Nanette Gonzales

Brand and Zavala at KCET's new HQ

Rabid fans of former KPCC radio host Madeleine Brand, who abruptly left the station last month shortly after a co-host was brought on to her show, can take a break from drafting angry letters to station management and watch Brand's debut on KCET's 'SoCal Connected' tonight.

Brand will be joining longtime host Val Zavala as a special contributor when the fifth season of the public affairs show premieres at 7pm. And that's not the only change.

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@RobertNBCLA

Don't smoke 'em if you got 'em.

Sometimes you have to wonder how some folks on local television news can even claim to be journalists. Not to diss some of the great ones out there who work the streets faithfully, but we once witnessed an anchor stumble as she was unable to identify City Hall during a live shot. Really.

Then along comes NBC Los Angeles's Robert Kovacik, a stand up reporter who proved that not only do on-air journos have to get the facts like the rest of the news world, but they have to do it with aplomb and coolness rare to the rest of us professional ass-sitters:

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@Team_Shep / Twitter

Fox's Shepard Smith.

Fox News broadcast a suspect's suicide live today, setting of a firestorm of criticism, as well as viral views of the video (warning: the disturbing, graphic clip is posted after the jump).

The motorist was being chased by police in the Phoenix area when he got out of a vehicle, ran away, stopped, put a gun to his head, and pulled the trigger as Fox anchor Shepard Smith repeated to the helicopter-based camera crew, "Get off, get off, get off, get off, get off ... "

Live television coverage of shootings is nothing foreign to Los Angeles TV viewers. In fact, by our count, it has happened close to three times this year alone (examples after the jump).

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When word hit the street back in June that GOOD Magazine would be transforming its website into a "platform" -- oh, and it was firing the majority of its editorial staff -- readers and media-watchers were shocked, and CEO Ben Goldhirsh wasn't talking.

That was then.

"I didn't feel comfortable speaking about the direction without having the product alongside," Goldhirsh explains. That direction, Goldhirsh is now pleased to reveal, was away from a one-sided relationship (writers talking at readers), and toward a two-way conversation (anyone can participate). The platform finally launched last week, albeit with new writers, editors and "curators."

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Sakrison.com

The Wilshire Boulevard home to KNX and the Securities and Exchange Commission

Updated at bottom. Originally posted at 10:30 a.m. Confused commuters were listening to San Francisco Bay Area traffic and weather this morning because of a bomb scare at the headquarters of KNX 1070 Newsradio. The station has been broadcasting the stream of its sister station, San Francsico's KCBS, since its Wilshire Boulevard offices were evacuated a little after 8:30 a.m.

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The L.A. Weekly has been sold.

Since October 2005, this newspaper has been owned by Phoenix-based Village Voice Media. Tonight, it was announced that the Weekly, along with the dozen other alternative newsweeklies in the chain, has been sold to a new, Denver-based entity in a management buyout: Voice Media Group.

The new company represents a split: The old company's Phoenix-based executives, Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, retain ownership of the website Backpage.com. But Lacey and Larkin have confirmed the buyout of the 13 alternative newsweeklies that comprised Village Voice Media's most visible face.

The new entity, Denver-based Voice Media Group -- which will be run by Christine Brennan, Scott Tobias and Jeff Mars -- has also taken ownership of the company's national advertising division, now to be called VMG National.

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@gootecks via Twitter

Congratulations, corporate Hollywood! You finally got the hang of 21st-century guerilla marketing.

Over the past few days, foot soldiers for CBS Films have apparently been hanging up ads for its latest film Seven Psychopaths all over L.A., in the form of lost-dog flyers -- making them so inherently awesome that we either don't think they're ads or don't really care, then laying low while the Twittersphere does the legwork.

And some in-character Woody Harrelson can't hurt:

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Xposed / Facebook

There is a thing called freedom of speech.

But do you want a stripper peering down at you longingly, right in your own neighborhood? OK, don't answer that guys. If you're a mother, would you want said exotic dancer giving your 11-year-old boy a come-hither look from a billboard right near the local 7-Eleven?

We thought not! This is what counts for big-time political intrigue in L.A., people. Strip-club billboards:

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Big Blue Bus

Organizers of AIDS Walk Los Angeles took aim today at the Santa Monica Big Blue Bus system, saying the organization is banning its ads as part of a "discriminatory policy."

Craig Miller, founder of AIDS Walk and a Santa Monica resident, said in a statement:

All these years later, to be dealing with this discrimination again, just shows that whoever changed this policy has no concept of history, and no concept of the important role that organizations like AIDS Project Los Angeles play in society. And they really don't know the residents of our city, because no Santa Monican I know would ever approve of this short-sighted ban on valuable public service messages.

The problem is, that's not entirely true:

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pathwaystofamilywellness.org

Return of the Grumet lactation machine.

We love breastfeeding. We especially loved breastfeeding when we were small, bald and toothless. It's a beautiful thing, and no woman should ever be told when or where she can or can't breastfeed. Because when baby hunger strikes, Mother Nature abides, mmk?

But what we can't figure out is why Jamie Lynn Grumet's breastfeeding four-year-old Aram always gets the urge at the exact moment she's being photographed for another magazine cover.

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BrandMartinez via Instagram

Brand and Martinez

This morning marked the last broadcast of KPCC's the Madeleine Brand Show. Don't fret, your favorite Babe of NPR will still be heard weekday mornings on Southern California Public Radio--she'll just be bantering with a swarthy new co-host.

Brand, who has hosted the eponymous hour-long show since 2010, announced this morning that starting Monday she will share billing with A. Martinez from ESPN Radio. Henceforth, the Madeleine Brand Show will be known as Brand and Martinez.

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cordjefferson.tumblr.com

The new face of L.A. journalism.

To us rednecks over here in Angel town, Gawker has always been the pinnacle of New Yorkiness. It started in 2003 as an uber-meta NYC media spy, but even as it has expanded to national/international coverage and Hollywood gossip, the site has retained a distinctly East Coast attitude. That is to say: an amused, almost sympathetic disdain for everything West Coast, from Kardashian kulture to earthquake pride.

But it appears brave new editor-in-chief A.J. Daulerio may be trying to change all that:

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Tim Pool via Twitter

"Various projectiles fired at journalists, protesters, and bystanders in #Anaheim"

Approximately 500 protesters, majority Latino, were showered in police beanbags, rubber bullets and pepper balls last night outside Anaheim City Hall as they rioted over two recent officer-involved shootings in the Orange County town. (And the fight wasn't one-sided: Protesters reportedly hurtled bottles, rocks and traffic cones right back in the face of riot police.)

But you know the police response has waxed indiscriminate when two journalists walking along the sidewalk, just doing their job, come under fire:

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Updated with explanation from Assistant Managing Editor for Copy Desks, Library and Standards Henry Fuhrmann.

The Los Angeles Times has an excellent story in A-1 today about a legendary Las Vegas sheriff. 85-year-old Ralph Lamb, "The Cowboy Sheriff," John M. Glionna writes, was once the most powerful man in Nevada--feared by gangsters, beloved by locals, respected by fellow lawmen.

It's a great read--made even greater by what may be the best typo to ever run in the Times.

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Steve Whitmore via Twitter

All of a sudden, every terrifying conversation we've ever had with L.A. County Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore makes so much more sense.

We just discovered his LiveJournal personal blog -- and it's an absolute minefield of bitterness and morbid regrets and 15-year-old girl tears. (Also, History Channel reviews. Kid you not.)

Many local journalists can attest:

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@samontv

Sam Rubin.

Added at the bottom: See Gawker's new, bizarre apology.

KTLA News' entertainment-beat veteran Sam Rubin was briefly under the gun over the weekend after he became the subject of a Gawker report about a tweet made from his account:

It called rapper Yung Berg a "fake ass nigga."

He soon tweeted that his account had been hacked and that he wouldn't use such a word. We follow Rubin and believed him the minute we saw it: He doesn't have a record of rap beefs. We skipped over it.

Gawker -- not so much. Now that site has egg on its face:

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CBS2

Not so much.

Haven't we all learned, after Manny Pacquiao was falsely quoted last month as saying all gays should be "put to death," that the Examiner is not a source to be aggregated?

CBS2 didn't get the memo. "Lebowski fans, lift up your white russian!" the local news site wrote this morning. "The much-anticipated sequel to the 1998 hit "The Big Lebowski" is set to start filming in October, according to the Examiner."

And where, pray tell, did the Examiner get its information?

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drpepper90211 / YouTube

Tressler in action.

If you ever wanted to see the hottest journalist ever with a master's degree and a university teaching gig strip on-stage, now's your chance.

Sarah Tressler, the onetime L.A. alternative weekly writer who was fired from her Houston Chronicle staff writing job after the paper found out she was moonlighting as an exotic dancer, is taking her well-rounded experience on the road for "a coast-to-coast stripping tour," reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The road work also seems to be doubling as ...

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Neon Tommy

The scoop.

In a rare move of aggression toward the media, the union representing L.A. police officers is confronting USC online newspaper Neon Tommy today for a weekend scoop it ran about the LAPD's recent double-homicide investigation near campus. In the piece, student journalist Catherine Green suggests that a more diligent probe into a South L.A. party shooting a couple months earlier might have put suspect Bryan Barnes behind bars before he could strike again -- allegedly killing international grad students Ying Wu and Ming Qu.

The Los Angeles Police Protective League often issues statements on political issues, budget cuts, etc. But we've never seen the LAPPL Board of Directors...

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L.A. Weekly film critic Karina Longworth was nominated in three L.A. Press Club categories.

Last night's SoCal Journalism Awards ceremony -- an annual affair put on by the L.A. Press Club -- was more star-spangled than usual. Among the presenters and honorees were Martin Sheen, Ron Perlman (so much shorter in person, but with an even bigger voice), Daniel Pearl's extended family and every journalist's childhood heroes: Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (the former via Skype).

But keeping things consistent with last year, L.A. Weekly cleaned up...

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