LA Times Talking About the LA Weekly

Where I do appreciate the attempt to be non-bias, this article reeks of slant by the Times. It is an obvius attempt at misdirection. Read at your own risk.
latimes.com – When the LA Weekly wrote a lengthy story last September about how little Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa attended to his official duties, it wasn’t plowing fresh soil.

The mayor’s exuberant fundraising and his frenetic campaigning on behalf of presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton had already received plenty of attention, in this paper and elsewhere.

The media, rightly, should do whatever it can to determine if a politician is already measuring the drapes for his next office while sitting in his current one.

But as it has with several stories in recent times, the Weekly didn’t let the facts speak for themselves in its Villaraigosa takedown.

Instead, it employed more semantic spin than Kobe Bryant puts on a jump shot, along with a prosecutorial methodology that proved much more about the declining quality of our city’s dominant alternative newspaper than it did about our attention-grasping mayor.

I got to thinking about this when the Phoenix-based company that publishes the Weekly forced the resignation of its thoughtful editor, Laurie Ochoa, late last month.

It was the latest departure in a protracted exodus by many of the Weekly’s best-known and most accomplished journalists.
Read the rest at: latimes.com.

Finally Getting it Right: Super Bowl XLIII

This match will be the main reason I buy this game. The Super Bowl this year was such an officiating fiasco, that this will come as a small relief to get it right… EVERYDAY!

pwnordie.com –
Mark July on your calenders Arizona Cardinals fans, this is the first time you will be able to get revenge on the Pittsburgh Steelers after they beat your team in Super Bowl XLIII. GameStop is offering an exclusive demo of Madden NFL 10 for those that have reserved the game from them. This demo will feature four quarters of football (5mins each) between the two Super Bowl teams that will allow Steelers players to win the trophy again and Cardinals fans to end in their favor, much like our simulation of the game.

The cover of the game features Troy Polamalu and Larry Fitzgerald, both stars of the most recent Super Bowl so the selection of these two teams for the demo is a natural fit. Hopefully both of these players are able to avoid the “Madden Curse” (unless of course they are playing my team).
Read the rest at: pwnordie.com

LikeMe App for the Pre

Having one of the first apps on the new Palm Pre offers a swelling of pride, and a pain in the head. I will do my best to keep a smile on my face, but I am not in love with social media geared towards only liking things. It keeps thing positive, but doesn’t allow for much wiggle room of opinion. That being said, our site and our iPhone app are very useful and fun. Here is a somewhat shabby article written on the subject.

LikeMe, a social recommendation site similar to Yelp.com lets users rate and review local businesses, attractions, restaurants, and clubs. After you join the service, you can upload info about yourself, your favorite places, and your favorite things to do in order to kick start the service’s personalized social recommendation engine.

Now the app joins a handful of others (really, just a handful) on the new Palm Pre. But before you go and download this one, there’s something you need to consider about LikeMe: their reviews may be compromised.

At the beginning of this year, LikeMe came under fire when it came out that a lot of the reviews on the site were written by ad representatives for Village Voice Media (VVM), owner of over a dozen weekly papers and a LikeMe partner. The reviews, all good of course, focused on businesses that advertised in the VVM papers. Talk about a conflict of interest!

Read the rest of the article at: readwriteweb.com

LA Weekly, Editor to Part Ways

I liked Laurie. I only met her a few times, and brief at that, but I liked her. I hope she moves on in life and finds what she’s looking for.

After eight years as editor in chief, Laurie Ochoa is leaving LA Weekly as Village Voice Media severs more of its own legacy.

It’s unclear who instigated the move. But VVM didn’t make life easy for Ochoa.

Critics say LA Weekly’s quality began declining after it was merged into New Times (now VVM) in 2005. The alt-newspaper chain reportedly went over Ochoa’s head in late 2006 to install an unpopular news editor.

There’s no word yet on what Ochoa’s next move is — and the Weekly has no replacement lined up.

Read more at defamer.com.au.

All Press is Good Press

As the pimpin’ wars continue, Village Voice Media wants to be heard. As reported 2 weeks ago, Craigslist CEO Buckmaster decided to whine to the world by throwing his competition under the bus. Now VVM strikes back.

And you thought the South Carolina v. Craigslist story was dead.

If anything sucks more than being the target of an ambitious but delusional gubernatorial candidate who has suddenly developed a bit of a fetish for prostitution, it’s being ignored by that candidate. As far as Village Voicesees the world, Craigslist just got a bunch of free press. And they want their share.

When Craigslist management was facing a criminal investigation for listings on the site they did the smart thing. They talked about the law, and they pointed out that the real smut was on other sites that were being ignored by the South Carolina Attorney General. If you really want hard core porn and prostitution, Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster pointed out, check out Village Voice’s BackPage.com.

That’s all body fluids under the bridge now, of course, since a federal judge smacked down McMaster and forbid him from stalking Craigslist management.

But Village Voice is still smarting from those Buckmaster links in that blog post. Yesterday they issued a very official press release titled “Village Voice Media to Craigslist CEO Buckmaster: Calm Down, Back Off; There is Nothing Wrong With a Little Competition.”

Read the rest of the story on techcrunch.com