Yes, the tip box is still anonymous. And yes it's still ours. But now it's way easier to find. It's up there to the right of the screen. Bigger and on top. Insert mom joke here.

So if you have some info that you think we need to be made away of and don't want us to know it's you, that's the place to do it.

Plus all hate mail can now be directed to baynewser at mediabistro dot com. Tell them LA sent you.

Thanks for all your tips.

In the triumph of the human spirit story of the decade, the beaten but not out Jay Leno is leaving the 10:00 time slot for the original Tonight Show spot after the local news.

What a nail biter. Tear jerker. Heart warmer.

On a serious note: here are some pictures of the dismantling of Conan O'Brien's Tonight Show set. And here's a weird factually incorrect anecdote from Leno about Super Bowl spot with David Letterman and Oprah.

CORRECTION: We originally said Jay moves back tomorrow. It's just his last show at 10pm today. He moves back next month.

Previously on FBLA:

We were trying to think of a more thankless job than reviewing LA theater. It's stumped us most of the morning. We thought of tough jobs: waste collectors, bus drivers, loggers. But all of those came with a certain gratitude/paycheck/benefits. Then we thought of a Los Angeles weatherman for its pointlessness, but even they have a significant following. No, the lowest of the low has to be the LA theater critic, lower than that are the ones who aspire to the position.

To illustrate our point, here's Craigslist:

continued...

This got caught in a classic Friday news dump because we missed the first article by Jack Shafer at Slate.com interviewing chief investigative reporter for Daily Beast Gerald Posner about lifting sentences from the Miami Herald. Read the piece here. In that article it was reported that Posner will continue to write for the Daily Beast.

But then Slate readers caught more instances of copying without attribution from Texas Lawyer, cementing that Slate readers are all nerds. Look at the examples of the plagiarism here.

And today Shafer posted this note from editor Edward Felsenthal:

Asked for a comment about the new findings, the Daily Beast's Felsenthal e-mailed this statement: "We obviously take what's happened very seriously. We will be suspending Gerald Posner while we review his articles, to return if we are satisfied that he has taken the necessary steps to avoid this in the future."

Shafer also got a statement from Posner himself:

I now realize that a method of compiling information that I have used successfully since 1984 on book research, obviously does not work in a failsafe manner at the warp speed of the net.

Read: Jeepers! Foiled by Google AGAIN!

As of this posting his page at The Daily Beast is mum.

Since Sarah Palin has found satire so important to not being politically correct, Stephen Colbert shows her how its done. "That explains the note on her other hand, 'retard sometimes funny.'"

If memory serves, this is the fourth redesign in as many years. Back when this fishie worked at the LA Weekly, the editorial staff dreaded redesigns of the website, as it always seemed to mean content disappearing from the archives. And there's plenty of missing content. A quick search of the website this morning finds illustrations and photos for articles prior to 2006 mostly extinct. And while stories published before 2006 can still be found, they may not be easy on the eyes - formatting for many seem to have gone haywire.

This latest redesign is certainly not to blame for all the missing or jumbled content. But that the LA Weekly has chosen to revamp the look of the site yet again instead of cleaning up the archives is telling. The current owners purchased the paper in 2006 - perhaps they just aren't interested in preserving anything that came before their reign.

At least articles about burlesque are still easy to find.

Steve Lopez had a poll last week. He wanted to know who the worst Angeleno was and now he doesn't like the answer:

OK, so here we are in Greater L.A., with its long, dark history of land and water grabs, legendary air pollution, assassins, serial killers and gang kingpins, and according to last week's Talk Back to Lopez poll, the worst Angeleno of all time is:

L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa?

Does anyone out there know any history?

In fairness, he's an impotent incumbent who's only accomplishment is getting Mirthala Salinas transferred to Riverside. OJ is in jail, which makes him not an incumbent. The number two on the list was Rep. Henry Waxman, so that should tell you something. People who vote in online polls hate the home team.

Hat tip LA Weekly and photo credit Glitterati

Previously on FBLA:

Author Dani Shapiro penned an essay in the LAT about how writing is now supposed to be profitable.

She writes:

If they were enrolled in medical school, in all likelihood they would wind up doctors. If in law school, better than even odds, they'd become lawyers. But writing school guarantees them little other than debt.

And:

The 5,000 students graduating each year from creative writing programs (not to mention the thousands more who attend literary festivals and conferences) do not include insecurity, rejection and disappointment in their plans. I see it in their faces: the almost evangelical belief in the possibility of the instant score. And why not? They are, after all, the product of a moment that doesn't reward persistence, that doesn't see the value in delaying recognition, that doesn't trust in the process but only the outcome. As an acquaintance recently said to me: "So many crappy novels get published. Why not mine?"

We'd put money on this being a panel at the LAT Festival of Books now.

When did colleges start encouraging this stuff?!

Apparently the late Chris Farley wore his Marquette Rugby jacket in Tommy Boy. He's an alum. If you're eligible the application is here.

This is a credit where credit is due story. Basically, Ralph Vartabedian and Ken Bensinger wrote a piece for the LAT in November last year titled "Runaway Toyota cases ignored." They reported that there have been 19 deaths and scores of injuries due to Toyotas seeming to accelerate on their own. After it was published Irv Miller VP of Environmental & Public Affairs for Toyota wrote:

Today the Los Angeles Times published an article that wrongly and unfairly attacks Toyota's integrity and reputation. While outraged by the Times' attack, we were not totally surprised. The tone of the article was foreshadowed by the phrasing of a lengthy list of detailed questions that the Times emailed to us recently. The questions were couched in accusatory terms. Despite the tone, we answered each of the many questions and sent them to the Times. Needless to say, we were disappointed by the article that appeared today, and in particular by the fact that so little of our response to the questions appeared in the article and much of what was used was distorted. Toyota has a well-earned reputation for integrity and we will vigorously defend it.

Cringe.

As CJR's Dean Starkman points out the LAT stuck to their guns under fire. Then as NYTPicker points out, NYT suddenly started paying attention to the scoop, never noting the champion of the story was from the other coast and some other newspaper.

The media gets criticized for when they get it wrong, but rarely when they get it right. There's no hyperbole in saying this investigative (read: expensive) piece saved lives. Great work Vartabedian and Bensinger.

Also, just because the NYT pretends they're an island with no counterparts, doesn't mean its true.

Our thanks to our tipster for this story.

The Wendy McCaw saga continues, AP reports:

An arbitrator has rejected the Santa Barbara News-Press' $25 million claim against its former editor and ordered the newspaper's owner to pay more than $900,000 in fees stemming from their dispute.

Arbitrator Deborah Rothman said Ampersand Publishing, parent company of the News-Press, believed it "lost prestige and credibility in the Santa Barbara community" from comments former editor Jerry Roberts made, and it went after the journalist in a "scorched-earth, take-no-prisoners, go-for-broke fashion." She said the company spent about $2.4 million litigating the claim against Roberts.

Rothman decided that Ampersand should pay nearly $750,000 in legal fees Roberts incurred and about $167,000 in arbitration fees and expenses. Her 68-page decision was made available Friday; a judge will have to decide whether to confirm or vacate the judgment.

And:

"The award is a decisive victory for ethical journalism," Roberts said in a statement. "Ethics, not money, was always the issue for me."

Now we just have to wait if a judge confirms the amount. Wow, even their media brawls up there are PRICEY. Yeesh.

Previously on FBLA:

In case you missed it, the band who wrote the theme songs for all of CBS's hit CSI shows played said songs at half time. To recap, CBS ran a bunch of CSI promos during the Super Bowl and got a mention in the song set by The Who.

This is why they're "America's Most Watched Network" - synergy!