Gene Maddaus - FishbowlLA

Getting to Know Some of This Year’s SoCal Journalism Award Finalists

Richard Horgan — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:15:18 +0000

Congrats to all finalists (so far) for the LA Press Club’s 55th annual SoCal Journalism Awards, to be presented at the Biltmore Hotel Sunday June 23. In perusing the honor rolls, here are some of the categories that most intrigued us:

Journalist of the Year – Print (Over 50,000 Circulation):

The name we were not completely familiar with – alongside those of Gustavo Arellano (OC Weekly), Matthew Belloni (THR), Gene Maddaus (LA Weekly) and Matthew Garrahan (Financial Times) – is U-T San Diego’s Fred Dickey (no relation to TMZ managing editor Josh). Even if this Dickey wins, he will still have a tough road to hoe in that department at home. According to his website bio, microbiologist wife Kathleen has lent her name to nine U.S. patents.

Journalist of the Year – Online

These are dark days for Patch, with a conference call last Friday as reported by Romenesko revealing more rough tactical agenda items. But here in SoCal, the sun is shining on Rancho Santa Margarita local editor Martin Henderson. He is nominated in this category together with Dennis Romero (LA Weekly), Dylan Howard (Celebuzz), Chris Hedges (Truthdig) and Catherine Green (Neon Tommy). This guy has paid his dues, winning his first journalism award in high school and starting at the LA Times all the way back in1990.

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LA Weekly Publishes List of Concealed-Weapons Permit Holders

Richard Horgan — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 09:50:05 +0000

The sidebar to Gene Maddaus’ explosive LA Weekly ~~cover~~ story about the concealed-weapons permits granted by the office of LA County Sheriff Lee Baca (to mostly judges and reserve officers) is also fully loaded.

Via a public information request last year, the enterprising reporter obtained a full list of 341 people who, in May of 2012, were in possession of such permits from the LASD. Maddaus tells FishbowlLA there are several other city agencies besides the Sheriff’s office that issue concealed-weapons permits, and that probably at any given time a few hundred more people in LA County have these privileges.

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Despite Colossal Dodgers Blunder, ESPN Opts for No Immediate Apology

Richard Horgan — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 15:15:14 +0000

LA Weekly reporter Gene Maddaus starts off his crackerjack expose of con man Dodgers bidder Josh Macciello with a dozen or so paragraphs about the duped January 2012 reporting efforts of ESPN journalists Steve Mason, John Ireland and Ramona Shelburne. To make a long story short, all three stumped for a guy eight zeroes short of any real shot at the MLB team.

Surprisingly, at least to FishbowlLA, there was no addressing of this issue at the top of this afternoon’s “Mason & Ireland” broadcast on 710 ESPN Radio. Separately, our efforts to get comment from Bristol, CT HQ generated an email response that “the network and hosts will be making no statement about this matter.”

As Kevin Roderick noted in a blog post late last night, several other LA journalists got the Macciello story wrong. But it all started with the January introduction and recall on ESPN of this individual as a vetted entity.

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Is Bill Burke Just As Broke As Frank McCourt?

Marcus Vanderberg — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 09:53:47 +0000

Dodger fans were mildly excited last week when the Los Angeles Times reported owner Frank McCourt received a $1.2 billion offer for his baseball organization from L.A. Marathon founder Bill Burke by way of China.

Gene Maddaus of the LA Weekly did some investigating and discovered that Burke, while rich, doesn’t exactly have baseball ownership money:

“Burke is chair of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, and as such is required to file his own Form 700 (posted below). According to that document, Burke has, at most, $4.3 million.

OK, so he’s not poor. It seems he and his wife, Supervisor Yvonne Burke, still have a six-figure income, and have bought a nice place in Cabo San Lucas. Good for them. But to put it in perspective: If they sold everything they owned, they wouldn’t be able to cover James Loney‘s salary for one year.”

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Notoriously Lazy Mayor Calls for 3-Day Work Week

Tina Dupuy — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 08:30:19 +0000

Here’s all you need to know about the City’s budget crisis:

We’re broke. The 15 members of the City Council each make more than US Senators $178,789 plus ample perks. And we still don’t tax weed.

Our City is dysfunctional on a successful day and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa bucking all our snickering about how uninterested he is in working has suggested a three day work week for non-public safety employees to save money.

Well according to Gene Maddaus at LA Weekly, the mayor doesn’t have the authority to furlough workers. So…maybe he’ll just lead by example and all city workers can go campaign for their buddies instead of focusing on their current position. The mayor suggests you work less. He’s a great leader for that.

Previously on FBLA:

Villaraigosa Beat Out OJ for Worst Angeleno of All Time

Rush Limbaugh Insulted Our Mayor–We Think

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