Former Survivor producer Bruce Beresford-Redman was extradited from the U.S. to Mexico in order to stand trial in the death of his wife, Monica Beresford-Redman.

The Emmy-nominated producer originally planned to appeal the extradition order last September but eventually decided to adhere to the U.S. court ruling. The U.S. Marshals Services said a statement Wednesday night that Bruce Beresford-Redman was handed over to Mexican authorities and headed to Cancun.

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.

Hate how Best Picture at the Academy Awards often goes to films that are in no way, shape or form the best movie of the year? Well, there may be some solace for you if your film of choice gets jobbed. USC’s Annenberg Innovation Lab has teamed with IBM and the LA Times to measure social media buzz relating to this year’s Oscars. Culling worldwide Twitter sentiment, the hope is to accurately identify the “people’s Oscar” winners in the major categories.

From the release:

The project relies on new sophisticated analytics and natural language recognition technologies to gauge positive and negative opinions shared in millions of public tweets.

Focused on the Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Picture categories, the goal is to establish a model for measuring the volume and tone of worldwide Twitter sentiment to better understand moviegoers’ opinions. The results are intended to illuminate how advances in technology can help identify important consumer trends.

The real time results are harvested by something called a Senti-meter, which you can check out here. Looks like a lot of Hugo and Harry Potter action currently underway. Someone also just called Glenn Close “sexy” in her role as a man, Albert Nobbs.

 

The overriding takeaway from Ken Doctor‘s look at the radical economics of California news gathering is already obvious to anyone doing the gathering. It’s all about digital synergies.

From Russ Stanton‘s jump to a public radio station on a Tony Pierce-led Internet blog blitz, to the confirmation this week that the Bay Citizen is merging with California Watch, print is warming up the deathbed. Doctor also takes the California temperature of Patch, which currently operates 132 hubs across the Golden State:

Many of the sites are lively, with good features, calendars, and lots of local, if episodic, bloggers–even if the sites don’t come close to living up to Patch’s tagline: “Hi there, we’re Patch, your source for local knowledge you can’t live without.”…

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As a journalist who has done a Q & A or two in his career, this Fishie hates to say it, but we’re pretty sure the traditional journalistic Q & A is nearing its demise. Because Reddit’s Ask Me Anything question sessions tend to be so much better these days. Yes, that goes for the Woody Harrelson debacle too, which made for great theater.

The Atlantic‘s James Fallows did a great AMA today where he answered questions on everything from home brews to China to the Gawkerization of his magazine. His answer to the latter we found particularly interesting.

Obviously this is a question we take very seriously here, and think about every day.

I have worked for the Atlantic longer, probably, than most people asking questions here have been alive. I started when I left the Carter Administration (when I was in my 20s) in 1979. What I’ve learned over that time is the balance between, on the one hand, the way the magazine HAS to keep changing, continually — and on the other, the crucial importance of its standards, intelligence, judgment, and so on. If you look back through our bound volumes, you see how dramatically the magazine has changed, and how often, through its existence. While still having some sensibility that makes us think: here is an Atlantic treatment, and not one from (name your other mag).

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Sophia Kercher has been named the new associate editor of Pasadena Magazine.

“I’ve been in love with Pasadena ever since seeing the city’s jacaranda trees,” Kercher tells us. “I’m looking forward to uncovering the many narratives under those trees.”

She arrives at Pasadena after two and a half years as research editor for the Los Angeles Times Magazine. But this Fishie remembers her from her intern days at the LA Weekly.

So proud! So proud!

KCET is beefing up their programming for the month of March with a slew of new shows featuring the likes of Roy Firestone and Holly Robinson Peete.

Firestone returns as host of LA Tonight With Roy Firestone, a weeklong half-hour interview series (March 12-17, 10 p.m. and midnight) that invites celebrities who live in Los Angeles to discuss their lives and current issues in today’s society. Firestone will be joined by Andre Agassi, Burt Bacharach, Chris Botti and Steve Tyrell.

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In the arcane, moneyed world of “For Your Consideration” ads, there are each year a number of pitches that rub Academy members the wrong way. But after a paid email blast was sent out this week by both The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, TheWrap reporter Steve Pond is getting some blowback for suggesting that the transmission was only borderline AMPAS-legal:

Weinstein Company COO David Glasser responded: “We are surprised that a media outlet like TheWrap, which normally has journalistic integrity, would print the strange accusation of an anonymous competitor and use this as a direct broadside against Variety and The Hollywood Reporter.”

Can you guess who the anonymous competitor is? The email in question, paid for by Weinstein Co., featured the subject line “Meryl Streep Exclusive Video” and linked to a screening Q&A conversation between the actress and Deadline.com’s Pete Hammond. During the clip, Hammond exclaims that the 29-year gap in Streep winning an Oscar really needs to be rectified.

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Mikki Taylor spent over 30 years at Essence, first in the mag’s fashion and sewing department in the early 80s and most recently as its cover and style director, and she says the key to longevity in publishing is a combination of good ideas, enthusiasm, and a pro-active attitude.

“First, you have to know the territory. You also have to know your gift,” she explained in our Media Beat interview. “Is there room for your gift at the magazine at which you currently work? And, if so, how will you play that forward? And how well are you selling yourself everyday not only in the things that you say but in your actions, in the ideas that you come to the table with. Are you asking yourself ‘what great things am I going to do today?’”

Watch the full video to find out how Taylor found the courage to leave Essence and start her own consultancy, Mikki Taylor Enterprises.

Part 1: Mikki Taylor on Her 30 Years at Essence
Part 2: Mikki Taylor: Michelle Obama Brings ‘Sophistication’ to American Style

It never gets old. More than 42 years after successfully sending a message from one host computer to another, UCLA professor Leonard Kleinrock (pictured) still occasionally does media interviews about that historic October 29, 1969 day.

The latest reporter to reminisce with Kleinrock is Australian afternoon radio show host Bernadette Young. The professor recalled that the first-ever Internet-like message was LOL… without the second “L”:

“There was one programmer upstairs… All we wanted to do was to log in from our computer to their computer. In order to log in, you have to type L-O-G, and that other computer was smart enough to add I-N…”

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Our cousins over at TVNewser dug up some interesting details today on Aaron Sorkin‘s new HBO show The Newsroom–about the cable news biz. Turns out a new name has been given to the fictional network at the heart of the show: Atlantis Cable News. Sorkin’s script originally called the channel UBS in honor of the great film Network.  But for branding reasons, the change was made.

HBO has commisioned a fake news website back the new name: www.atlantiscablenews.com. The page is blank now, but TVNewser has a mock-up of the site-to-be.

The Newsroom will make its debut sometime this summer, possibly on Sunday, June 24th after the season premiere of True Blood.