Latest posts
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Joseph Farrell, National Research Group founder, dies — December 2011 obit and the Hollywood test-screening legacy
By Cassidy Lee · Republished 2026-05-16 · Originally reported by Richard Horgan on FishbowlLA, December 2011 In early December 2011, Joseph Farrell — the founder of National Research Group (NRG) and the Hollywood marketing-research pioneer who substantially shaped modern test-screening practice — died from natural causes. His death was covered in the LA Times by…
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Nikki Finke partners with Paramount on a Deadline Hollywood game
By Sasha Park · Republished 2026-05-20 · Originally reported by Richard Horgan on FishbowlLA, 2011 In July 2011 FishbowlLA reported one of the more unexpected line extensions in entertainment-news history: Nikki Finke’s Deadline.com was getting a Facebook game. Then Deadline.com, in partnership with Paramount Digital Entertainment and Liquid Entertainment, announced a Facebook game — one…
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Ed Chernoff’s January 2011 profile — life as Dr. Conrad Murray’s defense lawyer in the Michael Jackson trial media bubble
By Jordan Vega · Republished 2026-05-16 · Originally reported by Richard Horgan on FishbowlLA, January 2011 In late January 2011, TexasLawyer.com staff reporter Miriam Rozen published a profile of Ed Chernoff — the Houston-based defense lawyer hired within 48 hours of Michael Jackson’s June 2009 death to represent Dr. Conrad Murray. The piece captured Chernoff’s…
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Adam Klugman’s January 2011 Treason workshop — and the Klugman family arc across LA’s broadcasting-and-theater history
By Sasha Park · Republished 2026-05-16 · Originally reported by Richard Horgan on FishbowlLA, January 2011 In late January 2011, Portland-based media strategist and progressive talk-radio host Adam Klugman — son of the late LA-based actor Jack Klugman — staged a workshop reading of his new play Treason at Portland’s Artists Repertory Theater. The original…
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Keith Olbermann’s first Current TV interview — and the $10M-with-equity deal
By Sasha Park · Originally reported by Matthew Fleischer (2011) · Wayback archive → In June 2011 Marisa Guthrie landed Keith Olbermann’s first sit-down interview about his MSNBC exit and his move to Current TV. The Hollywood Reporter cover story disclosed the contract terms: $10 million a year, plus equity in the network that could…
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Jerry Bruckheimer’s 2011 THR Facebook takeover — when guest-editing a Facebook page was a thing
By Owen Reyes · Originally reported by Richard Horgan (2011) · Wayback archive → In mid-May 2011 The Hollywood Reporter handed its Facebook fan page over to Jerry Bruckheimer for a day — timed to coincide with the release of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. The publication’s first guest editor was the man…
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Finke vs THR over a Summit cover — what the 2011 access trade looked like
By Owen Reyes · Originally reported by Richard Horgan (2011) · Wayback archive → In March 2011, Nikki Finke published a Deadline.com item alleging that The Hollywood Reporter had pulled material from an Alex Ben Block business story about Summit Entertainment in exchange for a Jodie Foster interview tied to The Beaver. The accusation was…
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When Deadline launched a Facebook game with Paramount — a 2011 cross-promo curio
By Owen Reyes · Originally reported by Richard Horgan (2011) · Wayback archive → In July 2011 Deadline.com partnered with Paramount Digital Entertainment and Liquid Entertainment to launch a Facebook game letting players experience the equivalent of running a Hollywood studio. Then The pitch was a Facebook-platform game built around the studio-mogul fantasy genre —…
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Hailee Steinfeld at 14 — the True Grit launch and a career that has very much continued
By Cassidy Lee · Originally reported by Richard Horgan (2010) · Wayback archive → In December 2010, fourteen-year-old Hailee Steinfeld — Thousand Oaks resident, newcomer star of the Coen brothers’ True Grit — was the awards-season story everyone in LA media was writing about. The FishbowlLA framing placed her in a small lineage: Keisha Castle-Hughes…
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The kilt-wearing Scotsman who crashed awards season with a camcorder
By Cassidy Lee · Republished 2026-05-20 · Originally reported by Richard Horgan on FishbowlLA, 2010 One of FishbowlLA’s reliable pleasures was the small story about an outsider talking his way inside. In late 2010 that outsider was Douglas McFarlane, a London-based Scotsman with a day job in bank security and a tongue-in-cheek DVD to sell.…