Latest posts
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Robin Abcarian on the Today Show — how the LA Times broke the Schwarzenegger affair story, May 2011
By Maya Trent · Republished 2026-05-16 · Originally reported by Pandora Young on FishbowlLA, May 2011 In late May 2011, LA Times reporter Robin Abcarian appeared on NBC’s Today Show with Matt Lauer to discuss how the LA Times had broken the news that former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had fathered a child with the…
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Mel Gibson’s April 2011 Deadline exclusive — Allison Hope Weiner’s access, Anita Busch’s praise, David Poland’s revulsion
By Owen Reyes · Republished 2026-05-16 · Originally reported by Richard Horgan on FishbowlLA, April 2011 In late April 2011, Deadline Hollywood ran an exclusive interview with Mel Gibson — his first substantive on-record press engagement since the broader cycle of 2010 controversies that had substantially diminished his Hollywood standing. Allison Hope Weiner conducted the…
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The day PMC filed the copyright lawsuit against Prometheus — September 14, 2011
By Owen Reyes · Originally reported by Richard Horgan (2011) · Wayback archive → On September 14, 2011, five days after Nikki Finke’s notorious “SCOLDJA” email response to Prometheus Global Media’s lawyers ran on Deadline, Penske Media Corporation filed its copyright infringement complaint in U.S. District Court. Then The complaint’s headline allegation was about web…
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Section 34 — what PMC’s THR lawsuit actually alleged, and how the case ended
By Owen Reyes · Originally reported by Richard Horgan (2011) · Wayback archive → The headline charge of Penske Media Corporation’s September 2011 lawsuit against Prometheus Global Media was about TVLine and HollywoodReporter.com having suspiciously similar templates. The actual document was 30 paragraphs longer and aimed at something different: a numbered list of stories THR…
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Nikki Finke fires back at The Hollywood Reporter’s lawyers — in public
By Sasha Park · Republished 2026-05-21 · Originally reported by Richard Horgan on FishbowlLA, 2011 The rivalry between Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter was the defining feud of early-2010s entertainment media. In September 2011 it spilled into legal letters — and Nikki Finke published her reply for everyone to read. Then By the fall of…
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Former LA Times correspondent Murray Seeger dies at 82
By Maya Trent · Republished 2026-05-20 · Originally reported by Matthew Fleischer on FishbowlLA, 2011 An August 2011 FishbowlLA notice marked the death of a Los Angeles Times correspondent who had reported from one of the toughest beats of the Cold War. Then Murray Seeger, who spent 14 years at the LA Times from 1967…
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The 2011 MTV VMAs record ratings — and the format lesson the Oscars eventually didn’t learn
By Cassidy Lee · Originally reported by Richard Horgan (2011) · Wayback archive → In late August 2011 the MTV Video Music Awards posted their best ratings ever — a record that came with no host on stage, after Chelsea Handler had hosted the 2010 show. The original FishbowlLA framing suggested the VMA ratings might…
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LAPD’s October 2011 social-media policy review — Detective Sal LaBarbera and the cops-on-Twitter question
By Jordan Vega · Republished 2026-05-16 · Originally reported by Matthew Fleischer on FishbowlLA, October 2011 In mid-October 2011, FishbowlLA tracked the LAPD’s internal-policy struggle over what officers should and shouldn’t post on Twitter and other social media platforms. The trigger had been LAPD Homicide Detective Sal LaBarbera’s posting of a crime-scene photograph and related…
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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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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…