Old School

Another egg in the face for news aggregators.

On Monday, the Daily Mail reported that the last company in the world still making typewriters was shutting down. They weren’t the first to report the story, and appear to have simply been regurgitating a week-old article by India’s Business Standard. The story was incorrect — there are still several companies in the world manufacturing typewriters — but that didn’t stop several major news outlets from running with it. USA Today, Huffington Post, PC Magazine, CBS News, and more reported on the death of the typewriter, all without bothering to fact-check.

Some of these media outlets haven’t even bothered to issue a correction. This is what happens when accuracy takes a back seat to page hits.

Hat tip Romenesko.

We know it’s April 1st and this could be a joke – but we’re buying it anyway. Michael Walker compares the Huffington Post blogger pay dispute with the Comedy Store strike of 1979.

Like Huffington, Shore insisted that the Comedy Store was a showcase where comedians could get exposure that would lead to paying gigs elsewhere — talent agents and bookers for “The Tonight Show” were in regular attendance, she pointed out. The comedians were unmoved; without them, they argued, there would be no customers. But Shore was adamant. “The Comedy Store is a workshop,” she said, “and in that environment the comics don’t deserve to get paid.”

First off – Huffington Post’s main bloggers get paid by the organizations they work for. That’s a big chunk of the now free bloggers. Can’t say that for the Comedy Store.

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Good's Hollywood Office

Yesterday, we broke the news about how Good is launching its own in-house advertising company to complement its media operations. Well, that isn’t all that folks are up to over there. During a lengthy visit to Good‘s offices last week, we spoke with LA-editor Alissa Walker and Mark Barker--who was just hired to manage yet another new company endeavor called “Good Local.”

Unlike a traditional media rollout, with a total reliance on editorial content, Good Local will combine reporting, event planning, social activism and philanthropy. “Good‘s mission has become more action-oriented,” says Walker. “We don’t just want to bring attention to problems through reporting. We want to actively encourage our community to become part of the solution.”

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At age 85, Joseph Sargent is the first ever Distinguished-Filmmaker-in-Residence at Malibu’s Pepperdine University. Among his many duties will be teaching a Master Class, crafting a new MFA degree in media production, judging events, and mentoring advanced students on their thesis projects.

Sargent began making movies in 1936, at age 11, when his father gifted him with an 8mm camera. Nine Emmy nominations, eight DGA Award nods and four Emmys later, Sargent – a longtime Malibu resident – is the perfect guy to guide Pepperdine arts students to new heights.

Part of the challenge in Hollywood is not just managing the career highs but also weathering the professional lows. Sargent can certainly speak to the latter thanks to 1987′s Jaws: The Revenge. The movie earned him two Razzie nominations and famously prevented star Michael Caine from attending the Oscars that year.

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After nearly imploding in Los Angeles last month, getting arrested for fighting with his daughter, “golden-voiced” Ted Williams is back in LA, living in a sober house for voice actors. Williams was on the CBS Early show this morning to talk about his recent struggles and about his quick exit from a Dr. Phil sponsored rehab stay.

Remember John Cunningham‘s LA public access TV show Driveways of the Rich and Famous? We do, lovingly.

Nevertheless, the migration of such programming to YouTube and a gazillion other online streaming outlets is going to make it that much more difficult for a new coalition featuring the likes of Ed Asner, Vin Di Bona and former LA Daily News editor Ron Kaye to be successful in their effort to restore LA’s public access TV channels, dialed down in 2006.

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Oh the humanity! Humane-ity.

Anyway, KTLA reports:

Seven days of torrential rains have caused the roof of the San Gabriel Valley Humane Society to cave in.

Hundreds of kittens have been relocated to other rooms inside the shelter that have not been damaged.

Go here to make a donation. And yes this is all a ploy to post kitten pics during a slow news week.

Witness LA‘s Celeste Fremon has just published the third part in the three-part “Follow the Gang Money” series, investing LA’s Gang Reduction and Youth Development program. The piece, co-produced through a partnership with Spot.us, offers a series of recommendations for how Los Angeles can clean up its act when it comes to gang reduction.

Writes Fremon:

Those of you who read the two Follow the Gang Money stories know that, in both cases, we were critical of GRYD.

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After 70 years in journalism, trailblazing comic strip character Brenda Starr is retiring. The red haired reporter got her start in the pages of the Chicago Tribune back in 1940, when female reporters of the flesh and blood persuasion were few and far between. Starr leaves the profession far more inclusive than she found it – according to the American Society of News Editors, women now make up about 37% of American newsrooms.

NPR has details on the girl reporter’s retirement:

Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich and artist June Brigman said they’ve decided it was time to end their work on the seven-day-a-week strip which appears in about three dozen newspapers. The final episode of the soap opera cartoon created by the late Dale Messick will be published Jan. 2.

“It’s been an incredible privilege to be able to live life through this medium all these years,” said Schmich, who has written the comic for 25 years. “I’m a reporter, above all, so I always use Brenda in a funny way to report things.”

Here’s hoping for a generous severance package.

It must be strange working as a headline writer for one of LA’s legal news wire services.

Case in point: This week’s sensational, inspiring story of an LA County Sheriff’s deputy appealing his dismissal from the force over having consorted with and later married a known prostitute and recovering heroin addict.

We’re talking here about a cop, Emir Bautista, with a heart of gold,  who essentially rescued a woman off the streets of Gardena and helped her kick both the hard drugs and hard life (the two are still together). In other reporting environments, such banner words as “Sheriff’s Zero Still a Homefront Hero” or “By Hook or by Shawn Crook” might be bandied about.

But in the court docket news world, it was simply:

“No Reinstatement for Cop Who Befriended Hooker”

“Sheriff Can Fire Deputy Who Married Prostitute”