Journos

Who better to pay tribute to Richard Blood, the one-time New York Daily News city editor who passed away last Friday, than his journalist son?

Michael R. Blood, a political reporter with AP in Los Angeles, tells Boston University student reporter Gina Curerri that his father loved the craft. Dad graduated from BU in the mid-1950s, earned a Master’s in journalism from Columbia University and worked initially for publications in Vermont and New Hampsire. From the article:

“Probably the thing I remember the most was his passion,” Michael said. “He loved to go to work. He spent many hours there.”

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Create a clear, strategic approach to the way you use Facebook to market your business in our new Facebook Marketing Boot Camp. The online conference and workshop starts April 24. Learn more.

Kate Bolick‘s nine-page, 12,000-plus-word Atlantic article on the economics of dating, “All The Single Ladies,” became the talk of the town last November — but the buzz didn’t end there.

When the issue came out, Bolick sent Drop Dead Diva‘s Josh Berman a copy of the piece for feedback.

“It wasn’t to say, ‘Here, can you turn this into a television show?’” she told mediabistro.com for its “Hey, How’d You Do That?“ series. “I had seen Drop Dead Diva and was surprised by the way he delved into women’s issues and comedy. I thought it was smart, contemporary and original. I sent the article to him saying, ‘What do you think? How could this be received in Hollywood? Would there ever be interest in something like this for television?’”

Turns out Berman not only loved the article, but wanted to option it with Sony.

Read the full interview to find out how Bolick did it and to get her tips for freelancing success.

Going up weekday nights against Anderson Cooper and Bill O′Reilly at 8 p.m. may sound like cable news suicide. But per an LA Times profile piece by Alana Semuels, MSNBC host Ed Schultz is making it work:

This year through early February, Schultz’s nightly The ED Show viewership has averaged 608,000, a 60% increase from his ratings during the same period in 2010, according to Nielsen. He’s surpassed Cooper, though he has more than a million fewer viewers than O’Reilly.

In response to critics who accuse Schultz of deceitfully switching from a Conservative to Liberal POV, he tells Semuels it’s genuine. He says a large spark for the transformation came from a most unusual first date with his now-wife and afternoon radio show producer, Wendy. She took him to a homeless shelter.

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Yesterday we shared with you some juicy snippets of a Mediabistro interview with Janice Min, editorial director of the Hollywood Reporter, in which she said that Los Angeles was seriously lacking in talented journalists.

“Hiring out here is hard,” Min complained. “There is not a bench out here at all. You struggle to find enough working journalists out here to staff your publication and to even interview.”

Min’s statements left many local journos rolling their eyes. “Gee, sorry we letcha down, Janice,” tweeted Jon Weisman of Variety.com. “That’s Minsanity,” quipped David Young of True Blue LA. LA Weekly‘s Dennis Romero called Min’s remarks B.S. “Tons of great journalists in this market,” he said.

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The legacy of George Ramos, a Pulitzer prize winning reporter for the Los Angeles Times, continues to grow.

The journalist-turned-journalism-professor passed away last summer at age 63. This week, the Cal Poly Journalism Department has announced the creation of an endowment in his name. Contributors will be recognized on a plaque to be permanently displayed at the school, with funds to be divided equally between student and program development. From this week’s release:

“George educated journalists to understand and practice the importance and value of the free press,” said Harvey Levenson, interim chair of the Journalism Department. “He practiced and taught the virtues of objective reporting that people of all walks of life could understand. A Latino, he had a particular affinity for the Latino community, working to create opportunities for members of that community to enter the field of journalism.”

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CBS2 reporter Serene Branson gave viewers quite the scare one year ago during a live report from the 2011 Grammys when she started to slur her speech and struggled to get her words out.

While Branson appeared to be having a stroke on live TV, she was actually suffering from a migraine.

“On one hand, it feels like it was just yesterday because I still remember those feelings so vividly. But, on the other hand, I feel like I’ve come so far and I’m much more comfortable sitting here talking with you about it now than I was a year ago,” Branson told fellow CBS2 colleague Pat Harvey.

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With Tim Tebow and the NFL season out of the picture, Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks is the latest media darling in professional sports.

The Asian-American point guard from Harvard torched the Los Angeles Lakers Friday night, scoring 38 points in a 92-85 victory at Madison Square Garden.

In response to Lin’s great performance, FoxSports.com columnist Jason Whitlock tweeted, “Some lucky lady in NYC is gonna feel a couple of inches of pain tonight.”

Whitlock’s tweet caught the attention of the Asian American Journalists Association, who wrote the following on their Facebook page Saturday night:

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As if having the New York Times pick up on their reporting wasn’t great enough, the student reporters at Claremont McKenna College’s Claremont Port Side newsmagazine are drawing national praise for their role in reporting the manipulation of student SAT scores by administrators at their college. Port Side editor-in-chief Alyssa Roberts and senior reporter Jeremy B. Merrill spoke with USA Today about their big scoop.

Roberts: I guess we knew it would be as big as it has become.  (Last) Tuesday, when our campus was flooded with national reporters, some of the evening newscasts, TV cameras, they wanted student perspectives.  People love a good scandal.  And [a scandal at a] very selective liberal arts college makes for an interesting story.  People like to follow that.  I’ve definitely been surprised and also been pleased with the credit the Port Side’s been given– especially by the New York Times.  They’ve been very, very good saying that we first broke a few of the stories we were able to break.  That was very exciting for us.

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The formula for the weekly REELZCHANNEL program Hollywood Uncensored with Sam Rubin is similar to that of Real Time with Bill Maher and no longer on-air The Best Damn Sports Show Period. Bring together a colorful panel of celebrity guests to address a grab-bag of juicy topics.

Here’s a recent clip featuring actors Adrianne Curry, Sam Jaeger and Alan Thicke. This particular panel does not exactly give a ringing endorsement to the basic premise of de facto 2011 Best Picture Oscar winner The Artist:

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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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