Newspapers

According to a report by Amita Sharma and Ryann Grochowski for KPBS/inewsource Investigations Desk, it appears that U-T San Diego may have played favorites during last fall’s campaign for city mayor.

Some frustration and general befuddlement from the side of Democratic candidate Tom Filner over the sheer number of attack ads that appeared in print during the campaign has now given way to some apparent public-records confirmation. And that, in turn and if further corroborated, could really get the newspaper in trouble:

“It’s clearly not appropriate for a news organization to make that kind of contribution without reporting it,” said Dan Schnur, former chairman of the California Fair Political Practices Commission, now director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the USC.

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Ken Doctor, a media expert often quoted in other people’s articles, has gone long-form this week at Nieman Lab about the topic of the Orange County Register‘s ongoing bold experiment. His article is a worthwhile read for anyone closely following the paper’s fortunes.

Next Tuesday, some of the fans sitting inside Angel Stadium of Anaheim for the mighty team’s home opener will be doing so for free, courtesy of the paper’s seven-day subscriber membership rewards program. In this particular case, all at the behest of newspaper president Eric Spitz and CEO Aaron Kushner:

The Register approached the Angels, located 10 minutes away, with the idea of better using the empty seats the Angels couldn’t sell. The Angels found themselves sitting on almost 600,000 empty seats last year over 81 games. Put another 7,000 butts in those seats each night, even without getting paid for the ticket, and the club is pulling in another 10 bucks or so on Chronic Tacos, garlic fries and overpriced Corona.

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Via Q&A with PR Week, Jimmy Orr says the discussion about metered online content is “healthy” (and – we assume – sure to get “healthier” in these parts once the Orange County Register joins the paywall club later this month):

“Our thought is that no one can cover Los Angeles and Southern California better than we can. That’s our niche. Our journalism is strong enough, and quality sells.”

“The important thing we do is participate [in the debate] and see if the business model works. Too often, people get caught up in the fact that the business model in this industry has not yet been fully realized. That’s true, but that is also okay, because it will be. But if you don’t participate, you’re not going to learn.”

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Next week, the Orange County Register is launching three new weekly six-page insert sections dedicated to area universities. The UC Irvine one debuts April 1; Chapman University April 2; and Cal State Fullerton April 3.

Ahead of those debuts, LA Times reporter Kim Christensen questions the wisdom of the paper respectively partnering with each institution for the sections on a $275,000, one-year contractual basis. For that money, each university gets a half-page ad in 45 issues. From Christensen’s piece:

Some Register staffers have expressed concerns — most of them privately for fear of alienating their bosses — that the collaborative effort and the schools’ paid sponsorship of it will undermine the newspaper’s credibility and blur the line between advertising copy and news stories…

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It’s truly remarkable how the hits just keep on coming at the Orange County Register. The latest is one of the highest-profile moves yet by the very active regime of Aaron Kushner and Eric Spitz.

Starting April 2, longtime former Register staffer Cathy Taylor (pictured) will be back in the fold as head of the paper’s new Washington D.C. bureau. From today’s announcement:

Taylor served as a reporter, editor and columnist supporting the Register’s business coverage, and joined the Opinion and Commentary pages in November 1996. She was a member of the Register’s senior leadership team as vice president of Opinion and Commentary before leaving the company in November 2011 to accept a position at Washington, D.C.-based Eagle Publishing as editor of Human Events, a national weekly publication.

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Dear @latimes having @bleacherreport “articles” under your nameplate online is not a positive for your brand. BR = Slideshows = no substance

— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) March 17, 2013

Add Dallas Mavericks owner and businessman Mark Cuban to the list of folks who are skeptical when it comes to content on Bleacher Report.

And while the sports websites has made strides towards improving their credibility by hiring writers you’ve actually heard of, they are still the king of the pointless slideshows.

This hasn’t stopped the LATimes.com from featuring Bleacher Report content on their website.

I know I can’t be the only person who has gone to LATimes.com and clicked on a story, only to discover that it wasn’t content from their website but from Bleacher Report.

And by content, I mean a list, slideshow, or article dripping of sensationalism.

Glad to know I wasn’t the only person turned off by that partnership.

From the outset of Aaron Kushner’s reign as owner-publisher of the Orange County Register, we’ve been impressed by his willingness to engage not just the community but also outside reporters and critics.

In this latest example, Kushner took the initiative via email. The context for his correspondence with USC professor Marc Cooper and website Voice of OC was an old journalism axiom, a pair of articles by Adam Elmahrek and a related Romenesko report of some March 6 newsroom comments by Kushner.

Last night, Voice of OC published two emails sent by Kushner (one to both Cooper and Voice of OC, one to just Cooper) as well as Cooper’s response. From Kushner’s first email:

There are many ways a newspaper serves its community. One important way is by holding those in power accountable for their use of that power. That is why in just the last six months the Register has hired more investigative reporters and journalists to cover city halls and Orange County business and political leaders than every other newspaper in America combined. How we cover those in power with one of the largest watchdog and beat reporting teams in the country is about getting it right, which includes tone. I agree with Marc that there is no dichotomy between being respectful and having robust coverage of our community and those who lead it.

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Last week, we brought you Part I of our popular series, Personal Essay Markets. This week brings Part II, which outlines more venues that love printing this unique and accessible style of writing. Included among them are tips on how to submit to The Los Angeles Times‘ first-person column.

Be sure to come back for our final installment of the print markets in Part III, as well as our digital guide in Part IV.

For more, read Personal Essay Markets Pt. II. [Mediabistro AvantGuild subscription required]

We’re not trying to take Aaron Kushner‘s side here. But we do applaud the fact that this particular media company owner replied to a hot-potato-topic query from Voice of OC reporter Adam Elmahrek:

Kushner, who responded by email within hours, acknowledged that the Register recently adjusted its policy regarding political advertising. He said, however, that the policy was changed because “we don’t like negative political advertisements,” not out of support for Anaheim’s council majority.

“It was brought to our attention that the Register has had an inconsistent process for reviewing political advertising, which we are working to address and make more systematic,” Kushner wrote. “This is not a comment or endorsement of any particular politician or political cause but a systematic review of our process as we strive to better serve Orange County in everything that we do.”

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As Daniel Miller reminds in the LA Times, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is famously finicky when it comes to all injurious and unlicensed use of their golden trademark. However, even with some more high-priced assistance from Quinn Emanuel, it’s unlikely AMPAS can make the New York Post pay for this:

Today’s two-word exclamatory is another instant-classic NYP front page headline, transposing the business of a scandalous South African murder case onto the vaunted Dolby Theatre red carpet. With large-font, surround headline sound.

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