:: LNR Journalism ::

Need a good omen? The Ford Foundation reaches out to broaden minority coverage

Columbia Journalism Review :: The Ford Foundation’s million-dollar grant to the Los Angeles Times is a good omen. It’s a two-year deal, $1.04 million to be exact, and renewable, with no strings attached beyond the foundation’s larger goal of using journalism to address inequality and injustice. The Times will use the money to hire five beat reporters to cover prisons, immigrant communities, the Mexican borderlands, and Brazil.

A report by The Editors, www.cjr.org

Los Angeles Times receives $1-million grant from Ford Foundation

LA Times :: The Los Angeles Times will use a $1-million grant from the Ford Foundation to expand its coverage of key beats, including immigration and ethnic communities in Southern California, the southwest U.S. border and the emerging economic powerhouse of Brazil.

Continue to read James Rainey, www.latimes.com

Billionaire Eli Broad signals interest in buying L.A. Times

Los Angeles Times :: Five years after his partnership lost a bid to buy Tribune Co.and the Los Angeles Times, billionaire businessman Eli Broad said he remains interested in joining with others to restore local ownership to The Times.

Continue to read Mike Boehm | James Rainey, www.latimes.com

Involuntary layoffs: Los Angeles Times posts reporter opening

LA Observed :: The involuntary layoffs in the Los Angeles Times newsroom that began recently are rolling through the ranks today, falling hardest on the features floor downstairs from the main newsroom. As many as 20 people may be out, sources there say. Included is half of the newsroom's African American copy editors. "I'm saddened that with my departure the number of African American copy editors here goes down to one," the departing staffer says in a farewell email. Sounds like at least one senior editor on the Calendar side will be leaving.

Continue to read Kevin Roderick, www.laobserved.com

What kind of challenges does the L.A. Times face in creating a 'membership program'?

Niemanlab :: From a marketing standpoint, the word “paywall” is pretty terrible. Right away, it tells you there’s a barrier between you and what you want, and the only way to negotiate it is to pay. So it’s not surprising that media companies, used to working with words, are using alternatives. The New York Times uses “digital subscription”, and Gannett’s also talking “subscription model”. And the Los Angeles Times is billing its new approach a “membership program.”

Continue to read Justin Ellis, www.niemanlab.org

Forced vacation use ordered at L.A. Times

LA Observer :: More cost cutting: the same week that parent Tribune asked the bankruptcy judge to tapprove bonuses for 640 managers, Los Angeles Times employees received an email saying they will not accrue vacation for the rest of 2011. They also have to use up some of their banked vacation days, like it or not. LA Observer published the memo.

Continue to read Kevin Roderick, www.laobserved.com

Tribune, L.A. Times and $42.5m incentives for 640 managers - what's left behind

LAObserved :: After the Tribune Co. asked the bankruptcy judge Wednesday to OK $42.5 million in incentive bonuses for 640 managers, L.A. Times Beirut correspondent Borzou Daragahi tweeted that the money "could be used 2 hire 640 journos." The perception of many in the newsroom is that even mild dissent such as that can lead to a spot on the layoff list in today's Tribune/LAT, but Daragahi is beyond all that. He's jumping Sept. 3 to a new gig at the Financial Times.

Continue to read Kevin Roderick, www.laobserved.com

Los Angeles Times, Al-Jazeera English, The Guardian - what works on Tumblr?

Poynter :: Tumblr’s “media evangelist” Mark Coatney recently announced the arrival of big names in the industry that have launched their own tumblelogs, including The Los Angeles Times, Al-Jazeera English and The Guardian. In the past year, more than 160 media organizations, as well as individual journalists, have started using Tumblr.

Jojo Malig asks: "So why has the media become so enamored with the micro-blogging platform?"

Continue to read Jojo Malig, www.poynter.org

The tragic decline of the Los Angeles Times

The front page of Monday’s New York Times business page pays a backhanded compliment to its West Coast rival with the story “Despite Distinctions, Los Angeles Times Loses Standing at Home.” Despite its award-winning writing, thirteen (!) foreign bureaus, and consistently solid reporting “despite all the bloodletting” in the newsroom, the story says, the Times’s readers just aren’t happy.

'We need a paper that’s more, and this is less,' said Ms. Frere, 66. 'I think it’s just not a world-class paper, no matter how you cut it. It used to be a world-class paper.'

A collection of comments and anecdotes - www.cjr.org - NYT On The LAT’s Community Relations Problem