YAY, US!
Thanks to Media Bistro's PR Newser for alerting us to the fact that today, April 25, is Public Relations Appreciation Day. At least in Tuscon. Read the press release here. And let's celebrate with this cool photo.
Photo by Hugh Stegman
LA WEEKLY MOVES WEST, MINUS ITS DEPUTY EDITOR, PLUS SOME TIPS FOR US APPRECIATED TYPES FROM THEATER EDITOR MORRIS Update your database as LA Weekly moves, effective Monday, to:3861 Sepulveda BlvdCulver City, CA 90230main phone number: 310 547-7100 Deputy Editor Joe Donnelly won't be making the trip. "...his position was cut by Phoenix," according to LA Observed. Take that link for tributes to Joe from Editor Laurie Ochoa and columnist Nikke Finke. Thanks to the extra-generous Lucy Pollak for passing along a note from Theater Editor Steven Leigh Morris, which read in part: For theater listings, please ignore all helpful advice given on our phone-line message center, and sometimes by the security guards, because it's not really helpful at all. For example, please do not send listings to listhappens, or to editor as they often suggest, because that PR sometimes takes over a week to be forwarded to me.
Please send all PR directly to me at smorris with a cc to Derek Thomas at dthomas. Working together, Derek and I will do our best to assure that your listing shows up in the paper by your first preview -- but we do need to receive it two weeks in advance, just to be safe.
Best wishes, as we all struggle on.
SLM
NOTE ABOUT THE ABOVE EMAIL ADDRESSES: all end, of course, in @laweekly.com. VARIETY'S TV EDITOR GOES ON TELEVISION LA Observed reports that Variety TV Editor Joe Adalian leaves for TelevisionWeek and TVWeek and provides a link to this press release, which says in part: TelevisionWeek and TVWeek.com are delighted to announce that Joe Adalian, one of the leading journalists covering broadcast television, is joining its team as Deputy Editor/Columnist. Bringing more than 15 years of experience covering the TV beat to bear, Mr. Adalian will focus on analytical stories and the biggest news in the broadcast realm, producing a weekly column, a blog and breaking news stories.
LA TIMES NAMES NEW MANAGING EDITOR, NEW HIGHER EDUCATION EDITOR LA Observed also announces that current Business Editor Davan Maharaj is promoted to managing editor, replacing John Arthur, who gets a new title, lucky guy. Take the link for all the machinations. Another tip from LA Observed names Rebecca Trounson as the new higher education editor in Metro. Not sure who she's replacing (if anyone). The paper's ever-so-error-plagued Editorial Staff Directory currently lists Trounson as religion staff writer. Here's a link to yesterday's Times story about this. P.S. Regarding my error-plagued comment above, I give you as evidence some names in "The Guide Content Producers" section: Charlie Amter, August Brown, Jessica Gelt, Jason Gelt, Lisa Gowing, Lea Lion, David Ng, Enid Portuguez, Elina Portuguez, Elina Shatkin, Margaret Wappler
OK, first of all, I know for a fact that there is a Jessica Gelt AND a Jason Gelt. But the only Lisa Gowing I could find on the internet is some kind of bridal consultant. I'm pretty certain that's a mangling of writer Liam Gowing's first name. And then we have Enid Portuguez, who does exist, and Elina Shatkin, who also exists. But who, pray tell, is this Elina Portuguez squeezed in between them??
ALAN RICH IS BACK, AND BLOOMBERG'S GOT HIM!
Thanks so much to Vanessa Butler for this from Alan Rich:
I have a job. Bloomberg News (bloomberg.com) will take a weekly piece from me plus a new series to begin sometime in the future.
That's great news, and Alan was very happy when we spoke today (Sunday). "I'm just finishing my last column for the Weekly and will start with [Bloomberg] next week," he said, adding that he'll also be blogging on his SoIveHeard.com web site that should be up and running soon. According to last week's Weekly column, he'll contribute there occasionally and will continue his association with KUSC as well. The column concludes with:
My first print was in 1944; I’m not gonna stop now.
Apparently happy endings are still alive and well.
LA TIMES LISTINGS INFO
For those of you who are, like me, driven insane by the requirements some newspapers have for submitting arts events via online forms, I can report that I had it all down to a kind of science – UNTIL the LA Times replaced its CalendarLive web site with The Guide [Beta]. I might note that it has said "Beta" for many months now, but I digress. In any case, I tried over a period of several days to submit an event via The Guide's "Submit a listing" link, only to be slapped with an error page every time. Turns out they take that "Beta" excuse pretty literally. What I have learned through an intrepid investigation (just LOVE that word intrepid), is this, from the exceedingly helpful Shayna Sobol. Here's some info that I hope clarifies things for you.
Many questions have surfaced about our transition from calendarlive.com to The Guide, particularly as it pertains to our electronic submission process for events.
Until a usable link is established on the Guide, you'll need to type latimes.com/submit in your browser's address bar to be redirected to the familiar form. Once filled out and submitted electronically, the form will be routed to the appropriate listings editor as before.
She closes with:
If you have further questions or concerns regarding your events listings, feel free to contact me, and if I can't assist you, I'll find someone who can.
Nice way of handling what clearly is producing a lot of inquiries and complaints. Thanks, Shayna! P.S. The Times updated its editorial staff page on April 9.
MELINDA BARGREEN OVER AND OUT
The Oregonian's David Stabler reports this on the paper's classical music blog: Melinda Bargreen, who has been the classical music critic at the Seattle Times for 31 years, has taken a buyout. In a letter to friends and colleagues, she writes:
"All of you know that this is a tough time for newspapers in general, and The Seattle Times in particular. The Times has taken the necessary decision to terminate several employees, and to offer severance packages to several others. I fall into the second category, of those who are eligible to leave because their positions are considered expendable (i.e. they would not have to be replaced if they left)."
AND FINALLY… Alan Rich's new web site, SoIveHeard.com, is expected to debut shortly. Keep an eye out.
15 MINUTES
Well, I'm happy to announce that my little blog's brush with fame after breaking the Alan Rich news last week has pushed us over 12,000 page views since we debuted less than a year ago. Thanks for all the nice comments, and welcome to all the new subscribers! GOOD NEWS FROM WWD ABOUT WALL STREET JOURNAL CULTURAL COVERAGE From wwd.com: Cultural reporting might be on the wane at many of the nation's newspapers, but it may yet have its day at the Wall Street Journal. At a lunch for prospective advertisers in the newspaper's first-ever glossy magazine, WSJ., Journal managing editor Marcus Brauchli told WWD he's excited about the possibility of a culture section — prototypes have been overseen by former House & Garden editor in chief Dominique Browning — but that he's still waiting to discuss it with News Corp. brass, who, judging by recent headlines about a possible Yahoo deal, clearly have a lot on their plates at the moment.
ENCOURAGING WORDS? As an update to my April 1 HEARTS IN THE RIGHT PLACE post (scroll down) about an effort to confront the LA Times' seemingly dwindling dance and overall arts coverage, I'm passing along some excerpts from an email sent by the organizer Michelle Mierz, executive director and co-founder of the L.A. Contemporary Dance Company. Among her comments: Yesterday morning, I met with Lisa Fung, Arts Editor at the LA Times. The signatures behind me and the buzz amongst the community allowed me the opportunity for this meeting. My goals were to 1) get an update on the full time dance critic position 2) understand what level of coverage would remain for dance, and how to engage with the Times going forward. I gained the following insights:
The full-time dance critic position is not "off the table" but the Times is not hiring at all at this point, it is therefore unlikely that the position will be filled in the near future.
There is no plan to scale back coverage and there are even plans to increase the options for dance coverage online and in print through the LA Times.
With the recent staff changes and buyouts, dance pitches for features and reviews should be made to the staff members in the following order: Craig Fisher, Chris Pasles, and Perry Crowe. For reviews, freelancers are also being assigned. Those pitches are best made to Craig Fisher, Deputy Editor for Dance, who I met with yesterday as well.
With technological shifts in the way we receive information, the LA Times is exploring and launching many different options for dance and the arts at large to be covered on and offline. Potential options include: stand alone photo galleries, new ways to post listings, video capabilities, etc. With The Guide, Metromix, the Calendar, it can be very confusing and unclear which avenue will be most receptive to reach our desired audiences and to have critical thought published about our work.
Terence McFarland from LA Stage Alliance, who helped broker and was at the meeting yesterday morning, is going to plan an event in conjunction with Lisa Fung and her editors and critics, where leaders of arts and entertainment organizations can learn about the new means of reaching our audiences and communities through the LA Times. Anyone who is unable to attend this event can receive detailed notes on the event for their use in reaching Los Angeles audiences.
Congratulations to Michelle for all her work on this.
HOW OUTRAGEOUS IS THIS?
Venerable and venerated classical music critic Alan Rich has been let go by the L.A. Weekly. That leaves -- drum roll -- ONE classical music critic (LA Times) reviewing on a regular basis in the ENTIRE Los Angeles area.
UPDATE, 11:30 pm:
After getting the news earlier today, I spoke with Alan late tonight, and he said, "It's open season on critics. We are an endangered species. I was surprised, but I wasn't surprised." He says the decision was made "by the corporate people in Phoenix," and that when Editor Laurie Ochoa gave him the news over lunch, "she was as sorry as can be." The good news is that Alan will be putting up a web site by the time his last review appears in the Weekly two weeks hence. "I don't know anything else but how to write about music," he says, "so that's what I'll continue to do."P.S. I initally posted that other Weekly writers have been let go, but that was in error. At least for now, right?
UPDATE April 9, 3:40 pm:
In my reference to the "ONE" classical music critic remark above, I meant no offense, of course, to the wonderful OC Register critic Tim Mangan and the Pasadena Star News' multi-talented Bob Thomas, not to mention the Daily Breeze's versatile Jim Farber. It's just that none of them fell into what I intended to be my sentence's narrow definition. Tim is outside L.A. (and I've removed the word "greater" above, as apparently OC is part of "Greater Los Angeles") and neither Bob nor Jim reviews "regularly" in the sense that Mark does. (Thanks to Alex Ross.)
WALL STREET JOURNAL'S GIFT OF THE WEEK" COLUMN ON HOLD FOR NOW
Philanthropy writer Sally Beatty has gone off to greener pastures (joining the PR parade), and the Wall Street Journal hasn't replaced her, so the "Gift of the Week" philanthropy column is no longer appearing. No word on whether it will be resurrected.CITY BEAT'S NEW ARTS EDITOR BECOMES ACTING EDITORRebecca Schoenkopf, who just signed on as City Beat's arts editor, takes over for the quickly departed Steve Lowery, according to LA Observed, which also says, "The paper is proceeding toward a mid-June relaunch into a publication with more of a magazine sensibility…"BAD FEW WEEKS FOR DANCE CRITICSThe intrepid Lucy Pollak (Lucy Pollak Public Relations) joins in decrying "the decline of newspapers and the state of arts coverage everywhere in the U.S.," and passes along that Village Voice senior dance critic Deborah Jowitt was axed.FROM LUCY:
This note is from Linda Yudin, artistic director of Viver Brasil Dance Company. I have her permission to pass it along. The posting is from artsjournal.com.
FROM LINDA (EXCERPTS):
Dear All, I am in shock one more time, yes shock. I learned about dance from Deborah Jowitt when I first became interested in dance at the University of IL. And have enjoyed to this day, reading her Village Voice critiques and articles. This is sad news, just as sad as losing the full time dance position at the LA Times. Now 2 large cities have limited dance space. The papers have gone mad!
FROM JOHN ROCKWELL AT ARTSJOURNAL.COM (EXCERPT):
A brief word about [Deborah Jowitt]. As dance lovers already know, she was fired from her staff position as senior dance critic of the Village Voice, which seems to take a special glee in leading the feral pack of magazines and newspapers trying to save a pittance by decimating their arts staffs. Bob Christgau was the first big name critic to go (he may now see himself as having been liberated), and now Jowitt. Both were the leaders of their particular packs, Bob of rock criticism, Deborah of dance criticism.
FROM ME:Did everyone notice Classical Music Critic Mark Swed's byline on Monday's LA Times dance review? INTRODUCING NEW DAILY NEWS EDITORCarolina Garcia is the Daily News' editor, replacing Ron Kaye. LA Observed has an introduction.
ARTS CHAMPIONS GAIL EICHENTHAL AND BRIAN LAURITZEN PROMOTED AT KUSC
Classical KUSC 91.5 FM's General Manager Eric DeWeese passes along (good) news about two of the nicest people in the world, Gail Eichenthal and Brian Lauritzen, both generous spotlighters of Southern California's broad arts community. According to Eric (also a nice guy!), Gail has been promoted to program director, and associate producer Brian Lauritzen has been promoted to producer. Brian takes over much of the day to day production of "Arts Alive," the weekly arts program, and many of the concert series. Congrats all around! HOT OFF THE HOT PROPERTY PRESSES Ann Brenoff replaces the bought-out (bought off – what IS the past tense of it???) Ruth Ryon as writer of the LA Times' Hot Property column. LA Observed has the memo. OC REGISTER'S BLEIBERG SAYS GOODBYE OC Register arts writer and dance critic Laura Bleiberg is leaving for the non-profit arts world; LA Observed has the memo. Thanks so much to Lucy Pollak for passing on this email from Laura B: Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Some of you have heard already that I am leaving the Orange County Register after 18-1/2 wonderful, challenging, fun and outrageous years as this newspaper's dance critic and arts reporter. Today is my last day. (So sorry for no notice!)
Many of you have also heard me say that being a dance critic was all I ever wanted to be. I still vividly remember my elation on the day I was hired. I had been keeping my own dance clipping file for 10 years -- I could finally put it to use. And I never anticipated that being a dance critic in Orange County, Calif., 35 miles south of downtown Los Angeles, would turn into such an amazing opportunity. I have been privileged to review some of the best in the world: Nederlands Dans Theater, Royal Danish Ballet, New York City Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, Mark Morris Dance Group and more. It has been an honor to write about local dance and chart its ups and downs. It has been an honor to get to know and to work with all of you.
I leave this profession with a heavy heart. It's a dreadful time for newspaper journalists in particular. I do not know if the Register will replace me with a staff dance critic. Let's continue to advocate for the arts and for arts coverage at daily newspapers. Please let the Register editors and publisher know how important it is to you that the Register continue to report and write about dance and the arts in Orange County. The arts are the heart and soul of a community -- and they're local! The Register is all about local news.
Now for the truly great news: Beginning April 14, I will be joining the Tony Award-winning theater, South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, as Associate Director of Development for Individual Giving. I have searched my soul about what should be my next career move, and certain things were clear. I wanted to work for an arts organization. I wanted to be actively involved with like-minded people. And I wanted make a difference for the arts survival. I look forward to doing all of that at SCR.
In the meantime, please stay in touch. My personal e-mail is: xxxxxxx. I'll see you at the theater! Best to all, Laura
NEW CALENDAR EDITOR AT VENICE Thanks also to Lucy Pollak for passing long the news that Jenny Johnson has replaced Melanie Kirschenbaum as calendar editor at Venice Magazine. LOWERY LASTS ABOUT A DAY From LA Observed on Friday: Steve Lowery reported as editor in chief on Monday, put out his first issue of CityBeat on Thursday, then tendered his resignation. "I felt horrible when I called them. They were nothing but kind and wonderful," he tells me. But Lowery, 46, says the weekly is planning to reinvent itself over the new few months and he wasn't up for the grind, after having recently helped launch the District Weekly in Long Beach and, before that, the OC Weekly. "It's purely personal," Lowery said. "When I got there, it became immediately apparent that I just didn't have it in me....my body and my soul were telling me, hey bud, maybe it's time." Publisher Charles Gerencser told me that "no resignation has been accepted" and that nothing will be official until Monday. There's talk that Rebecca Schoenkopf, who came with Lowery this week, may be elevated to acting editor.
TWO PIECES OF NEWS FROM CISION'S NAVIGATOR Shopping blog Racked LA recently launched and covers shopping, neighborhood stores and the retail scene of Los Angeles. The blog was introduced as a West Coast counterpart to the New York shopping blog called Racked. Tasha Nita Adams (tasha@racked.com), the former associate retail and events editor, West Coast for WGSN (Worth Global Style Network) edits the blog. She also has worked extensively as a freelance journalist for print and online, writing for Los Angeles Magazine, Angeleno, Variety, Women's Wear Daily, Every Day with Rachael Ray, Thrillist, and others.
Aliah Wright recently left Gannett News Service. She had served as the arts & entertainment editor there. Features editor Nichelle Smith, 703-854-5862, will be handling her duties until a replacement can be found.
DAILY NEWS NEWS
LA Observed reports late last night that Daily News Editor Ron Kaye is out. FAMILIAR FACES OUT AT KCBS/KCAL
According to the Daily News and LA Business Observed, more than 15 people were let go at KCBS/KCAL news, including Jennifer Sabih and Jennifer Davis, plus Ann Martin's and Harold Greene's contracts won't be renewed after June 1. Media Bistro adds these names to the axed list: Matt Kallinger, Jaime Garza and Greg Phillips. MY FAVORITE BLOG
Terrific interview with LA Observed's Kevin Roderick at LAIst.
NEWSWEEK SHRINKS
From Radar: The staff of Newsweek will shrink dramatically, after 111 staffers on its news and business sides accepted a buyout last week. Among those leaving are some of the magazine's best-known, most-admired and longest-service critics, including David Gates, David Ansen and Cathleen McGuigan.
More here. SANDY KOUFAX
How incredibly hot is he, still?!?
Thanks to Getty Images for the photo (from Monday's Dodger season opener).
