This page exists for a simple reason: when journalists or curious readers land on fishbowlla.com via an old reference, they should find a clear, respectful account of who built the original site and what happened to it. The names below built FishbowlLA. We are not them, and we don’t claim to be — but the brand is theirs to be associated with, not ours.
The editors
Michael Sonnenschein — Launched FishbowlLA in January 2005 as Mediabistro’s Los Angeles outpost.
Kate Coe — Co-editor from August 2006. Recruited by Mediabistro editorial director Dorian Benkoil on the recommendation of Cathy Seipp. Coe’s tenure is widely credited with making FishbowlLA an LA media-community essential. Her “In the Trades” column became a daily read.
Mayrav Saar — Co-editor alongside Coe in the late-2000s era. Ran the “LAT in 90” beat covering the Los Angeles Times.
Claude Brodesser-Akner — FishbowlLA contributor and editor during the late-2000s through early-2010s. Now writes at Variety and elsewhere.
Tina Dupuy — Editor and commentator. Her syndicated columns on Hearst regional papers still carry a fishbowlla.com bio line years after the original site went dark.
Matthew Fleischer, Pandora Young, Marcus Vanderberg — Contributors during the site’s middle and later years. The Adweek hiatus notice in 2013 specifically thanked them by name.
Richard Horgan — Final FishbowlLA editor before the 2013 hiatus. Moved to FishbowlNY to cover Hollywood and broader media stories. Still writes at Adweek.
What happened
Mediabistro put FishbowlLA on indefinite hiatus on June 18, 2013, folding the archive into FishbowlNY. The shutdown coverage from the time:
- LA Observed — “Fishbowl LA going dark after all these years” (Kevin Roderick, June 18, 2013)
- Adweek — “FishbowlLA Going on Hiatus” (Chris Ariens, June 18, 2013)
- Deadline — “Mediabistro’s FishbowlLA No More”
- LA Weekly — “FishbowlLA Closes”
The archive itself is preserved at Adweek under the Fishbowl category. The original Mediabistro URL pattern (mediabistro.com/fishbowlla/<slug>_b<id>) 301-redirects into adweek.com/performance-marketing/<slug>.
The corporate trail
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Jan 2005 | Mediabistro launches FishbowlLA at mediabistro.com/fishbowlla |
| Jun 2013 | FishbowlLA goes on indefinite hiatus; archive folded into FishbowlNY |
| May 2014 | Prometheus Global Media (Adweek’s parent) acquires Mediabistro |
| Jul 2016 | Beringer Capital acquires Adweek and the Mediabistro blog network |
| 2026 | fishbowlla.com domain reactivated under independent ownership |
If you’re one of the original editors or contributors and want a correction, addition, or removal of anything on this page, email us and we’ll handle it the same day.