At this weekend’s Associated Press Television and Radio Association (APTRA) awards gala in Pasadena, the 2012 Stan Chambers Award for Extraordinary Achievement will be presented to retired TV reporter Hank Plante.

One of the first openly gay TV journalists in the country, Plante blazed a trail in more than a half-dozen markets. As political editor for San Francisco’s CBS affiliate Channel 5, where he retired in the spring of 2010, he made a penultimate splash in the fall of 2009 with his interview of Gavin Newsom. At the end of the conversation, the mayor uttered his “off the record” disgust.

Plante continues to contribute to examiner.com, the Desert Sun and calbuzz.com. In this great career highlights reel, he poses at one point as a Secret Service agent escorting a Nancy Reagan lookalike down Rodeo Drive:

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Here is a move that could offer tangible dividends for Al Gore and Joel Hyatt’s fledgling cable TV channel. Starting next month, former San Francisco mayor and current California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom will be hitting the Current TV airwaves as host of a weekly talk program, The Gavin Newsom Show.

That’s Newsom, above, recently appearing on another new Current TV show, The War Room with Jennifer Granholm. FishbowlLA likes the look and sound of this guy as a TV host for a by-the-Bay based outlet.

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Several years ago, UCLA professor of cinema and media studies Chon Noriega teamed up with colleague Francisco Javier Iribarren to analyze a slice of AM radio’s dominant format, conservative talk.

The pair focused on two weekday programs, one of which, “John and Ken,” has recently come under heavy fire for its on-air disclosure of a Hispanic public relations professional’s cell phone number. Final findings published this month  show that both the KFI-AM 640 program and “The Savage Nation” were guilty of four different kinds of hate speech, based on the analysis of separate 40-minute-block transcripts from late July 2008:

The study found that dehumanizing metaphors were used in 185 statements. Such metaphors evoked warfare, heroism, enemies, biblical characters, criminality, persecution and other representations. There were 77 instances of flawed argumentation… Divisive language was used in 79 instances… Thirty-three false statements were used to validate the hosts’ points and to promote public opinion.

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This clip of The Daily Show aired last night. It’s really just an excuse to post clips of our state’s new Lieutenant Governor-elect Gavin Newsom. Swoon.

Yes, this is the first one of two in as many months. Great big conferences in LA about a little thing called Twitter.

Tomorrow is the kick off for two days of twitterific tweetdom. Speakers include Biz Stone, Gavin Newsom, Tony Hawk, Tony Robbins, Jaime Kennedy and Tears for Fears’ Curt Smith.

Yes, Twitter can make an excuse for all these people to get together. It’s magic.

Here’s the link for all the info and how to attend. It’s at the Skirball Center. Which is like…far. Like way past Crescent Heights.

Previously on FBLA:

LOS ANGELES, CA–(Marketwire – June 25, 2009) – The Honorable Gavin Newsom, Mayor of the City and County of San Francisco, will speak to TOWN HALL Los Angeles on “Healthy San Francisco: A Local Model for Universal Coverage and National Reform,” and take questions from Angelenos on Thursday, July 9, 2009 at the Sofitel Los Angeles.

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This video features Eric Jaye of the Gavin Newsom gubernatorial campaign discussing Twitter and the Mayor’s dyslexia.

His Twitter makes our hearts flutter…

Via MediaShift

At yesterday evening’s Mediabistro party, your FBLA editors met the charming Ed Padgett, who writes the Los Angeles Times Pressmens 20 Year Club blog. Of course we took pictures. We love to take pictures.

Pandora Young, Ed Padgett and Tina Dupuy

Sadly we don’t have any pictures of the Gavin Newsom fundraiser being held right next door to our little soiree. Mediabistro partygoer George Ducker tried to charm his way in, but was told firmly at the door, “No press!”

So Gavin Newsom made it all official yesterday and formally announced his campaign for governor on Twitter. So we thought we’d ask LA Weekly journo and local political wonk Patrick Range McDonald for his thoughts on the upcoming race:

FBLA: Do you think Antonio Villaraigosa is actually going to put in a bid for governor?

PRM: Some people in political/media circles don’t think he will run for governor, but I think he’ll do what he did in 2005. He surprised a lot of people by running against Democratic incumbent mayor Jim Hahn, and he’ll probably do something similar again. If he believes he can win for whatever reason, then he’ll run. He is very driven and he’s never listened to naysayers or common wisdom when it comes to decisions he’s made about his life.

FBLA:Tony is not exactly known for burning the midnight oil – why would he possibly want MORE work?

PRM:I’m not exactly sure what you mean, but running for governor won’t be work for him, in my opinion. He’ll probably see it as a challenge that’s actually fun. If you saw Villaraigosa at all when he was campaigning for Hillary Clinton, you saw a man who literally got off on campaigning. At times, he was very hyper and excitable. He loves it. For him, it’s fun.

FBLA:Does he have a shot in hell?

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