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Los Angeles Times is announcing that Scott Sandell, the Calendar morning editor, will become deputy online arts & entertainment editor reporting to Lisa Fung. As if anyone bothers to read that newspaper in print or online.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Nikke – I love your site but I also have a few friends who work at that “sinking ship”. Your comment was rather inconsiderate.
At least it makes good fireplace fodder.
Um, I still read the times in print. Get over yourself, b-word. Who the hell do you think you are? You’re evil and I’ll bet everybody hates you. You’re good at getting industry info to your website, but you seem like a terrible person. Why do you have to put down the people at the LA Times? Are they all evil because they’re your competition, so that makes you good and them bad? Just remember Karma…your day will come when somebody’s dissing you on your way down, as you do to others. And with technology changing so rapidly these days, your day will probably come much sooner than you think.
Who still reads? Well, the print circulation is around 700,000 daily, something like 1.2 million on Sundays. Online readership brings it to around 2 million daily. Call me old school, but I like the feel of newspaper in my hands. I’m 34 and read several web sites, including Nikki, every day. But I also gotta have my LAT.
I’ve blogged on this quite a bit — the LAT has declined from a peak in 1988 of around 1.2 million daily to around 700K now. And that is with quite a bit of growth in the five-county Metro area even restricting to Whites only. [Mexicans prefer Spanish-language newspapers if they read them which mostly they don't, preferring radio/TV as in Mexico.]
The LAT has NOT covered news consistently, or simply re-done press release. Their report on Green Jobs contrasts with say, the SFGate online report, the latter informing readers that Green Jobs account for less than 1% of all California jobs and require massive federal subsidies. Points you did not get in the LAT article.
The LAT has done a bad job covering movies and TV. Most of their content is reprinted press releases, and PC platitudes. You see almost nothing about piracy, decline in DVD sales, Redbox, Apple’s foray into streaming video, various attempts to create “smartbooks” for newspapers, magazines, and tv/movies. Nothing about Warners providing VOD movies in Europe the same day as DVD releases.
Heck the WSJ or Financial Times, based in NYC and London respectively, consistently beat the LAT coverage of Hollywood and if you want a paper I’d recommend either. Both excellent in covering the business side.
She’s got a good point. The Times has been going downhill for awhile. The content has been in decline since they changed the Sunday Calendar from a book layout to a normal section. Plus, their content is pretty biased and doesn’t highlight good analysis. All the makings for a sinking ship.
Nikki has done well for herself. Low overhead with good content, even if their is a dash of opinion on her website. Ask yourself this, how many times have you gotten news first from Nikki vs. the LA Times?
I’ve gotten 50 news stories from L.A. Times for every one from Nikki. See, I’m not just into entertainment. There’s an interesting world out there aside from the Industry. You ought to look into it. I enjoy the hell out of Deadline Hollywood, it’s the best at what it does…and you mean “there” not “their.”
Deadline Hollywood is great at what it strives for. And the L.A. Times is a standout in its field.
Let me put it in show biz terms so you can understand. A couple years ago DAVID GEFFEN tried hard as hell to buy the LA Times. Dig?
What i dig is that the LAT today reads as if it was put together by high-schoolers, whereas there’s no substitute for Nikki. Look at the comment counts for their stories. 75% are zero.
Keep on truckin’, dude.
I bet if you read more newspapers you wouldn’t confuse their with there. My point is new media usually doesn’t cover a story in depth like a newspaper. The decline of print journalism is very much linked to lowered test scores and a general increase in stupidity in this country, and, particularly, this town. Perhaps if more people read newspapers they’d have known that a housing bust was looming. I read 2 in-depth stories – in L.A. Times and the Frisco Chronicle – in summer 2005 predicting this, and sold my $900,000 house that today is worth about 500 grand. If I stuck to new media exclusively I wouldn’t have sold.
That said, Deadline Hollywood does have a point. L.A. Times coverage of the Industry is lame. Even pathetic.
I’m sure you would be making fun of someone who still thought making buggy whips was a good business plan. While I have no comment on the Times Online, the print version is somewhat laughable considering even online sites are under pressure to get the news out faster than ever.
Damn, I thought this headline was referring to Avatar.
poor LA Times. If I considered it a real newspaper, I would be upset. But in my 16 years of living here in LA, I turn to NY Times or WSJ for real news.
Maybe they can get a federal bailout or part of the TARP funds due to their worship of Obama.
This headline should’ve been saved for a story about NBC.
To err is human to forgive is devine,
Give the times a break at least there trying
I don’t know who Scott Sandell or Lisa Fung are because I had to cancel my LA Times subscription about four years ago…and I probably should have cancelled it long before. It just isn’t legitimate journalism anymore. With its slashed staff and budget it barely has a prayer. Questionable editorial choices that favor fluff over reportage are just hastening the paper’s demise. Nikki is right on. She makes no judgment of Sandell or Fung. Saying that the emperor has no clothes is not inconsiderate. It’s a public service.
The LA Times must acknowledge its deficiencies and strive to fix them if it has any hope of staying in business. Until then, I’ll import my journalism from New York.
LA Times is a fascist rag owned by the Tribune Group.
I haven’t read it since they canned Robert Scheer, a columnist with more smarts and experience than the entire remaining staff and management at the paper.
Oh “Thomas” you little fool. Don’t you know that everyone can see your LA Times IP address on your comment?
Ummm, if you don’t like Nikki, then why do you read her. I think she is the most entertaining and informative blogger on the industry and the biz on the net.
^
Oh, please. Does anyone not think the Times entertainment coverage sucks? I can’t remember the last time I even heard anyone mention something they read in that paper.
In the new year, I want all variations of “ummm” banned from postings on the Internet. There can’t be that many tweener girls trolling comments at all hours of the day…
As an advertiser, where would you throw money? A static print version of news and information or a dynamic website that is continually updated, requiring multiple visits during a news cycle? (Which is a nice way of saying stories are broken before all the facts are known, but whatever.)
If the LA Times is so irrelevant, then why bother posting a story about it here?
The LA Times is just like LA…shallow and without any real substance.
What I don’t get are bloggers and other media forms talking about the death of newspapers when the readership of newspapers still absolutely drawfs that of sites like this and others and it’s not close.
You should wish for that kind of readership “death.”
What’s a newspaper?
um…I read it online everyday. That goes for the Sun Times in Chicago too. I happen to know that many a blogger scroll the news sites for their story ideas and then paraphrase.
We need our reporters- we cannot subsist alone on tmz news. The thought is revolting.
That’s not a true statement to make and you are wrongo there…
If print was smart -they’d find a way to harnass the potential and save their industry.
It seems the only news we will pay for is financial news and that makes me sad.