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The 8 Ball
In this issue:
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 Here's some good news for procrastinators.
The deadline for entries in the Southern California Journalism Awards is being extended by two weeks until 5 p.m., Tuesday, April 8.
At a time of uncertainty in the media business, there's no better way to polish a resume than having won a trophy in one of the nation's oldest and most prestigious journalism competitions.
And this year will be more special than ever, since it's the 50th anniversary. Harry Shearer will be our very special emcee for this very special evening.
Over the years, Shearer has given his satirical touch to diverse roles, from films like "This is Spinal Tap" and "A Mighty Wind, " to voicing the character of Mr. Smithers and others on TV's "The Simpsons." His weekly radio program, "Le Show," is heard on public radio station KCRW and is distributed worldwide.
"This is your last chance to be part of history," said the club's executive director, Diana Ljungaeus. "Don't miss out."
Winners will be announced at the club's gala dinner on Saturday night, June 21, at the Millennium Biltmore in downtown Los Angeles.
Last year's contest drew more than 600 entries.
Entries can be mailed in or dropped off at the club's headquarters.
Here are some extra incentives to enter the contest and join the club:
STUDENTS
Any student can enter for regular member rate of $40 – or do a Student Super Special = Send in two or more entries and they are $20 each AND you get a student membership for the rest of the year for free.
NEW MEMBERS
Join the press club (applies to new members only):
Become a member for the rest of the year for $30 and enjoy membership discounts for all your entries, along with all other benefits of belonging to Los Angeles Press Club.
Non-member entry fee is $80 each.
Members pay $40 each.
Individual members (not corporate) also enjoy an additional 50% off their third entry and all entries after that, making those entries only $20 each.
You’re welcome to enter the same story in more than one category; but each entry requires a separate copy, entry form and fee. If you enter in additional categories, we’ll honor your discount for each.
Members also get discount on tickets.
To volunteer, donate to our silent auction, sponsor the event or to buy tickets please contact Executive Director Diana Ljungaeus at Diana@lapressclub.org or call 323.669.8081
The 50th Annual Southern California Journalism Awards Gala is dedicated to the late Hal Fishman of KTLA.
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By Theresa Adams
 NBC 4's Ana Garcia, a top anchor and investigative journalist, will be honored at the Southern California Journalism Awards this year with the coveted Joseph M. Quinn Award for lifetime achievement.
Garcia will receive the award at the 50th anniversary gala of the awards at on Saturday, June 21, at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.
"Ana is not only one of the Southland's top anchors, but a top investigative reporter as well," says Chris Woodyard of USA Today, the club's president. "She throws herself into her work, yet still finds time to balance her life with philanthropy and family time. No one is more qualified for the club's top award."
Last year's Quinn winner was Judy Woodruff of PBS. Past honorees have included Dan Rather, Patt Morrison, Ted Koppel and Walter Cronkite.
Garcia's investigations have rocked government and industry alike. She revealed some of the things that go on when lawmakers and law-breakers think no one is looking. Her first love is reporting.
“It is the absolute thing that makes me passionate about what I do,” Ana said of her investigative assignments. “I have the best job in the world. I am really happy. I am in a great place. I remember that every morning. It makes me humble.”
Her undercover series on fraudulent practices in the tow-truck industry, “Tow Truck Pirates,” resulted in changes in both federal and state regulations. The changes were aimed at protecting consumers from renegade tow truck operators.
Her investigative report on Los Angeles County's failure to properly dispose of public records resulted in a change in county law for the first time in 50 years.
And Garcia's dedication was reflected in a report on a quiet Los Angeles neighborhood where women from foreign countries come here to live for the sole purpose of giving birth to a child in the United States, so the child will automatically become a U.S. citizen.
“She is passionate about her work,” says NBC 4 Investigative News Producer Fred Mamoun, a Press Club director. “She truly believes in helping people.”
Garcia says she's a big believer in hidden camera reports.
“If we can capture it with a hidden camera and we can show you what the problem is, then maybe we can fix the problem or maybe the lawmakers can,” Garcia says in a promotional video. “I mean that is the amazing thing. Until you capture it with those hidden cameras people really don’t believe you.”
Her unit works long hours to put together the special reports. It is very important to this award-winning investigative reporter that the public is not deceived.
“She brings so much credibility to the broadcast. When I see her fronting a story I believe it,” says KCAL 9 anchorwoman, Pat Harvey, a past Quinn winner herself.
The passion and dedication Ana has for her work is also reflected in her role as a parent and in her charity work with The Good News Foundation, an organization that joins news professionals from NBC 4, ABC 7, KCAL 9 and Fox 11.
It is a cause that makes Garcia proud.
"These are the most amazing women. I have such respect for all of them,” she says. “We all get criticized for always reporting bad news so we are trying to bring good news, a little bit at a time.”
A graduate of St. Johns University in New York, Garcia says working with the women has made her think even more about the good things they can do. She says to give something to children who have so little but who are trying so hard is a wonderful feeling.
Garcia, has received an Emmy, several Golden Mike and Edward R. Murrow Awards, an Associated Press Award for Best Investigative Series in California and previous Los Angeles Press Club awards for outstanding investigative work.
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 Russ Stanton, the new editor of the Los Angeles Times, will speak about the future of the West's top daily and the news business at the Press Club at 7 p.m., Thursday, March 27.
Stanton was the paper's innovations expert when he was named editor of the Times last month, replacing James O'Shea who quit in a disagreement over editorial budget cuts. Stanton arrives at a time when new Tribune owner Sam Zell is generating controversy about how he wants to make the newspaper more locally focused.
Stanton's remarks, followed by a question-and-answer session, will mark one of his first public appearances since becoming the 126-year-old daily's 14th editor.
In the face of staff cuts, Stanton, 49, has told reporters and editors that he plans to shake up the paper's coverage, adding in some areas while pulling back in others. He has yet to be specific.
A 10-year veteran of the Times, Stanton was hired from the Orange County Register as a business reporter. He worked his way through the ranks, becoming the Times' business editor in 2005. He acknowledges his appointment to the top job was somewhat unconventional.
"We have literally dozens of people here who have been involved in winning Pulitzer Prizes in recent years," he told the Times' Thomas Mulligan in an interview. "What I bring to the table is an understanding of our print newsroom, our website and the Internet, and how we can make those three things work together."
As with all Press Club events, the evening will be interactive and plenty of refreshments will be available.
COST: The event is free to members and those who join that day, $10 prepaid and $20 at the door.
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 David Rensin, who penned some of the top bestsellers of the past decade, will talk about his new surfer biography at the club at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 30.
Rensin will be signing copies of his latest work, "All For a Few Perfect Waves: The Audacious Life and Legend of Rebel Surfer Miki 'Da Cat' Dora." The biography profiles one of the most colorful watermen and world wanderers ever to traipse across the Malibu sands.
Rensin is appearing as part of the ongoing series of author parties and book signings being arranged by Press Club member Amy Alkon, Kate Coe and board member Jill Stewart.
The event will showcase a prolific author who has explored many subjects. Rensin joined top Hollywood producer Bernie Brillstein to write "The Little Stuff Matters Most: 50 Rules from the 50 Years of Trying to Make a Living" in 2005. Among other projects, Brillstein produced "Ghostbusters."
In 2003, he garnered attention for his book on the career path through Hollywood that made stars out of David Geffen, Barry Diller, Michael Ovitz and others. "The Mailroom: Hollywood History from the Bottom Up" spanned 65 years and contained stories from more than 165 former trainees.
Rensin co-authored a number of bestselling autobiographies, including those of comedians Tim Allen, Chris Rock, Jeff Foxworthy and singer Yanni. As a contributing editor to Playboy magazine since 1981, he has interviewed dozens of top Hollywood stars.
The event is free to members. $10 for all others -- includes drinks and finger food.
RSVP, to: rsvp@lapressclub.org
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 More than 100 former staffers of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner toasted former editors Jim Bellows and Mary Anne Dolan in an emotional gathering at the Press Club.
The gathering attracted editors, reporters and photographers from across the globe. Former reporter Merle Linda Wolin, the paper's only Pulitzer finalist, flew in from Hong Kong. Los Angeles Times columnist and political editor Don Frederick was among those arriving from Washington and several, including San Jose Mercury reporter Pamela Moreland, came from the Bay Area. Pulitzer-prize winner and Wall Street Journal film critic Joe Morgenstern , former Her Ex columnist, made it in from the Westside.
The Herald, the Hearst-owned city's second biggest daily, ceased publication in 1989.
The reunion was the brainchild of Herald vet and press clubber Alex Ben Block, who worked tirelessly get out the word, arrange for a photo montage from the paper's glory days and transform the Press Club's headquarters, the Steve Allen Theater, into the look and feel of one of the city's top newspaper bars.
With disco music, dim lighting and candles on cocktail tables, the theater was the perfect site for "Return to Corky's: The Ultimate Almost-20-Year Herald Examiner Reunion."
Block presided over a panel in which staffers from as far back as 1959 offered their recollections -- from hawking the paper on the streets of Los Angeles to hustling for stories.
Daily News Editor Ron Kaye, a former Herald assistant city editor, recalled the brilliance of editor Bellows in coming up with early morning story ideas. He made the Herald stand out from the start.
Frederick told how he got a call from one the Hearst family scions his first day on the job -- and worried that his inadvertent brush off might have gotten him fired if another editor hadn't intervened.
Former Herald political writer and local TV vet Linda Breakstone joined Moreland in recounting the pleasures of cheeseburgers and Bloody Marys for lunch at the Herald's favorite bar, Corky's, across 11th Street.
The newspaper may be gone, but it is clear that it still lives in many memories.
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Press Clubbers…
For most of us, this is one of the toughest years we can remember in the media business.
TV and radio news operations, newspapers and even some news web sites are slashing budgets and staff. Our friends, some of the region's top journalists, are being laid off or are being offered buy outs. Some, frustrated and jobless, are leaving the business.
It's times like these when you can depend on the Press Club.
We're not only offering some of most interesting and relevant programs ever, but we're making sure you have more chances to meet other journalists and make sense of the changes that are transforming the news business.
In two short months since our new board of directors was installed, we've already scored some big accomplishments.
The club's first-ever national contest, the National Entertainment Journalism Awards, snared more than 100 entries and a lot of attention. We hosted international journalists at a party at the club on a caucus night with local coverage from Fox News 11. And thanks to member Alex Ben Block, the club's reunion of Herald Examiner veterans earned coverage in the Times, on former president and Quinn winner Patt Morrison's show on KPCC radio and top media web sites.
Next comes our biggest opportunity: the silver anniversary year of our crown jewel, the Southern California Journalism Awards. With NBC 4's Ana Garcia as our Quinn Award winner, we're on our way to making our June 21 dinner one of the best ever.
In becoming your president this year, I laid out three goals:
--Higher quality events. A club of our stature needs to think big when it comes to getting top names and ideas of interest to our diverse membership of journalists. That's why we tried to make sure we were first with the new Times editor, Russ Stanton.
--Better communications. We're trying harder to make sure you know about the events and opportunities provided to you as a journalist through the club. And we're trying to get more involvement from the community as well.
--Increased membership. We're a thriving press club at a time when those in many other cities are dead or dying. To stay healthy, we shouldn't rest until we can reach every writer, broadcaster or web worker in Southern California to let them know about the benefits of belonging to the club.
These goals all work together. If you have exciting programs and publicize them well, membership is sure to increase.
Your job? Spread the word to your journalist friends about the exciting things happening at the club. Let them know we're the lifeline amid the turmoil. Better yet, consider volunteering. You'll find it's a rich opportunity that will make you plenty of new and important friends.
Let's make 2008 a year to remember.
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