Journos

LAT Andrew Blankstein was on again and this time making an appearance was TheWrap's Sharon Waxman.

Queena Kim and Tanya Jo Miller interview Nikki Finke. They mention Sharon Waxman's estimate of her selling her site for $14 million. Gawker's Managing Editor Gabriel Snyder is also on this episode.

Listen here.

LA Times does celebrity tragedy right.

From Huffpo:

Fired Fox News entertainment columnist Roger Friedman filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against Fox News, News Corp, 20th Century Fox and Rupert Murdoch in New York State Supreme Court Monday, the Huffington Post has learned.

In the suit, Friedman seeks $5,180,000 in damages for wrongful termination, tortious interference, and libel defamation.

Friedman was fired in April after reviewing a copy of 20th Century Fox blockbuster "Wolverine" that had leaked online, a move seen as an implicit endorsement of piracy.

Friedman, who now writes for the Hollywood Reporter, is expected to allege that the piracy incident was an excuse to fire him, and that News Corp really bowed to pressure from Scientologists, who had been seeking his dismissal over columns critical of Scientology.

Robert Downey Jr. impersonator Steve Lopez was the keynote speaker Friday at the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.

Anne Kallas at Ventura County Star writes:

Prize-winning columnist Steve Lopez said the work of newspaper columnists has become more important than ever in the wild and wooly frontier of digital communications.

"Opinions are a dime a dozen all the more reason to get up and leave the desks behind to go out and find stories," said Lopez, a columnist with the Los Angeles Times.

Whole piece can be found here.

The reports of Andrew Blankstein hiking on the Appalachian Trail are false. There has been a confirmed sighting of him on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Again, LA Times reporter Andrew Blankstein has been located. We will keep you updated with any further developments on the case.

If there are issues with the embed you can watch it here.

Jill Stewart penned a rebuttal to James Rainey's "take-down" piece about the LA Weekly.

Since LATimes.com is crashing on and off due to the Michael Jackson deluge, we have posted then entire piece after the break, but here's an excerpt:

Rainey accuses me of being an ideologue. Isn't he talking about himself? I suspect that he cannot abide a mixed-bag political mutt like me, a lifelong Democrat raised in a working-class union household, yet one who finds the Democratic leaders now running most of L.A.'s political and civic institutions to be doing an exceptionally poor job of it. That's news, and we at the Weekly will continue to cover it.

After their servers catch up - the story should be here.

Previously on FBLA:

The slugfest continues. As we mentioned yesterday, VVM Executive Editor Mike Lacey responded via a blog post to the recent LA Times story critical of the LA Weekly and its news editor Jill Stewart. Lacey ranted against the author of the story, James Rainey, and his only named source, Marc Cooper. Lacey called Cooper "a bitter, disgruntled former employee," and yesterday evening Cooper responded with a note in the blog comments, which can be read below.

But before we type another word about the matter, we should admit that your FBLA editors are biased. We have worked for the LA Weekly, we like the LA Weekly. We know Cooper and Stewart, and would like to note that both are kind to small animals and secretaries. Wouldn't trust Mike Lacey with a gerbil. Full disclosure.

On with the show-

From Marc Cooper:

Aha! The omnipotent Editor-in-Chief of the Village Voice Media speaks! I see this was posted around 5 p.m. which is no wonder given that later in the day he might encounter, um, some motor-impaired difficulties in typing. And as usual, we hear from Lacey almost exclusively when he is moved to publish an attack on a former employee. Classy guy that he is.

I am not going to lower myself to responding point by point to someone whose only journalistic distinction is having gutted a half-dozen or so of the best metro weeklies in America.

I am compelled, however, to correct the record.

continued...

Wow. Glenn Beck - an American treasure. We are sitting here trying to think of the pre-po that went into this bit. "Okay, I'm going to be doing a thing trying to demonize ACORN. Okay, acorns are nuts. I'm nuts. Ken Dolls don't have nuts. We should use Barbies!"

Via TVNewser.

Michael Lacy, executive editor of Village Voice Media goes after Marc Cooper and James Rainey for their attacks on Jill Stewart and LA Weekly.

When we dispensed with Cooper's column, few took note, e-mails did not rain down upon us, the Columbia Journalism Review did not question our judgment. Except for Cooper's blog, where he bled thousands upon thousands of words about the demise of the Weekly, the world continued apace.

continued...