Subject: Newspapers

• Hugh Hewitt is a Hypocrite

  The godfather of blogs trashes what he calls the MSM (mainstream media--essentially, anyone who doesn't toe the Republican line) every chance he gets. But in a post today on his blog, Hewitt reveals he's an investor in The News Right Now, a news aggregator, and calls it a "very wise move."  Here's the funny, hypocritical thing: of the 12 news sources, 11 are the websites of daily papers, and only two of them (the Moonie-controlled Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal are not part of

  November 26, 2006

• Science vs. Monday Morning

  A report arrives from the cutting edge of science, where wonders never cease.  The cutting edge is currently in Durham, North Carolina, and Dr. Robert Bohannon is busy honing it. Dr. Bohannon, according to the Associated Press, is a "molecular scientist" (the sort of impressive yet vague job title characters in '50's sci-fi movies often have), who has turned his scientific genius to the task of fusing the molecules of coffee and doughnuts into one tasty treat.  That's right:  he'

  January 29, 2007

• Censorship by Chicanos at Chapman?

  While the well-moneyed, Republican-friendly overlords of Chapman University celebrate the school's new film studios, trouble is a-brewin' at my alma mater. Last Monday, the school held a faculty-led panel discussion on free speech and civility after African-American and Latino students complained about some racially charged incidents that occurred on campus last semester. Among the sticking points, according to the Feb. 5 issue of the Chapman Panther: posters for a dance club grafittied with ant

  February 16, 2007

• OC Weekly Wins National Award

  Judges at the Missouri School of Journalism considered more than 1,200 entries and yesterday awarded OC Weekly second place nationally for General Excellence in our circulation category among both daily and alternative newspapers. The judges had this to say: "The Weekly contains all the usual alternative elements—the reviews, the listings, the personal ads. What makes it stand out and makes it a winner, though, are the deeply reported and powerfully written centerpiece stories. These hav

  May 22, 2007

• Register Gone Red?

  The Orange County Register's parent company, Blackstone Group, said Red money is good money May 22 as they accepted $3 billion from its newest partner, the Chinese government, according to reports from several news agencies. Blackstone Group is a private equity firm that owns 28 daily newspapers and 37 weeklies in 11 states under its subsidiary Freedom Communications. Talks have already begun about finding a less ironic name for the chain, leading some to suggest "Pander Express," according to r

  May 23, 2007

• Aw, FOO-ey!

  Hats off to the LA "By God" Times' politico reporter Jean Pasco. Finally, a daily newspaper that circulates in Orange County has drawn a connection between criminally tainted GOP superlobbyist Jack Abramoff and wack-packin' Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach). Way to go, Jean-o! Of course, in typical Times/Pasco fashion, honed from her years doing the same at the Orange County Register, the piece was totally Rohrabacher-sided (she couldn't find one critic?), the most-troubling Ab

  January 10, 2006

• Muzzling Troy

  Troy High School in Fullerton has a lot going for it. The combined public and magnet school is known for its high SAT scores, Troy Tech and International Baccalaureate programs, its wins or high placements in the U.S. National Science Olympiad and Western Regional Science Bowl sponsored by NASA/JPL, and recognitions for being among the nation's top schools from President Clinton, the National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence panel and the selection committee for California Distinguished Schools.

  April 11, 2006

• OC Register Death Watch Part Two

  Last week, I reported that the Orange County Register is in secret talks with Dean Singleton, owner of the Denver-based MediaNews Inc. and an all-around Darth Vader of daily news--he bought and all but killed the Long Beach Press Telegram, just as one example--to share content and lay off writers. I also wrote that Register publisher Terry Horne plans to give away free issues and depend on ad sales to save his failing paper. Horne wouldn't comment for my story, but confirmed the details in a p

  February 20, 2008

• Sam Zell's gonna cut you, man

  Joseph Pulitzer, famed newspaper magnate and founder of the Pulitzer Prize once said, "Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together." Sam Zell, billionaire and CEO of the Los Angeles Times parent Tribune Co. once said, "Everyone likes pussy. It’s un-American not to like pussy." With such an eloquent man at the helm of the Southland's flagship newspaper, there's little doubt that our press, along with our Republic, are once again on the rise. That is, as long as we're not talking abou

  February 26, 2008

• OC Weekly kicks major ass in SoCal press club award nominations (Updated)

  I knew we'd build on last year...and we have. Congratulations to all this year's nominees: Journalist of the Year, PRINT (Under 100,000 circulation) REPORTER, COLUMNIST OR EDITOR: Scott Moxley, OC Weekly News Feature, DAILY/WEEKLY NEWSPAPERS Under 100,000 circulation: Nick Schou, OC Weekly, “Just a Random Female.” Columnist, DAILY/WEEKLY NEWSPAPERS Under 100,000 circulation: Gustavo Arellano, OC Weekly, "Ask A Mexican" Signed Commentary, DAILY/WEEKLY NEWSPAPERS Under 100,000 circulatio

  May 20, 2008

• Daily Pilot - Not So Daily

  Notice anything missing this Monday? Your Daily Pilot, perhaps? That's because Newport Beach and Costa Mesa's daily paper has halted the production of their Monday print edition in order to save money. The financial crunch caused their parent organization, Times Community News, which owns seven newspapers across the Southland, to eliminate 14 positions as well. "'The Daily Pilot is going green one day-a-week'" publisher Tom Johnson joked in his explanation. Read more here.

  June 5, 2008

• The Reg-O-Meter©: Interpreting Terry Horne's Tuesday reader letter

  Interpreting Register publisher Terry Horne’s Page 2 Tuesday letter to Reg readers, the same day the paper introduced a new slimmed-down format—all pages reduced by a one-inch width to save on the cost of newsprint. (You can just call it shrinkage.) Warning: Horne uses the word “exciting” twice in his letter—in our book, a coded phrase that means more layoffs and buyouts are a-comin’ . . . A MESSAGE FROM THE REGISTER’S PUBLISHER "The Register is making a notable change starting

  June 21, 2008

• Times About to Lay Off 250 Employees

  Apparently trying to compete with the Orange County Register for worst place to work on the planet, the Los Angeles Times is about to lay off 250 people, including 150 newsroom employees, according to a source who, for the time being at least, still actually works at the paper. There's been rumors of imminent layoffs at the Times circulating for weeks, but this is the first time an actual number has surfaced. No word yet on how many of those soon-to-be-ex-employees work in Orange County, but

  July 2, 2008

• Print Journalism: The 8-track cassette of news?

  William Lobdell, a veteran investigative reporter/editor in the Orange County wings of the Los Angeles Times media empire until he took a buyout last month, launched LOBDELL'S OC today. Lobdell says his blog will focus on news and observations concerning OC, but his inaugural post provided dark, if noteworthy, comments about the state of print journalism. "The idea that your daily news is collected, written, edited, paginated, printed on dead trees, put in a series of trucks and cars and deliv

  August 4, 2008

• Another Case of Pathetic OC Judge Work

  In addition to subscription drops, ridiculously wasteful advertising schemes, constant management blunders and savage cuts to the newsroom budget, The Orange County Register is battling a wage-and-hour class-action lawsuit filed by the good folks who deliver the newspaper to homes and businesses each morning. Those carriers claim the Register improperly classified them as independent contractors to avoid providing meal breaks, overtime pay, minimum wage and other benefits. I'm not here to take a

  September 30, 2008

• True Life at the Register

  January 18, 2001

• Letters

  August 29, 2002

• Goodbye Tony D. ... and the Pilot, too?

  Sad news about a really good guy, Tony Dodero: the former editor-in-chief of the Newport Beach/Costa Mesa Daily Pilot is being let go as the director of news and online for L.A. Times Community News publications, which include the Pilot, Huntington Beach Independent and Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot. Following are Tony's letter to his staff and Bill Lobdell's take on the Pilot's demise. Lobdell, who recently left the Times where he wrote about religion, was the editor of the Pilot in the early

  October 21, 2008

• OC Register to Lay Off 110, Including 30 in Newsroom

  *Bumped to the top, with new info as it comes on the bottom... The following letter from Register publisher Terry Horne landed in my junk folder this morning, right about the time it apparently reached LAObserved. Not a whole lot to add to this, except our wishes that all this self-destructive madness will stop. Orange County Register Communications announces a reduction in workforce October 29, 2008 - The following note is confidential and written for associates only, per Register President

  October 31, 2008

• We're Doomed

  I just read this from Editor and Publisher: "'[M]ore newspapers and newspaper groups will default, be shut down and be liquidated in 2009, and several cities could go without a daily print newspaper by 2010,' the Chicago-based credit ratings firm Fitch Ratings said in a report on the outlook for U.S. media and entertainment released Wednesday." Does this mean that by this time next year The Register will be regarded the same way as opera houses and sports franchises--as a status symb

  December 5, 2008

• Gustavo KPFK Show, Part III--Preview and Review

  Part I at 4 p.m.: Downtown Los Angeles walking tour of lynch spots! Interview with the man behind this ultimate tourist trap, Scripps College Professor Ken Gonzales-Day.Part II at 4:20 p.m.: Southern California ethnic news aggregator LA Beez.Part II at 4:40 p.m.: Your calls regarding your favorite Southern California news sources--blogs, radio shows, newspapers, random guys walking down the street. Full list on this blog tomorrow!

  December 30, 2008

• OC Register's Fast Food Maven Takes Week Off

  And that's news? Yes, because it's an enforced week off, i.e. a furlough, thanks to the rough patch the newspaper industry is going through. But good ol' Nancy Luna is looking on the bright side, saying she needs the break anyway and will spend it with her family. Enjoy your vacation, Nancy, safe in the knowledge that over here, at the OC Weekly, we'll be eating, drinking and blogging away as usual.

  April 13, 2009

• Paperback Writer

  January 1, 2009

• The Content-Sharing Deal Between the OC Register and MediaNews Hasn't Led to Cuts at the Reg (Yet)

  March 20, 2008

• The Register in talks with MediaNews about sharing content

  February 14, 2008

• A Times Obituary

  August 15, 2002

• Strange Fruta

  April 29, 2004

• Diary of a Mad County

  Jan. 24-Jan. 30
  

  February 1, 2007

• Finding a Scapegoat

  Nick Schou's Kill the Messenger

  November 9, 2006

• Kill the Messenger

  The tragic unraveling of one of Americas most talented yet enigmatic investigative journalists.

  October 5, 2006

• Hour of Scour

  January 6, 2005

• Art Spiegelman Sees no Towers

  September 23, 2004

• Who Is Alex Gomez?

  October 16, 2003

• You Think the Register Sucks Now?

  April 17, 2003

• Pop Your Go Pills, Then Read

  January 30, 2003

• Reality Check

  September 26, 2002

• This Could Be the Year Register Reporter Robin Hinch Gets to Know You

  April 5, 2001

• We Are Five!

  September 14, 2000

• Too Nice to Minorities?

  June 15, 2000

• The Times Trials

  March 23, 2000

• Buh-Bye! Pro-Biz Cheerleader Leaves the Reg

  May 14, 1998

• An Even More Dramatic Look at Register's Circulation Free Fall

  Data released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations at the end April was sad but unsurprising: over the previous six months, circulation at the Orange County Register of Santa Ana fell 7.9 percent to 230,877 for Monday through Friday editions and 3.7 percent to 300,273 on Sundays. But a Bay Area press club's tracking of circulation erosion at the state's top five newspapers over the previous decade was even more stark for Irvine-based Freedom Communications' flagship newspaper. Monday-Friday circu

  May 4, 2009

• Register Misses the Big Scoop in Debunked Zodiac Daughter Story!

  The Orange County Register ran a front page story today about Deborah Perez, the Corona woman who claims her adoptive father, Guy Ward Hendrickson, a carpenter who died in 1983, was actually the Zodiac killer. In case you don't already know, Perez' colorful claim first surfaced in an April 29 press conference in San Francisco, in which she asserted to have been present for some of the actual Zodiac murders, but forgot all about them until decades later. In newspaper jargon, Perez' story is alrea

  May 7, 2009

• Will Freedom Take Playboy Down With Register?

  There is one thing we can take solace in here at the Weekly: post something online about infighting at the Orange County Register and its Freedom Communications parent and it's sure to generate comments--from those doing the infighting. Our Publisher to Register Employees: Let Them Eat Hawaiian Bread, March 9, drew a respectable eight comments. Source Says Furloughs Will Be Forced on Register Employees, March 12, got another six. A dozen more chimed in on Insiders Take Potshots at Freedom Commun

  May 12, 2009

• The Register To Start Charging For Online Content?

  This could be nothing, but the media-watching folks at The Atlantic and Gawker seem to think it very well could be something big. The executives of the nation's top newspaper companies -- Register-owning, Irvine-based Freedom Communications among them -- met yesterday in Chicago to talk about the future of their troubled industry. The Atlantic's James Warren writes: Here's a story the newspaper industry's upper echelon apparently kept from its anxious newsrooms: A discreet Thursday meeting in Ch

  May 29, 2009

• OC Weekly Wins 3 Los Angeles Press Club Awards

  Photo by Karyn LawrenceA scene from Breath of Fire Latina Theatre Ensemble's "W.A.C. Iraq: A Work in Progress," which Beers reviewed.Yes, that does seem like an odd headline given that Orange County is not located in neither the city nor county of Los Angeles. Despite this, three Weeklings were awarded first-place plaques at the L.A. Press Club's 51st annual SoCal Journalism Awards ceremonies Sunday evening at the Sheraton Universal. In the division for daily and weekly newspapers with a circula

  June 15, 2009

• Sister Paper LA Weekly Hires Drex Heikes as New Editor

  OC Weekly's big sister paper, LA Weekly, has announced that long-time Los Angeles journalist Drex Heikes will become its next editor on Aug. 17. LA's announcement has the full scoop, but the quick rundown is Heikes previously spent 18 years at the Los Angeles Times before taking the number-two position at the Las Vegas Sun in 2005, helping to recast a traditional afternoon daily newspaper into a magazine devoted to enterprise and analysis. He takes over for Laurie Ochoa, who it was announced Jun

  June 29, 2009

• 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 retre

  September 3, 2009

• Has the Decline of the Register Created Space for Nonprofit Site the Voice of OC to Put Down Roots?

  October 22, 2009

• OC Register Overlord Freedom Communications Kills a Paper

  ​Officials from Irvine-based Freedom Communications, whose flagship newspaper is the Orange County Register, told employees of Arizona's East Valley Tribune newspapers that they will cease operations on Dec. 31.Freedom's official announcement is contained in this company news release. It's also backed into in the second paragraph of this Register blog post, which leads instead with their corporate overlords saying they expect to see a profit by 2012.Perhaps they are applying the Bob Dylan Law

  November 2, 2009