Award-winning features writer Roy Rivenburg was one of two OC-based Los Angeles Times staffers who took the buyout, ending a decade and a half at the paper. (The other was Mai Tran.) Today, we quizzed him on the decision to kiss the LAT goodbye:
Soooo . . . why'd ya do it?
A combination of wanting to take a sabbatical and try something new, the state of the newspaper industry in general, and the state of the LA Times in particular.
How do you plan to deal with the withdrawal (assuming you ex
FBI targets one of OC's richest: The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the FBI served subpoenas at the Newport Coast home of Henry T. Nicholas III, ex-chairman of Irvine-based, electronics giant Broadcom Company. According to the paper, the investigation involves drugs and other potential crimes such as back-dating financial documents. It hasn't been a good year for the man worth more than $600 million. Kenji Kato, his bodyguard from 1999 to 2006, filed a civil suit in Los Angeles claiming
The tragic tale of the former sheriff inspired retired L.A. Times feature writer Roy Rivenburg and former Press Enterprise police reporter Lisa O'Neill Hill to combine their powers and slap some new lyrics on an old 80's favorite.
Click here for a MIDI clip if you want to sing along.
The Ballad of Mike Carona
(to the tune of "My Sharona" by The Knack)
By Lisa O'Neill Hill and Roy Rivenburg
Ooh, the OC sheriff's done, sheriff's done.
Are you gonna do some hard time, Carona?
Ooh, they say you
Well, ask and you shall receive. . .looks like we're starting a Carona lyric-swap library. Yesterday, Roy Rivenburg and Lisa O'Neill Hill took on The Knack's "My Sharona." Today, our very own Jack Grimshaw shot us his lovely bastardization of Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues."
P.S. If anyone else wants to contribute to our growing collection, I'm at jkahn@ocweekly.com.
Mikey's Folsom Prison Blues!
By Jack Grimshaw
Well, I know that prison’s waiting,
It’s just around the bend,
I traded
Maybe—or at least help steer OC’s 34-year-old glossy monthly magazine away from what had been a frothy, puff-piece-packed publication that featured interviews and profiles with former owner Ruth Ko’s friends, and B- (sometimes C)-grade celebrities adorning its covers who often had nothing whatsoever to do with Orange County.
So by putting a close-up photo of a sweet, delicious Balboa Bar on the cover of their July “Best of Orange County” issue—the debut of a newly re-launched and
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
LA Timesman-turned-NotTheLATimesman Roy Rivenburg picked up the steaming hunk of gauntlet Clockwork threw down here and has come up with a redesign of the LA Times redesign.
Personal favorites: The Jackson Pollock makeover of the T.J. Simers' columnist mug and this line of pure Rivenburg:
And a Laguna Beach man marveled over how much easier the new look is to navigate. "I never used to be able to find the Sports section when the giant label at the top was printed in black ink," he said. "Now
Los Angeles Times management has laid off two more veteran reporters in its already-decimated Orange County bureau, according to Times sources.
The latest to leave will be Gil Reza and Christian Berthelsen, two outstanding veterans with long lists of accomplishments.
Amazingly, the Times OC editorial staff of six reporters (including three relative rookies) and one columnist is now smaller than ours at OC Weekly.
The bureau has lost veterans David Reyes, William Lobdell, Roy Rivenburg and D
