former exec Bob Rawitch about the demise of the Valley Edition which was launched on Oct. 4, 1984. It was written for the OFS, a group of retired Times Mirror employees. It is followed by a note from former publisher Tom Johnson. And here is a slideshow from the night the Valley plant closed http://chatsworth91311.tripod.com/.

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A Sad 25th Anniversary

By BOB RAWITCH

It was 25 years ago tomorrow, Oct. 4, 1984, that the Valley Edition of the Times was launched. At its peak, we had about 100 staffers in Editorial alone. Today’s Times has one or two people hunting for stories in the San Fernando Valley, home to about 1.5 million people.

The decision to launch the edition was something for which as Suburban Editor I had lobbied for several years because Jack Kent Cooke bought the old Valley News and Greensheet, a throw-away, and had announced it was turning it into a paid-circulation daily newspaper. This was a real threat to the Times Valley circulation base of about 180,000, I argued to senior management, initially to no avail. Of course the major focus was on Orange County and the battle against the Register as OC, as it came to be known, was growing by leaps and bounds. It is hard to believe the Times now delivers the Register. What a strange media world it now is as everyone struggles to survive. Even more ironically, Otis Chandler back then told me one day he was glad it was Cooke who bought the paper instead of Tribune Co. “because Tribune knows how to run a newspaper, Cooke doesn’t!”

The paper in 1983 had already started building the Valley plant in Chatsworth to expand press capacity so we could have greater use of color generally and a separate daily full color Sports section for the upcoming ’84 Olympics in Los Angeles. In January I was in the buffet line in the old Picasso Room next to Otis who nonchalantly said, “Bob, I think it is time we start a daily edition in the Valley.” And just like that Dennis Britton and I headed a task force to set things in motion to study the issue and put together a plan. By the summer, a second-story news room was being constructed atop the press room and I was frantically hiring 36 reporters, editors, photographers and copy and news editors for an edition that would have “go up” pages in the old Metro section. Page three would be an open page for Valley news and the succeeding pages local Valley news and then L.A. news again.

Otis one day touring the steel-beamed structure with me went to the northwest counter of what would be the newsroom, looked over at the Santa Susana Mountains and said “this would be a great place for me to have an office.” I responded, “It’s your building, you can have an office anywhere you want.” He just laughed and of course did not have an office at the plant, though his late son Norman, until a brain tumor forced him into early retirement, was superintendent of the production facility there for a while.

Not everyone within editorial was a fan of the Valley Edition. Suburban was rapidly expanding its staff while Metro was not. Late in the week, we had as many as 12-14 pages of local ads and news that would precede the jumps from Metro front stories. There were the inevitable conflicts with Metro, often because they wanted our top stories for the Metro front. We usually agreed, but there were some days they’d want two or three stories, leaving our Valley display page weak. Other days, when news was slow in a huge geographic area that had no governmental agencies of its own, we struggled to fill from four to 12 pages with local news. Charles Carter, who went on to become editor of the National Law Journal, was Valley Editor. Drex Heikes, who subsequently held a number of senior positions within the Times and is now editor of L.A. Weekly, was city editor.

We hired a top quality staff and tried to provide excellent reporting and writing to Valley readers, similar to full run parts of the paper. But more than anything, we stopped using Suburban as a dumping ground or training ground, fulfilling a pledge that Noel Greenwood made to me when I became Suburban Editor in 1981. We hired people from the Rocky Mountain News, Kansas City Star, Dallas Morning News, Bergen Record, Ft. Lauderdale Sentinel and other major dailies. Many of the people we hired moved on to Metro, National and Foreign positions as reporters or editors. Michael Connelly, who wrote his first novel on the side while covering the police and Superior Court in Van Nuys, has gone on to become one of the nation’s leading crime novelists.

The good days lasted through the mid '90s when the paper started a series of buyouts and then the paper’s first layoffs in history. Unfortunately, as for the rest of the Times, it was the beginning of a slow decline for the newspaper, ending with the complete closure of the Valley Edition. A few years later the production facility was shut down and the $100 million plant was sold to become a Bratz dolls manufacturing plant. The smaller daily Ventura Edition, started in March 1990, is also now gone. Only Steve Chawkins, one of the original staffers, is still in Ventura where he covers the region now.

The editorial successes of both editions are too many to recount, but the paper won two Pulitzer prizes for coverage of the 1994 Northridge earthquake and a subsequent Van Nuys shootout, in great measure with the contributions of Valley staffers. Scores of successful journalists’ careers were launched. And those of us who were a part of those two editions had a hell of a good time while it lasted.

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On Bob Rawitch's "Saturday Story" (Oct. 3) on the L.A. Times Valley Edition:

Long after we both left Times Mirror, Otis Chandler and I were puzzled why the suburban editions were shuttered. Readership and advertising revenues had grown to a point where the suburban and zoned editions had excellent pretax operating profits. They provided strong local news to local areas. They provided advertisers that could not afford full run a targeted circulation area with terrific sales results. Of this we were certain, Bob Rawitch and his Valley edition news staff were splendid. That was true of all the advertising, operations, circulation, and news staffs in the zoned and suburban editions. It is very painful to look back at so many of the significant mistakes that weakened a magnificent newspaper.

--Tom Johnson

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Will OC Register Move From Santa Ana to Times OC Building in Costa Mesa?

Is a "for sale" sign coming to the Orange County Register's Santa Ana complex?

​Not that long ago, the Orange County Register and Los Angeles Times were embroiled in a bitter circulation battle that resulted in huge resources being pumped into this region, competing "hyper-local" community papers popping up like weeds and both papers reaping the spoils of some of the highest advertising rates in the country.

My, how times have changed. With the daily print newspaper industry in major retreat mode, the Times has left only a skeleton crew at its Orange County headquarters on Sunflower Avenue in Costa Mesa. While owner Sam Zell has yet to carry through with a previously revealed desire to snatch up the Register--which just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this week--the Times will soon be distributing the Register and they already jointly produce a weekly advertising supplement. [Click for MORE]

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The Journalism Shop Sells Freelancers' Skills Inside, Outside Newsrooms

The Journalism Shop is a network of former Los Angeles Times staffers seeking work both in and out of journalism.

It's the "out of journalism" aspect that strikes as the most interesting dimension of The Journalism Shop. The two dozen journalists featured on the site list years and years of journalism credentials. But they also list the kind of skills that extend beyond the realm of storytelling.

And that's posing a bit of a problem for the site. [Click for MORE] Sphere: Related Content

New LAtimes.com TV Spot

H/T: Ed Padgett Sphere: Related Content

INVENTING LA: The Chandlers and Their Times

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Investigative Reporters Move Outside Newsrooms

As some newspapers are going out of business and many more are shedding costs, a lot of investigative journalists who have devoted years to exposing government corruption and corporate scandals are leaving their newsrooms.

While some have been given pink slips, others left on their own steam, bailing out for corporate or political PR jobs, teaching gigs or even new careers as private investigators.

Still others are seeking fulfillment in a different kind of public service. Take, for instance, the paths of Doug Frantz and Joel Sappell, two former journalists for the Los Angeles Times. [Click for MORE]

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Pre-Holiday Putsch at L.A.Times

From LAobserved.com:

Newsroom groups are being informed right now that John Arthur is out as Los Angeles Times executive editor — that's number two on the paper's masthead. Sports editor Randy Harvey and obituaries editor Jon Thurber are reportedly getting expanded duties.

Titles and details to come.

Now posted at LATimes.com: "John and I did not agree on the need for the just-announced masthead changes, and we differ on the best approach to reaching our goals," Editor Russ Stanton says in a memo.

* Also: Harvey becomes Associate Editor, effective immediately. "In this role, Randy will take on a host of broad and important responsibilities that currently keep me from spending more time in the newsroom." Thurber becomes Managing Editor, Print, with "primary responsibility for coordinating and carrying out the content plans for the newspaper and other print products produced by our newsroom, including overseeing the front page and the A1 desk." Meredith Artley, currently executive editor of the website, becomes Managing Editor, Online.

From Stanton's memo on Arthur:

Executive Editor John Arthur [photo, above right] will be the leaving The Times after a distinguished 23 years here. John and I did not agree on the need for the just-announced masthead changes, and we differ on the best approach to reaching our goals.

This decision was a difficult one. John has served in a host of leadership roles at The Times that have included assistant city editor in the Orange County edition, assistant national editor, editor of the Valley edition and managing editor with responsibility for the three regional editions and well as the national edition.

He later served as deputy Page 1 editor/nights, Page 1editor, managing editor and, most recently, executive editor.

More at the paper's Readers Representative blog plus the announcementon the new titles — the first updates since June 11.

• Executive Editor Out in L.A. Times Shakeup
• Firing John Arthur Won't Fix the L.A. Times. What Will?
• No. 2 Editor Out at the LA Times

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Vampires Take Over the LA Times

Flickr photo by i-hate_my_screen_name

From the Associated Press:

Vampires have taken over the Los Angeles Times.

Beneath the masthead of Friday print editions is a full front-page ad for HBO's "True Blood."

A black-and-white close-up of star Stephen Moyer with blood dripping from his mouth dominates the page, which is all that's visible in newsboxes around town.

No other stories or photos appear on the cover, which is actually a separate four-page broadsheet touting Sunday's season premiere. Readers remove the wrap to find the regular front page, anchored by the Lakers's Thursday win over Orlando.

Times spokeswoman Nancy Sullivan says it's the first time newspaper has put its masthead above an advertisement wrapping the paper. She declined to discuss how much the paper charged for the ad.

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Not That Long Ago, the Los Angeles Times Was Raking in the Profits. What happened?

By Mark Lacter

Los Angeles magazine, June 2009

The Los Angeles Times took a while to sink so low—go back ten years, to the issue of October 10, 1999, and its ills were already beginning to show. In the world of journalism, the Sunday edition is still remembered for devoting the entire magazine to the soon-to-be-opened Staples Center—a package that turned out to be wildly controversial because the Times had agreed to share advertising revenue with the owners of the new venue. This was a serious breach of the long-established division between editorial and advertising, and it became a cause célèbre in the newsroom. “Respect and credibility for a newspaper is irreplaceable. Sometimes it can never be restored,” wrote former publisher Otis Chandler in a scathing letter directed to senior executives that was read in the Times newsroom.

But for all the attention the Staples scandal attracted, the paper’s future was telegraphed that Sunday in less obvious ways. The classified section was noticeably smaller than it had been a few years earlier, department store ads were being consolidated thanks to the mergers of several big chains (Robinsons, May Company, the Broadway), the TV magazine was getting competition from electronic listings on cable (the magazine was dropped in 2007), and the business section had page after page of stock quotes that were available from other sources two days earlier. “I can tell you, on the staff level we knew,” says Neil Kaplan, who had been a senior executive handling classified advertising and strategic planning in the late 1990s before moving on to several Internet ventures. “There came a time when we looked at each other and came to the realization that the fundamental economic structure of this industry was gone.” [Click for MORE]

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FUTURE OF MEDIA: LA Times Book Fest Version

From WitnessLA.com:

In the middle of the panel called MEDIA: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE at Sunday’s LA Times Festival of Books, Marc Cooper made news—or at least mini-news—when he remarked in passing that the Sacramento Bee feels it does not have the staff to adequately cover the upcoming race for governor—at least the So Cal part of the race—so they are looking to partner with the Annenberg School of Journalism in the hope that they can use student reporters can fill in the gap.

Now keep in mind that the Bee has the largest number of reporters covering the state capitol of any California media outlet. So if they’re in trouble covering an issue of state government….even the So Cal part…. this is a sign that spoke loudly to the subject of the panel.

As yet, Marc said, no deals have been struck.

(NOTE TO SAC’TO BEE: as you are a (theoretically) a profit making enterprise, you have to pay any students whom you use. You know that, right?) [Click for MORE]

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Zell Admits ‘Mistake’ in Tribune Co. Purchase

The company is looking at all its options


From Crain's ChicagoBusiness.com:

Sam Zell admits that taking over Tribune Co. hasn’t gone according to plan and was a “mistake.”

“The definition if you bought something and it’s now worth a great deal less, you made a mistake,” he told Bloomberg Television [VIDEO at 10:11 and 14:30] on Wednesday. “And I’m more than willing to say I made a mistake. I was too optimistic in terms of the newspaper’s ability to preserve its position.”

The Chicago billionaire, who made his fortune from commercial real estate, was instrumental in taking the parent of the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times private through a complex deal that saddled it with $13 billion in debt. Tribune Co. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December, a move Mr. Zell said in Wednesday’s interview was necessary to “stop the bleeding and preserve a great company.”

The process that Mr. Zell used to take Tribune private caught the attention recently of the U.S. Department of Labor, which last month subpoenaed the company for documents related to its Employees Stock Ownership Plan, now the sole owner of Tribune Co.

Mr. Zell said he was unprepared for how quickly and steeply the newspaper industry has deteriorated.

“We underwrote the Tribune (deal) based on the fact that over the previous five years, we had seen an erosion of about 3%,” he told Bloomberg; he didn’t specify the losses to which he was referring. But in the months before filing for bankruptcy protection, the company saw a 25% decline, losses that “in a leverage business are just insurmountable.” He called the figure “significantly larger” than expected.

He said the company is looking at all its options, but he ruled out the possibility of a merger.

“That’s like asking someone in another business if they want to get vaccinated with a live virus,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a long list of people who want to buy a newspaper company today.”

• Trib to pare newsroom 20%
• Sam Zell on Tribune Co. acquisition: 'I made a mistake, I was too optimistic'
• Billionaire Zell Says ‘I Made a Mistake’ in Purchasing Tribune

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Another LA Times Advertisement Draws Fire

A day after it ran a front-page advertisement for an NBC show that resembled a news story, The Los Angeles Times faced more questions Friday for another promotion designed to look like news.

This Sunday’s Calendar entertainment section will be accompanied by a four-page advertisement for the movie “The Soloist” that is laid out like a news section. [Click for MORE] Sphere: Related Content

How Much Is the Front Page of the LA Times Worth?

Page-one advertising — unthinkable just a few short months ago but now standard in many newspapers — took another huge leap this morning on the cover of today’s Los Angeles Times. Yep: That’s an L-shaped ad for the premiere of a new NBC television series. A thick border surrounds both the display and and the faux editorial content, making it clear both belong together. [Click for MORE]

• Eddy talked down from much worse NBC ad
• LA Times staff petitions against fake news story on front page
• Don't look now, but LAT does it again
• An Ad Becomes the News On L.A. Times' Page One
• Times admits to ad backlash

How Much Is the Entire Front Page of the Daily Bruin Worth?

• Daily Bruin 'financial situation is grim', runs front page ad wrap
• Bruin Editorial: Ad on front page due to financial distress
• Not the sort of innovation we need

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By 'Optimizing' Ads, Can the Rubicon Project Save Newspapers?

The L.A. firm says its technology, which helps match ads to Web page content, could boost revenue by 60%. This could be the way to make money on online news.

Email Picture

Stefano Paltera / For The Times

“We want to be the Visa, the Nasdaq of online advertising,” says Frank Addante, co-founder and CEO of ad optimization service the Rubicon Project.

By Dan Neil
Los Angeles Times

This promises to be the Silent Spring for big print media. Already this year we've lost the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Dozens of other papers have been driven to the brink by double-digit losses in circulation and print advertising revenue and an overburden of untenable corporate debt. My beloved L.A. Times, owned by the bankrupted Tribune Co., is bleeding reporters and editors from every orifice, despite the fact that the paper's readership -- online, at least -- is through the roof.

Not surprisingly, the news release from the L.A.-based Rubicon Project promising to help newspapers "find money" online caught my eye, as a flotation device attracts the casual interest of a drowning man. With the Rubicon Project's technology, says Frank Addante, the 32-year-old co-founder and chief executive, newspapers and other "premium news" outlets can increase their online revenue by an average of 60% a year.

Could this be, I wondered, daring to hope, the Secret -- the means by which newspapers finally "monetize" their content? Is this the online oxygen for our asthmatic industry? [Click for MORE]

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Eli Broad on Philanthropy, Newspaper Ownership

[Click for MORE] Sphere: Related Content

Los Angeles Times Editor Chats About Cuts in His Newsroom With Predecessor Who Resisted Them

[Click for TRANSCRIPT] Sphere: Related Content

More Memories of Legendary Editor Jim Bellows

Jon Carroll writes:

A long time ago, I spent a brief time as managing editor of West, which was then the Sunday magazine of the Los Angeles Times. My boss was a legendary editor named Jim Bellows - I think he was legendary even then - who astonished me by giving me a surprisingly free rein and remaining sanguine even when some of my ideas didn't work out so well.

Bellows died last week at the age of 86. He was mourned by many people all over the country who had fallen under his odd, saturnine spell. [Click for MORE]

• Earlier items and obituaries.

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