Daily Pilot Expands to Irvine; Are the Newspaper Wars Back?


Old-timers at the Weekly speak of a time long past–say, ten years ago–when the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register battled to see who could be the true newspaper of record in Orange County, each actively seeking to out-scoop the other. 

Then, by most accounts, the Times gave up. They folded many of their community papers, leaving much of their Orange County coverage to occasional parachute stories that, at their worst, envisioned Orange County as a faraway, dreamed-about land instead of as a neighbor.
Now, though, they might be un-giving up, a little. A little.

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The Times-owned Daily Pilot, which covers Newport Beach and Costa Mesa, will now also venture into Irvine. Caveats: They'll only run Irvine news on Sundays, and it'll only be one page's worth. And their new task of regularly covering Irvine seems pretty doable given that, you know, it's Irvine. Nothing ever seems to happen there besides episodes in which Larry Agran showers Great Park money on his friends.

Still, baby steps. 
The announcement of the expansion to Irvine is here. In the story, Daily Pilot editor John Canalis called Irvine “the missing piece of the puzzle” in their paper's coverage. If we're talking about the Times as a whole, though, we're hoping that puzzle will expand more in the coming years.

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