Posts Tagged ‘Hunter Walker’

It was not exactly the snazziest 22 months of former Page Six scoop-meister Richard Johnson’s career. And with today’s announcement that News Corp’s iPad endeavor The Daily will officially fade to touch-screen black December 15, his tenure as west coast bureau chief is set to end with a whimper.

Adding insult to injury, Nikki Finke in her write-up this morning pours some more cold water on his biggest initial Flash splash:

In a memo to staff today, The Daily’s Jesse Angelo and Greg Clayman ridiculously boasted that despite “great original reporting, excellent design and custom interactivity… Unfortunately we have not been able to build a big enough audience fast enough to make our business model work.” (Great reporting? They posted a photo of me that was somebody else.*)

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Since launch in 2009, TheWrap has proven to be a fertile training ground for entertainment journalists. Among the earliest examples of reporters who worked under Sharon Waxman before moving on to other outlets are Amy Kaufman (now with the LA Times), Josef Adalian (Vulture), Hunter Walker (New York Observer), Josh Dickey (Variety), Jeff Sneider (Variety) and Dominic Patten (Deadline).

Still, with the recent departure of Jason Scoggins, Cindy Kaplan and Joshua L. Weinstein for Film Funds LLC, the following photo now stands as a rather graphic representation of the kind of turnover Waxman (and others in the space like The Hollywood Reporter and the LA Times) must sometimes deal with. Of the ten people flanking Waxman in this April 1, 2011 birthday celebration snapshot obtained by FishbowlLA, only one person remains employed with the start-up company today.

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If nothing else, former New York Post Page Six gatekeeper Richard Johnson (pictured) has a great sense of timing. A year into his new job as west coast editor of The Daily, he finally got around to checking out a Clippers game.

“I went to my first game Monday night,” he tells FishbowlLA via email. “They killed the Thunder, and Blake Griffin had a monster dunk that has already been re-played a hundred times. Being a lifelong Knicks fan, I have a hard time liking the Lakers. So I am a Clippers fan… I just wish it was easier to get to downtown.”

Today marks the official one-year anniversary of The Daily. The west coast bureau is made up of Johnson and one other reporter, with plans underway to add a third staffer shortly in the wake of Hunter Walker‘s departure last fall for the New York Observer.

We were curious how the A-lister culture of LA compares to that of Manhattan. Johnson says there are some key differences. “The flow of celebrity “gossip” is more tightly managed in Los Angeles,” he notes. “There are more controlled red carpets, more junkets where stars give Q&As, more conference calls. Stars often don’t even stop to talk to the press on the red carpet, whereas in New York you see them out at parties–it’s more open.”

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Looks like a mediabistro.com reunion of sorts will soon be in order at the offices of the New York Observer.

The paper’s editor-in-chief Elizabeth Spiers, who at one time was editor of our blogs, has hired subsequent FishbowlNY contributor Hunter Walker away from The Daily. Walker, currently based in LA and working closely with former New York Post gossip king Richard Johnson, will relocate to the east coast in October. Per the announcement:

“I’m excited to bring Hunter back to New York to cover politics for NYO,” Ms. Spiers said. “He’s a fantastically versatile reporter and I know he’ll do great things.”

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Former FishbowlNY contributor Hunter Walker was all over Santa Monica this morning, on the hunt for The Daily scoops about the real-life version of Jack Nicholson‘s character in 2006 Best Picture winner The Departed. News of James “Whitey” Bulger‘s shocking Wednesday arrest after years on the lam with a girlfriend was first reported by the LA Times.

Walker tweeted that several major media outlets (NPR, CBS News, etc.) wrongly reported the westside apartment alias listed for Bulger. Tagged in the confusion was Charlie Rosenzweig, the bad guy’s eighty-ish property owner neighbor, as well as Rosenzweig’s daughter-in-law, whose last name is Fein.

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Where’s the first big scoop? That’s our question after keeping an eye on the initial efforts of former Page Six grand poobah Richard Johnson for Rupert Murdoch‘s The Daily.

With Johnson sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on the west coast with the likes of TMZ and Radar Online, it’s going to take more than tired rehashes of the Kim Kardashian-Prince stage dance story and bad Spider-Man Broadway reviews to make a mark. Another “Flash” item today about Adam Sandler snubbing print reporters at the red carpet premiere of Just Go with It is a real reach (it’s not unusual for A-listers to do only TV promo-ing), and like the other two tidbits, is anchored in New York.

Earlier this week, Johnson had a bit more luck when he looked at how estate lawyers are getting rich over bogus Michael Jackson lawsuits and shared the directorial aspirations of GEICO caveman commercial actor Ben Weber. Weber wants to make Heirloom, a personally relevant drama about Huntington’s disease

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