Joe Mathews, formerly a political reporter with the LA Times, came over to Zócalo in January to head up California coverage, while T.A. Frank segued from Washington Monthly to become ideas editor. A month ago, they were joined by managing editor Megan Greenwell, from the Washington Post. As if that weren’t enough, the group’s off-site editorial director since fall is Andrés Martinez, previously editorial page editor at the LA Times.

“We started on the ground,” executive director Gregory Rodriguez explains to FishbowlLA via telephone. “Most of our revenue is based on events. We began by partnering with foundations and other cultural institutions, who wanted us to convene events and create ancilliary materials.”

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If you’ll recall, Martinez resigned from his post last year after offering to let producer Brian Grazer guest-edit the Sunday Opinion section. Grazer was repped by Martinez’s then-girlfriend, Kelly Mullens. At the time, Martinez said there was nothing fishy about the arrangement, but now it turns out he blames his whole downfall on his former flame … and has filed a lawsuit to prove it!

Mullens, for her part, says the suit is, according to LAO “”backlash over a restraining order obtained by Mullens earlier this year.”

Classy!

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Blogger Patterico has a long memory, especially for all things LA Dog Trainer Times. He’s been bugging Jamie Gold, the Reader’s Rep., about the Andres Martinez investigation.

Backstory: Martinez got grief about the Brian Glazer guest editor idea, especially after his relationship with PR Kelly Mullens came to light, and quit in a huff.

Turns out he didn’t do anything wrong, or so the non published report says.

The Readers’ Representative concluded her review of the issue involving a potential conflict of interest involving the former editorial pages editor. Based on the internal investigation, we have not found that anything was published in the Times–or that anything was withheld from publication – because of this relationship. The situation is a reminder that even the appearance of a conflict of interest can raise questions about the paper’s credibility, and all such situations should be disclosed and reviewed with one’s supervisor.

Since Martinez is part of this week’s Dust-Up fracas, Patterico wonders “how bad could things be?”

Earlier:
Andres Martinez Joins New America Foundation
Piranhas in the Fishbowl: Grazer-Gate Continues
Show Down on Spring Street: Andres Martinez Names News Room Meddlers at LA Times
Andres Martinez: Safety in Numbers at the LAT
Andres Martinez, Kelly Mullens, Brian Grazer: Three’s Company
Brian Grazer: Editor for a Day at LA Times

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The LA Times dutifully kept the heat on Telemundo temptress Mirthala Salinas and Mayor Villaraigosa, sort of. As Mickey Kaus points out, the LAT considers her the victim, with the last line in the piece:

“She is a community figure; people relate to her and respect her,” said Rochelle Newman-Carrasco, chief executive of Enlace, an L.A. communications marketing firm that specializes in Latino media. “Spanish-language news anchors are not just readers of the news. They are the voice of the community; they are advocates for the community and role models.

Passing quickly over the role model part, Luke Ford wonders why dating politicans is worthy of respect. Mayor Sams’ commentors agree, in their fashion.

Eric Longabardi, of ERSNews, has the latest on a female security officer hand-picked by Villaraigosa, who also assures AP’s Michael Blood that no tax-payer monies have paid for nookie, locations for nookie, transport for nookie, but security during nookie? That’s a different story.

Poor Andres Martinez. Remember him–the op-ed section guy who dated a woman in PR, whose client he tapped to guest-edit a section, and his semi-conflict of interest problem? The LA Times wasn’t very concerned about his career.

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Andres Martinez is joining the New America Foundation, as an Irvine Fellow. The former LA Times editorial page editor left in a huff after publisher David Hiller squashed a special edition edited by Brian Grazer. He’s joining former West editor Rick Wartzman and Gregory Rodriguez. Based in Santa Monica, Martinez’s mission is to :

focus his writing on how global interdependence affects the daily lives of Californians. He’ll be exploring the disconnect between attitudes toward globalization and its reality on the ground and asking whether politicians and the media sufficiently understand California’s place in the global economy.

Translation: op-eds about off-shoring by people whose jobs will never be off-shored.

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Andres Martinez, for such a pleasant guy, seemed to have made some LA Times enemies in his very short tenure there. All weekend, FBLA has been hearing various little snippets of rumors that Martinez was perceived as “too pro-business” or “not in touch with the rest of the paper”. LAObserved is ground zero for those who went on the record.

LATimes watcher, the late Cathy Seipp, wrote about Martinez in 2005 in the National Review Online. Then, Martinez was full of bright and shiny plans for a fresher Op-ed section with freelancers and outside experts writing editorials, readers contributing to online wikitorials, and other innovations planned under Michael Kinsley. Kinsley thinks it’s all ridiculous, but his literal-minded readers wonder why he’s posting about it.

First to crash and burn was that wikitorial.

But Martinez perked up the section, transferring some staff to news, hiring Matt Welch and Tim Cavanaugh from Reason, Rob Greene from the Weekly. Not everyone agrees that the changes were helpful.

One of those named by Martinez in his online tirade, Tim Rutten wraps himself in a few hundred words of sanctimony and loftily observes:

Like most of my colleagues at The Times, I’m fundamentally uninterested in other people’s personal lives

Which might explain why circulation has dropped so drastically in the last years. Remember when reporters were daring, risk-takers? Now they’re as prim as frontier schoolmarms, and as dull as civil servants.

continued…

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FBLA is in a somber mood, as so many things have vanished from the Los Angeles scene this week.

Cathy Seipp died at 49 but remains top hit on Technorati.

Andres Martinez leaves the LA Times in a fit of pique.

Nicole Ritchie suffers from low blood sugar.

The Hollywood Christmas parade is cancelled, forever.

Wolfgang Puck bans foie gras.

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The newly departed LA Times editor Andres Martinez needs his own blog, but until that time, he’s got LA Observed. He wrote an email about the lack of firm boundaries between news and editorial:

So Sue Horton, a senior news editor, takes it upon herself to call me up to suggest greater coordination between the news report and the opinion pages, as in the old days, and Julie Marquis feels empowered to email publisher David Hiller to lobby for his editorial page to pay closer attention to the newsroom’s worthy investigative series, some of which, we felt on the editorial board, already came with their own built-in editorials, so what’s the point?

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Editor Andres Martinez resigned, blogging:

David Hiller’s decision to kill the Brian Grazer section this Sunday makes my continued tenure as Los Angeles Times editorial page editor untenable. The person in this job needs to have an unimpeachable integrity, and Hiller’s decision amounts to a vote of no confidence in my continued leadership.

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Andres Martinez covers his butt in a blog post at the LA Times. He’s quick to point out that he wasn’t alone, no siree, in deciding that Brian Grazer was a swell choice as Guest Editor.

“Two senior editors, besides me, agreed that Brian was a good choice”

“we all read up on him and met him, and were excited about his involvement.”

“The decision to ask Brian to do this was not mine alone, but was taken by three editors here, and then approved by the publisher”

Nikki Finke reports that PR guru Allan Mayer orchestrated the entire thing. His firm 42West signed Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment as a client after the guest editor gig was announced. Finke also mentions an internal exam of Martinez’s section and the placement of other 42West clients in same–like Harvey Weinstein’s piece on producing credits, which most likely was written by someone other than Weinstein.

Other names considered were Steven Spielberg, Warren Buffett and Steven Jobs. Nothing makes a man as fascinating as a few billion. Did no one at the Times stop to reflect that perhaps there are other curious, informed people in Southern California besides successful businessmen?

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FBLA thinks this is almost too good to be true:
Andres Martinez, the Op-Ed Editor at the LA Times has been dating Kelly Mullens, who was an executive with Sitrick and Company. One of that firm’s clients is Brian Grazer, the guest editor of this weekend’s Current section.

Former Sitrick exec., Allan Mayer, taking one for the team, told Kevin Roderick that he suggested Grazer to Martinez. Mullens never worked directly with Grazer. From LA Observed:

Martinez emerged from a hurriedly called meeting this afternoon with Publisher David Hiller to inform the editorial staff of the news and to deny that his romantic relationship with Mullens played a part in the selection of Grazer as Current’s first guest editor.

FBLA believes him. Stupidity played a part in the selection of Grazer, not pillow-talk. Nikki Finke interviewed Martinez way back when and genial cluelessness seems to be the over-riding tone.

Earlier:
Brian Grazer: Editor for a Day at LA Times

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The LA Times is going for a guest editor for the Sunday Op-ed section, Current, and so picked the obvious candidate, Brian Grazer for the March 25th issue. From the press release:

We asked Brian Grazer to kick off the program because we wanted to tap into his creative vision. Brian’s an ideal choice because his interests are notoriously wide-ranging, and often unconventional. His career is powered by an endless curiosity, and we thought it would be fun to hitch a ride along the way.

Grazer has so few outlets for self-expression, and besides, he’s a rich white guy, and you know hard it is for them. Usually these sorts of “Something for a Day” go to the highest bidder at an elementary school fund-raiser.

And Nikki Finke has so much more to the story. Still not locally acclimated Nick Goldberg is behind Grazer who picked some not-very-unconventional choices for writers, who include Andre Leon Talley on “fashion and status” and rabid lawyer Marty Singer on the “power of allegations”. There’s also a Nobel Prize winner, because Hollywood types love to hob-nob with the big brains and more to the point, a facial interpretation expert on how to catch liars.

And, remember, Grazer can’t read.

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