Latest posts
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Erin Aubry Kaplan’s January 2013 KCET column — a Leimert Park reader, an off-line phone call, and Black-LA-Times coverage
By Maya Trent · Republished 2026-05-16 · Originally reported by Richard Horgan on FishbowlLA, January 2013 In early January 2013, Erin Aubry Kaplan’s first KCET blog post of the new year — published in KCET’s SoCal Focus commentary section — drew an unusual reader response: a 74-year-old Leimert Park grandmother named Ann did not Google…
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August 2012: the LA Times promotes Joy Press to Books and Culture editor
By Maya Trent · Republished 2026-05-16 · Originally reported by Richard Horgan on FishbowlLA, August 2012 In early August 2012, FishbowlLA covered the LA Times’s promotion of Joy Press to Books and Culture editor, succeeding Jon Thurber. The original framing noted the LA-journalism-couple angle: Press and her husband Simon Reynolds were “still going strong” as…
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LA Weekly’s stages of grief over Jonathan Gold’s exit — Amy Scattergood and the February 2012 staff mood
By Maya Trent · Republished 2026-05-16 · Originally reported by Matthew Fleischer on FishbowlLA, February 2012 In late February 2012, the impending departure of Jonathan Gold from LA Weekly back to the LA Times started to substantially affect the alt-weekly’s staff mood. Amy Scattergood, the editor of LA Weekly’s Squid Ink food blog, posted her…
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Rebecca Schoenkopf vs. Dennis Romero — March 2012 Twitter spat between Wonkette and LA Weekly
By Cassidy Lee · Republished 2026-05-16 · Originally reported by Pandora Young on FishbowlLA, March 2012 In late March 2012, Wonkette’s editor and new owner Rebecca Schoenkopf got into a high-profile Twitter feud with LA Weekly staff reporter Dennis Romero. The proximate trigger was a grammatical-error tweet that escalated into an extended public exchange. Then…
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Goldman Sachs sells its Village Voice Media stake — Nicholas Kristof, Backpage, and the April 2012 divestment
By Maya Trent · Republished 2026-05-16 · Originally reported by Pandora Young on FishbowlLA, April 2012 In early April 2012, Goldman Sachs sold its 16% stake in Village Voice Media — the parent of LA Weekly, OC Weekly, and the broader VMG newspaper portfolio, plus the substantially more controversial Backpage classified-ads site. The divestment came…
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Don Winslow’s Metrolink commute that produced Bobby Z — OC Weekly’s Nick Schou and the Savages release window
By Cassidy Lee · Republished 2026-05-16 · Originally reported by Richard Horgan on FishbowlLA, July 2012 In mid-July 2012, OC Weekly’s Nick Schou published a cover-story interview with Don Winslow timed to the release of Oliver Stone’s Savages — the film adaptation of Winslow’s Laguna Beach drug-dealing-circle novel. The Schou piece included Winslow’s account of…
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Karina Longworth’s December 2012 LA Weekly exit — and the long arc to You Must Remember This
By Maya Trent · Republished 2026-05-16 · Originally reported by Richard Horgan on FishbowlLA, December 2012 In mid-December 2012, LA Weekly film critic Karina Longworth announced she was leaving the staff to go freelance. Her stated reason was that a book project had come along — a Cahiers du Cinema commission on Meryl Streep —…
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Jonathan Gold’s ’99 Essential Restaurants’ for 2011 — what makes an LA restaurant essential
By Cassidy Lee · Republished 2026-05-16 · Originally reported by Marcus Vanderberg on FishbowlLA, November 2011 In early November 2011, FishbowlLA covered the release of Jonathan Gold’s “99 Essential Restaurants” list for 2011 — the LA Weekly’s annual flagship dining guide from the Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic. The question Gold posed that year was deceptively…
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Jonathan Gold’s April 2011 Olive Garden review — how the April Fools joke produced an actual LA Weekly piece
By Cassidy Lee · Republished 2026-05-16 · Originally reported by Pandora Young on FishbowlLA, April 2011 In early April 2011, Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold — then writing for the LA Weekly — found himself eating at the Arcadia Olive Garden after what had started as an April Fools joke on his photographer Anne…
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Gustavo Arellano takes the OC Weekly editor-in-chief job — November 2011
By Maya Trent · Republished 2026-05-16 · Originally reported by Matthew Fleischer on FishbowlLA, November 2011 In late November 2011, Gustavo Arellano — the Ask A Mexican columnist who had been OC Weekly’s managing editor for the previous 18 months — was named the paper’s editor-in-chief. He took over from Ted Kissell, who had announced…