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USC Annenberg Alhambra Experiment Running Out of Funds

But the good news is, per an article in Pacific Standard, the Alhambra Source website may still survive as USC communications professor Sandra Ball-Rokeach is currently trying to find new sources of support to replace the grants that are scheduled to go away.

The overhead for this community news experiment launched in 2006 is low. Ball-Rokeach, together with USC colleague Michael Parks, sought to address the changing demographics of Alhambra and a paucity of coverage by the LA Times and Pasadena Star-News. From Joel Smith‘s article:

The site’s commitment to using community contributors rather than professional reporters has produced some journalistically unorthodox but popular stories: first-person accounts of being a second-generation immigrant, for instance, and a piece by the Alhambra High student body president, who explored the question of why he was the only Latino in a leadership position in a school that was half Latino…

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Dodger Dog Takes On Whole New Meaning at Marlins Game

Given how the Dodgers 2013 season was truly in danger of going to the dogs this past weekend after a Friday night Marlins loss, FishbowlLA is a little surprised at the lack of bow-wow references by local sportswriters in their coverage of the first of two much needed weekend victories against the Florida visitors. Especially since the right-field All-You-Can-Eat Pavilion section on Saturday night was full of four-legged fans whose owners had paid an extra $30 to put pets in those seats.

The Dodgers are the latest team to participate in an ongoing 2013 season MLB promotion that allows dog owners to bring their pets to the park. There will be another “Bark in the Park” opportunity at Chavez Ravine on September 28. The other SoCal event of this MLB type takes place August 25 at a Giants game (the Angels are not participating).

At press time, the only canine coverage we can find is a pre-event teaser on the CBS LA website and a couple of AP shots (#6, #10) in a post-game gallery shared by the Miami Herald. There’s also the above YouTube video, showing owners and their dogs walking the warning track before the game.

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Morning Media Newsfeed: Bloomberg Snooping | Meyers Succeeds Fallon | Walters to Retire in 2014


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Bloomberg Admits Terminal Snooping (NYT)
Reporters at Bloomberg News were trained to use a function on the company’s financial data terminals that allowed them to view subscribers’ contact information and, in some cases, monitor login activity in order to advance news coverage, more than half a dozen former employees said. Bloomberg / Matthew Winkler Our reporters should not have access to any data considered proprietary. I am sorry they did. The error is inexcusable. Last month, we immediately changed our policy so that reporters now have no greater access to information than our customers have. Removing this access will have no effect on Bloomberg news-gathering. At no time did reporters have access to trading, portfolio, monitor, blotter or other related systems. Nor did they have access to clients’ messages to one another. BuzzFeed Executives at Bloomberg have known about journalists using the company’s terminals to spy on clients at least since September 2011 — more than a year before the practice turned into a scandal that threatens the company’s relationships with its clients. That month, Erik Schatzker, an anchor at Bloomberg TV and host of Market Makers, was reprimanded for making on-air comments about using terminal data to track the activities of at least one story subject, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation. TVNewser CNBC talked with a former Bloomberg employee who says he accessed usage information of Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and former U.S. Treasury secretary Tim Geithner. He said he did it “just for fun” and as a way “to show how powerful” the Bloomberg terminals were. CNBC In response to queries that Bloomberg journalists had access to officials data usage, a Bloomberg spokesman said, “What you are reporting is untrue” but declined to respond when asked what specifically was inaccurate. He also would not say whether the company had investigated journalists’ access to this information.

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Ron Burgundy Casting for SeaWorld Extras

And who better to report about this Saturday May 11 cattle call than San Diego ABC affiliate Channel 10, one of the places where the alleged loose inspiration for Will Ferrell’s Ron Burgundy character – Harold Greene (also of KCBS fame) – once worked?

The non-union open casting for Anchorman: The Legend Continues is happening today from noon to 4 p.m. at a Mission Valley area DoubleTree Hotel in San Diego, for a local shoot later this month. From the 10news.com report:

Tammy Sandler of the Los Angeles-based company Facetime Media told 10News, “All I can really say is it is a scene with Will Ferrell being shot at SeaWorld…”

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Patch’s Hyper-Urgent Deadline: Q4, 2013

Hindsight is admittedly 20/20. But looking back on the evolution of AOL’s Patch, it’s hard not to wonder where the network might be today if the original focus had been on rolling out around 80 nationwide hubs rather than shooting for a ridiculous, illogical 2010 year-end target of 800+.

The fallout from that misguided tactic remains clear and present across the hyper-local news network to this day. It also framed a May 8 earnings conference call with AOL chief executive Tim Armstrong. As reported by streetfightmag.com deputy editor Steven Jacobs, Patch is going to take “all means possible” and consider “other revenue products” to make the operation profitable by the fourth quarter of 2013.

As is now standard for any such Patch-related news article, the reader comments include a smattering from former company employees that paint a hyper-dreadful picture. Here in SoCal, the rollout of the new Patch beta site design is just about to start. This morning for example, San Juan Capistrano Patch let readers know the new look will be turned on there next week.

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The Young Turks Throw Themselves a Big Party

Some epic Internet math was laid out last night at YouTube’s Space LA by The Young Turks COO Steve Oh. Speaking to a snazzily-dressed crowd of fellow TYT Network personnel, show fans and supporters, he tried to frame just how staggering one billion YouTube views for the show – reached April 19 – is.

Assuming each view counts for an averaged-out minute, Oh said, that’s a billion minutes. Or… 2,000 years. In other words, the online show that began in an east coast basement is now on par with one of Mel Brooks‘ most famous characters. Too bad they couldn’t wrangle Brooks for the April 19 broadcast.

Another funny remark by Oh, who spoke from the lobby stage ahead of his New Jersey high school pal Cenk Uygur, was a remark that touched on the fact that many Young Turks personnel work for below-market-rate salaries. After noting that one producer had turned down another opportunity that paid three times his TYT salary, Oh joked that he still had to fire that person “for being so stupid.”

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Mike Tyson’s Latest Career Move Involves a ‘Fowl-Mouthed’ Pigeon

Seth MacFarlane, Trey Parker and Matt Stone can all claim a legacy piece of Mike Tyson Mysteries, a new weekly quarter-hour show green lit for Adult Swim. The show will mix in live-action footage of Tyson with a cartoon sidekick that owes a lot to Stewie Griffin and Cartman.

Per a report by TheWrap TV editor Tim Molloy:

Armed with a magical tattoo on his face and a trusty associate by his side — a talking pigeon — if you have a problem that needs solving, Iron Mike is in your corner. The series incorporates live-action appearances featuring Mighty Mike himself, and the gloves come off as the former heavyweight champ and his fowl-mouthed partner gear up for weekly adventures as they put unsolved mysteries.

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Tess Vigeland Fills In for A Martinez

Having manned the post-game phones on ESPN 710 AM all miserable Lakers season long, no one deserves a vacation more than A Martinez. He’s off today through the 20th of May and filling in for him at the KPCC Take Two end is Tess Vigeland (pictured).

There aren’t too many people who jump back and forth between LA’s two FM public radio stations, but the talented Vigeland is one of them. She was just on KCRW Tuesday hosting To The Point and has also stepped in recently a few times on the Santa Monica NPR station’s Which Way LA. Her last prior fill-in stint on Take Two was a few months ago.

“It’s probably fairly rare,” she tells FishbowlLA this morning via email of the KPCC-KCRW skein. “I’m grateful to both stations for lending me the microphone!”

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Morning Media Newsfeed: Village Voice Turmoil | NY Post Buyouts | Say Media Layoffs


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Top Editors Abruptly Leave Village Voice Over Staff Cuts (NYT)
The tumult that has characterized The Village Voice in recent years resurfaced on Thursday when the top two editors said they were leaving the weekly newspaper. Will Bourne, who became editor last November, and Jessica Lustig, the deputy editor since January, met with the staff at 11 a.m. on Thursday to announce their departure. In a phone interview, Bourne said that Christine Brennan, executive editor of Voice Media Group, had told them to lay off, or drastically reduce the roles of, five employees on the 20-person staff. Rather than carry out the cuts, he and Lustig resigned and left immediately, in the middle of closing next week’s paper. Gawker We hear that Michael Musto, the Village Voice‘s longtime society columnist and the last remaining vestige of the “classic” Voice, is one of the five Voice staffers targeted for layoffs — the proposed layoffs that caused the Voice‘s editors to quit today. Musto’s column, La Dolce Musto — a quirky mix of nightlife gossip, party talk, gay issues, and whatever the hell else has been happening in his life in the past week — has been running in the Voice for almost 30 years. NY Observer The downtown alt-weekly has been floundering of late. Last August, they had a significant round of layoffs and switched some full-time positions to part-time. Former editor-in-chief Tony Ortega left in September to focus full-time on debunking Scientology, prompting rumors the he was pushed out. Shortly after that, the newspaper chain underwent a corporate restructuring that separated the company’s papers from Backpage.com, the controversial and highly profitable adult online classifieds site that was a key source of revenue. FishbowlNY Bourne succeeded Ortega as editor of the Voice in late November.

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Roger Corman: ‘The Time for Motion Picture Internet Distribution is Now’

On the heels of another triumph for 90-year-old Marvel Comics wizard Stan Lee (Iron Man 3), it’s now time for 87-year-old B-movie king Roger Corman to claim his piece of the shifting media landscape. He explains to LA AP business writer Ryan Nakashima why, after turning down an offer from Hulu some time ago, he has finally decided to jump on the Internet streaming bandwagon by means of a paid-subscription YouTube channel:

His channel, “Corman’s Drive-in,” will cost subscribers $3.99 per month for a rotating selection of 30 movies, refreshed with new interviews and clips from films that are in production. It is set to launch in June.

“I believed for many years that the future of motion picture distribution, particularly for the independents, is on the Internet,” Corman said. “I think the time is now.”

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