Pilot dirt continues

By The Real Voice

The Daily Pilot finally got around to reporting the news that the landmark Arches restaurant had closed its doors on Saturday, ending the run of Newport Beach’s oldest restaurant. Of course, it didn’t give credit to the Daily Voice, which broke the story Sunday night. This is a tradition with the Pilot; it routinely uses other papers as tip sheets but refuses to acknowledge, as other papers, websites and bloggers do, where the story first appeared.

Another recent example: the Voice broke the story that executive director David Muller was out at the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum. The Register wrote a follow-up story crediting the Voice. The Pilot wrote a follow-up story with no mention of the Voice.

Perhaps the biggest victim of the Pilot’s refusal to give credit where credit’s due is Corona del Mar Today. Until the Pilot starts doing the right thing, the Real Voice will reveal exactly which media source from which the Pilot got its story.

If you have a news tips, confidential or otherwise, for The Real Voice,  e-mail us.

Real Voice: O.C. Now is so yesterday

The Real Voice walks the streets of Newport-Mesa, gathering information where he can. If you have a tip for the Real Voice, e-mail him (or her) confidentially here.

By The Real Voice

In the ’90s, the Los Angeles Times deployed an army of 200 full-time journalists and dozens of stringers to try and capture the attention of the Orange County reader. It worked. The Times circulation in Orange County climbed past 200,000 on weekdays and Saturdays and 300,000 on Sundays.

Times change. Today, the newspaper has about a half-dozen journalists left in Orange County, and a drop in circulation almost as stunning. 

Now The Times has revealed its latest weapon in attracting Orange County readers: O.C. Now, or as the URL has it, www.theocnow.com. In its present state, it feels like a pop gun. Or maybe worse: a shotgun that has shot The Times in its own foot.

At one time, The Times would do nothing to harm its brand as a world-class news operation. Those days are done.

O.C. Now mostly consists of material produced by The Times’ community newspapers in Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach and Laguna Beach. It’s as though the rest of the county didn’t exist. It should be called "Four of OC’s 34 Cities Now."

The website is full of what I would generously call quirks. Under “Sports,” it offers some nice prep features (from the four aforementioned cities), but nothing about the Anaheim Ducks or Los Angeles Angels. And under the “Featured” headline, there’s a slew of non-sports stories. The "Featured" material never changes on any page, whether it's sports, news, events or any other topic.

Under “Events,” there's no basic calendar, and posted on the page are stories such as a woman turning 103 or news that has already happened. That's not what the readers are looking for.

The most telling feature of the new site is the anemic blogroll. This is where the editors provide links to blogs and websites readers of O.C. Now would be inclined to visit. Let’s take them one by one.

• A Bubbling Cauldron: A great pick. A well-written and timely blog about Costa Mesa.
• Civil Thinking: Another blog supposedly about Costa Mesa but it's virtually inactive. In an era where good bloggers post multiple items a day, here’s Civil Thinking’s tally: 1 post in 2010, 4 posts in 2009, 5 posts in 2008. That's 10 posts in two years.
• Corona del Mar Today: Another excellent pick, especially since the Daily Pilot gets many story tips from the site (though never gives credit, a violation of journalistic protocol).
• La Femme Wonkita: A blog by former Costa Mesa Mayor Sandy Genis. Good stuff, but the last post was Nov. 17.
• L.A. Now: Los Angeles? Why would that be among the top dozen blogs about OC? Oh, it's an LA Times blog.  
• OC Voice: A green blog mostly about Huntington Beach.
• Orange County Local News Network: A partner with the LA Times, coming Feb. 1.
• Orange County Progressive: A liberal blog.
• Orange Juice Blog: A liberal political blog.
• Red County: A conservative political blog.
• The 818 Now: Why would editors give OC readers a link to stories generated in the 818 area code? Again, because The Times’ owns the 818 Now website.

But there's an even larger problem with the blogroll: some of OC’s best news websites and bloggers are missing, including the OC Register's many excellent blogs, the OC Weekly's Naval Gazing and, of course, the Newport-Mesa Daily Voice and other smaller local news websites.

This is why O.C. Now feels like so yesterday. In today's world, it's standard to provide readers with all relevant links, whether or not they are competitors, because you want the readers to keep your site as their home base. The barring of competitors shows how dated O.C. Now's brain trust is when it comes to the Internet. They just don't get it and probably never will. There's no reason, at the present, for OC readers to flock to O.C. Now.

For anyone who loves news, it's a journalistic tragedy that the Los Angeles Times has retreated from Orange County and left behind this shell of a website that advertises itself as "Real-time news, sports and opinion about Orange County." Talk about false advertising.

The State of the OC Media

I have mixed feelings about journalism awards. When I win, I love them. When I lose, I think they are pretty worthless.

Still, this year's revived Orange County Press Club awards, handed out last week, are revealing.

The OC Weekly, with 15 awards, ran away with the competition. The former OC heavyweights -- the Orange County Register and Los Angeles Times -- won four and one awards respectively. Both these organizations have far bigger staffs than the OC Weekly, but only captured five awards between them. The Daily Pilot's former city editor, Paul Anderson, won two himself.

(P.S. I got beat by the OC Weekly's R. Scott Moxley as best columnist in Orange County -- he's not a bad journalist to lose to. But my second-place finish was ahead of mi amigo Gustavo Arelleno of the OC Weekly and Kedric Francis of Riviera, both of whom tied for third.)

One explanation for the big dailies poor showing could simply be a lack of entries. Morale in both newsrooms is at rock bottom, and entering journalism contests certainly isn't a top priority (especially when it costs money to enter).

But it's more than that. The Costa Mesa-based OC Weekly and, for that matter, Paul Anderson, practice a passionate kind of journalism that has been drained in recent years at The Times and Register by unending layoffs and budget cuts.

The paradox is in order to survive this rough transition from print to digital media, journalists need to be inspired and producing their best work. But because of market conditions and the human psyche, this isn't happening.

Pilot's Paul Anderson says goodbye

The Daily Pilot's departing city editor writes his farewell column.

Paul Anderson leaving the Daily Pilot

The Daily Pilot's city editor, popular blogger and all-around nice guy Paul Anderson is leaving the paper to become Orange County bureau chief for the City News Service. He'll be deeply missed in the Newport-Mesa community. Here's his blog post and an excerpt:

But now I’m moving on. As of July 29 I will no longer be the Pilot’s city editor. After a decade — a decade, can you believe it?! — I’m leaving Times Community News to be the Orange County bureau chief for the City News Service, the wire for Southern California. I’m going back to my roots. Anyone who knows me well understands why. The wires were my first love and I never got over it. City News in Chicago marked my salad days as a reporter and I loved working for City News in Los Angeles when I arrived in California.

Join the local news revolution!

I’ve got to tell you, last week was a gas!

It didn’t start out that well. Bill Lobdell, my business partner, and I had seen our quest at trying to start a new community newspaper or buying the bankrupt Daily Pilot pretty much dashed.

Turns out, during the biggest recession since the Great Depression, money for investing was a little tight. The dream was over.

And then a light went on. So what if we didn’t have any investor money? So what if we haven’t made any money since we respectively left the Daily Pilot and the Los Angeles Times last August? So what we don’t have some huge staff and a healthy budget?

What we do have is a total commitment to this community, some talent and a lot of experience. Plus, we’re surrounded by a group of people totally onboard with a project that brings a new, complete, local news source to Newport Beach and Costa Mesa.

We launched our website in 48 hours, and it’s been quite a ride. We’ve had advertising offers (we still need to figure out how to put ads on the pages!), story pitches and people volunteering to be columnists and reporters.

This is all great news. Bill and I have put a combined 27 years into making the Daily Pilot one of the best community newspapers in the state. Over the past year, the people who run the Pilot—marketing people at the bankrupt Los Angeles Times, 50 miles up the road—seem hell-bent on ruining our community's newspaper.

The folks who remain at the Pilot perform a daily miracle in even getting the newspaper out. But it seems to us that the evidence is overwhelming that Pilot’s future is bleak. That’s the reason why we tried hard to buy it in bankruptcy court. It requires tender, loving care. It demands people with passion running it. It needs its mojo back.

We’re recreating the Pilot's forgotten mojo with the Daily Voice. And here’s how you can help.

1. We want to deputize a small army of citizen-journalists to help us cover the community. Call us if you’re interested. It will be fun.
2. We’d love to have a flood of story tips coming in. Again, please be our eyes and ears.
3. If you have a business looking for a cost-effective way to get your message in front of a wildly devoted local audience, let us know. We’ll cut you a great deal.
4. You can join the local news revolution simply by spreading the word and telling your friends to bookmark this page and visit often.

In return, we'll make you several guarantees.

1. We’ll deliver local news smartly and with passion.
2. We’ll be incredibly active in the community. No one will out work us.
3. We’ll try to get better each day.
4. We’ll never bore you.

Let’s enjoy the ride together. If you need me, write this down, I’m at tjohnson.jlm@gmail.com and my cell number and direct line is 949.244.2583. I hope to hear from you.

A local news operation is born

Ten months ago I walked out the doors of the Daily Pilot. For me it was a sad day. I guess I had always kind of figured that someday they’d just find me slumped over in the chair in my office and that would be it. Not a bad way to go.

In the following weeks and months, I took up residence in a small office 50 feet from the back door of the Goat Hill Tavern. You’ll recognize some of the names of my new office mates: Bill Lobdell, author and former editor for the Daily Pilot; Lana Johnson, the former promotions director for the Daily Pilot; Ron Katzman and Janet Vinograd, two of the best sales reps. ever at the Daily Pilot.

While some of them toiled in a successful web business called Greer’s OC, the bigger question for me and others was “What’s next? Where’s the income stream?”

Some people called from the community and suggested a return to the Pilot. Others pleaded with us to start a new, even better newspaper.

We looked and considered pretty much everything.

As our search turned to investors and capital, acquiring the Daily Pilot became a common theme. We explored bankruptcy court, where the Pilot resides and even got the attention of the Tribune’s investment banker in New York. But, in the end, everywhere we looked, no matter what the size of the rock, money was hard to find. This wasn’t the best time to raise money for a news operation.

For about 24 hours, we were depressed. But then we had an idea.

Which brings us to today.

Welcome to our new endeavor, the Newport-Mesa Daily Voice.

No large backers. No deep pockets. Just a group of us committed to providing Newport-Mesa with more local news, commentary and information, at a time when many news organizations are folding up shop.

We’ll start with some baby steps, but will grow up soon enough with the help of additional contributors and reader input. Stay tuned and you’ll see: the latest news posted whenever it happens; a fun and unique way to cover prep sports (we’ll tell you the secret this fall); community commentary from a diverse group of locals; and video for better editorial coverage and better results for advertisers.

We’ll also aggregate content from other local favorite sites so you can find everything about Newport-Mesa at one website.

As always, Newport-Mesa deserves a watchdog, a community forum where issues can be debated, a place where whatever is happening in the community can reside, and a community cheerleader when a cause needs championing.

It’s going to be blast. Here are a couple of things you can do for us: first, tell 10 friends about what we’re up to and then, have each of them tell 10 friends and so on. Also, when you have a good story idea, please tell us ASAP. If you want to be a contributor, please shoot us an e-mail. And please submit to us your organization’s events so we can publicize them.

We hope you’ll find that we’ll feel like an old, comfortable pair of shoes.

--Tom Johnson