Nikki Finke has a new addition over at Deadline Hollywood — The Hollywood Reporter’s TV editor Nellie Andreeva.

Full press release after the jump:

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Former LA Weekly writer Marc Cooper has a new online project — recreating the details of his most harrowing assignments from his 35 years in journalism.

Cooper explains:

Reporters’ war stories, literal or otherwise, can be dreadfully boring to those outside a small circle of friends. But nary a night goes by when I don’t shuffle through a half-dozen of them — perhaps only for a fleeting moment — and re-live them almost as intensely as I did in the moment they occurred.

I have decided, then, to start writing them all down. For no particular purpose, except perhaps to fully savor them all one more time before they fully recede in time.

Over the coming weeks and months, that is what I intend to do on this blog. Purely as some sort of perverse hobby. And in no particular order. Nor with any guarantee that every detail is accurate.

Everything will be, merely, as I remember them. They are my truths. They have made my life and changed my life.

H/T Ed Padgett

The entire collection is here.

Photo credit Lina Lecaro.

We were just watching the CSPAN feed from this weekend’s “Tea Party” hootinany in Nevada when we caught arguably the greatest (and by greatest we mean the absolute WORST) hip-hop performance of all time — from reactionary MC “Polatik.” Seriously, we can’t even figure out how to describe what we just saw. Like if someone shoved the love child of Chuck D and Mussolini onstage after it had spent the majority of its adult life sniffing glue…but funnier.

Can’t seem to find the Nevada clip anywhere online, but here’s an older performance from Waco, Texas. Almost as good.

Look this is LA, we welcome perverts from all partisans. You have money, you just bring your bondage loving cash and you have a place to park your sleazy keister.

The Republican National Committee is tied up in a bit of a controversy about hanging out at a bondage club in WeHo. POLITICO reported over a month ago that RNC Chairman Micheal Steele has been spending twice as much as his predecessors on private planes, lavish dinners and flowers. So this latest spending spree of over $9000 at the Beverly Hills Hotel isn’t really news. What did make a mini-scandal of the day is the Federal Election Commission investigating whether Steele dropped nearly $2000 at the bondage themed club Voyeur.

Steele denies he was there. But someone got reimbursed for “dinner and a show.” And since Heidi Montag is also a regular, maybe its where Christians and Republicans can meet each other in LA.

Note, we are not Vegas and what happens here – gets broadcast.

TMZ is reporting that A. Larry Ross Communications, a Christian-focused PR firm, is suing Carrie Prejean for $64,857 in outstanding fees. According to the lawsuit, Prejean contacted the firm in April of 2009 for help in spreading her “biblically correct” message.

And by “biblically correct” we of course mean masturbating on camera and sending the videos to some guy you barely know.

J.D. Shapiro is claiming his screenplay based on L. Ron Hubbard’s book was good, then “they” changed it. He penned an entire piece in the NY Post about it in the wake of the “film” winning the Worst Movie of the Decade Award from the Razzies which he accepted in person.

But his jokes are so clever:

I researched Scientology before signing on to the movie, to make sure I wasn’t making anything that would indoctrinate people. I took a few courses, including the Purification Rundown, or Purif. You go to CC every day, take vitamins and go in and out of a sauna so toxins are released from your body. You’re supposed to reach an “End Point.” I never did, but I was bored so I told them I had a vision of L. Ron. They said, “What did he say?” “Pull my finger,” was my response. They said I was done.

He admits he only went to the Celebrity Centre because he heard it was a great place to meet girls. So, did it work?

Shapiro writes:

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The gender transition and suicide of sportswriter Mike Penner/Christine Daniels was chronicled in an article over the weekend by his former employer, the LA Times. Penner/Daniels became an overnight sensation in 2007 when he announced plans for a gender shift in a column for the Times called “Old Mike, new Christine.”

The article discusses in some detail how painful a process the gender transformation was, especially with the added stress of public scrutiny and criticism. Not just from conservatives, but from the transgender community and her colleagues in the media.

In late 2007 Vanity Fair killed a profile piece on Daniels after the author expressed concern that his subject might commit suicide. Sometime in 2008 Penner returned to his male identity, and in November of last year he was dead by his own hand.

In the comments section of the article, a fellow trangendered individual wrote:

Sometimes what makes people leaders is also what kills them, a very precise and absolute intolerance for the status quo.
I want people everywhere to know, we are social animals, some basic community acceptance is paramount to survival. The inability of average people to make the smallest sacrifice in bending long held beliefs, can be lethal to others… lethal. Please, consider it.

Previously on FBLA:

In an article about runaway legal fees in bankruptcy cases, the Chicago Tribune cites the Tribune Co. proceedings as an unfortunate example:

In the 15 months since Chicago-based Tribune Co. filed for bankruptcy, law firms and other professionals have billed the media conglomerate $138 million, or about one-quarter of the company’s cash flow last year, an analysis of court documents shows.

Hat tip Romenesko