May 14, 2007 News and Introducing New IT'S HARDER THAN IT LOOKS Feature

Picked up a copy last week of Real Talk LA’s premiere issue (May), LA Weekly founder Jay Levin’s new monthly. His Founder’s Letter describes the magazine and its web site as having “a substantially different mission: to unmask an LA many of us don’t know about and to do so for an audience whose needs are largely neglected by existing media.” That translates in the editorial product to coverage of just about everything LA-oriented, including all the usual in a lifestyle magazine with some interesting twists, which you can see for yourself on the website. One column is “So LA” that it bears mentioning here, called “Works in Progress” which offers those who have a “new LA-based project or business you’d like to tell readers about” the ability to post it on the website, with some submissions appearing in the magazine. One that made it into the first issue is a love-themed poetry book seeking submissions; another is a documentary about six Hollywood master craftsmen looking for financing (the film, not the men). Real Talk LA’s Editor is Judita “Judi” Jordan, Datebook (an event/photo/sidebar-rich calendar) and Music Editor is Phat X. Chiem, and Food Editor is Steve Coulter (send restaurant suggestions to food@realtalkla.com), to name a few contacts. 1640 N. Spring Street, LA 90012. 323 221-5545.


Add new Pasadena Weekly Calendar Editor John Sollenberger to your email list, but keep erstwhile Calendar Editor Carl Kozlowski on your list because he plays that role for Senior Life Magazine, now called Life After 50 and run by the same folks who publish Pasadena Weekly, Arroyo Monthly, Ventana (Ventura) and more.

Unfortunately, LA Observed reports this morning that the LA Times’ School Me blog is “going into hibernation” and that blog writer Janine Kahn is leaving for a post as editor of the OC Weekly web site.

This happened a few months back, but I just got the update (and this blog is only a few weeks old, so…). The Glendale News Press no longer includes La Canada in its coverage (closing down the Foothill Leader),deferring that area to the La Canada Valley Sun. GNP focuses on Glendale, La Crescenta and Montrose, and its sister publication, the Burbank Leader, looks inward (to Burbank, that is). Joyce Rudolph remains features editor of both. We all already know that all three papers are part of the Los Angeles Times/Tribune empire.

NEW FEATURE: IT'S HARDER THAN IT LOOKS

I’m supposed to be on vacation this week, so I’ll end here, but not before introducing a new feature on this blog titled IT’S HARDER THAN IT LOOKS that only a publicist will appreciate. This occasional section offers us the opportunity to vent about the most infuriating, idiotic, ignorant or otherwise lame comment someone has made about a publicist’s work. Item one (and the idea for this feature) came when I congratulated a good friend for the press coverage she’d generated on a new project. In her response, she thanked me profusely for noticing, remarking that all she usually hears is, “Did you know about this?” She adds, “Ugh – what do they think I do?”

I look forward to reading anything you want to contribute to IT’S HARDER THAN IT LOOKS, and it will all be posted anonymously (unless for some reason you ask me to put your name in my blog’s “lights.” Submit away to laura.stegman@hotmail.com