Thursday, February 26, 2009

February 26, 2009 News



Read this LA Times memo (courtesy of LA Observed) about the new structure for covering business and entertainment, which says in part

...we are establishing a new department that will be headed by Sallie Hofmeister, who is leaving her post as business editor for the masthead job of Assistant Managing Editor/Arts & Entertainment. She will report to Managing Editor Davan Maharaj.

Joining Sallie will be Craig Turner, who is leaving his position as weekend editor to become Arts & Entertainment Editor. Craig has spent the past seven years guiding our best enterprise efforts into our two biggest circulation days of the week, Saturday and Sunday. Sallie and Craig will oversee the merging of our entertainment reporting groups in Calendar and Business, and they will work closely with Richard Rushfield and Joseph Kapsch at latimes.com as we continue to expand our online entertainment news and information offerings.

Wonder if this means more CLEARLY NECESSARY front page stories on Britney Spears' father??


Add food section writer Amy Scattergood to the list of LA Times layoffs.

And finally, the Times has just named John Corrigan to replace Hofmeister as business editor and Mary Braswell to replace Turner as weekend editor.


Liz Smith is not exactly Helen Thomas in the overall scheme of things, but surely she is too – well, I don't know what, but SOMETHING – for this to happen (from Fishbowl LA):

Gossip columnist Liz Smith has been dropped by the New York Post after 33 years. Col Allan, Editor-in-Chief of The Post, decided against renewing Smith's contract. Smith's column had already been cut from six days a week to three…

… She will also be posting on the site wowowow.com, of which she is a co-founder.


Got a tip that LA Stage Magazine is going online only for the time being, per Editor Lee Melville.


KCRW's Sarah Spitz passes this on:

On March 16th, 2009 public radio station KCRW-Santa Monica (89.9 FM and KCRW.com) welcomes veteran entertainment industry reporter KIM MASTERS to the helm of the station’s award-winning weekly program about the business of entertainment, THE BUSINESS (Mondays at 2:30 pm Pacific time on radio; streamed live, available on-demand and as a podcast @ www.KCRW.com).

Producers are Matt Holzman and Darby Maloney – first name dot last name at kcrw.org.


New Angeles Monthly is now publishing quarterly, with the next issue probably coming out in April. Josh Lurie is still editor.