According to an internal memo from new publisher Eddy Hartenstein, the Los Angeles Times Business section beginning March 2nd will be “enhanced by bringing back the ‘Company Town’ feature, which will serve as the anchor for our ‘business of entertainment’ coverage”.
And it’s now official that Calendar’s “deadlines to be pushed deep into the evening (aka ‘second-daily’), allowing us to make our primary space for entertainment coverage more news-driven. This will enrich this current ‘must read’ section even further, enabling us to add features such as overnight reviews.” But who’s gonna staff both showbiz sections? Also announced were 300 more layoffs coming, 70 of them newsroom positions. (See my previous, Late Night Deadlines For LAT’s Calendar?)
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.


Who’s gonna staff these showbiz sections? Why, YOU are silly!
They’re going to do what everyone else is doing – going on the net and regurgitating other people’s work.
Just don’t let Tina Daunt staff this thing. I read Tina’s column today and couldn’t believe how bad it was. My new nickname for her is TINA FLAUNT. Her column today was like an advertisement rather than a column. In her column today she was like a third grader just gushing over the Jerry Brown party that is taking place on Tuesday night and also gushing over all of the people scheduled to attend. What a hacked piece of crap her column was today ! It was so sugar sweetly badly written that her column today gave me a tooth ache. Grrrr–TINA FLAUNT- YUCK
The newspaper is on life support. How many people on your block subscribe? They got rid of too many great journalists last year, and this next round will take out even more. Readers and advertisers know it. Overnight reviews, bringing back catchy slogans or the stupid columnist sketches that rip off the Wall Street Journal’s look won’t change anything. The owner is a selfish jerk, the management stinks and the paper is in free fall.
Throwing the City section to the winds so that entertainment types can gush or cry over themselves in two different sections? I guess the Times knows its readers. In five years it will be Calendar, two sections of news in espanol, maybe a reprint from Gannett on national/world news and Laker/Dodger/USC updates.