Colleagues,

As you know, the Standards and Practices Committee issued newsroom guidelines in March on using social media. We have now revised and organized them in a way we believe is easier to use (see below). 

Although the document addresses a few new situations that have arisen in the last several months, the underlying principle is unchanged, one best expressed in the opening passage of our Ethics Guidelines: The Times is to be, above all else, a principled news organization. In deed and in appearance, journalists must keep themselves – and The Times – above reproach.

Your professional life and your personal life are intertwined in the online world, just as they are offline. Attempts, for instance, to distinguish your high school friends from your professional associates are fine, but in all spaces one should adhere to the principle that as an editorial employee you are responsible for maintaining The Times’ credibility.

As in March, we note that the guidelines apply to all editorial employees, whether you work in print or on the Web, or you are a reporter, editor, photographer, blogger, producer, designer, artist – whatever your job. Even if you aren’t using social media tools yet, you might want to someday, so please familiarize yourself with the standards.

This document is part of a series of guidelines crafted to help all of us navigate the continually changing world of covering the news. The methods and mediums may change, but our standards do not. These guidelines and those about moderating reader comments, using photos online, handling corrections and dealing with obscenity issues can always be found on The Times' library's intranet site.

There you also will find the complete Los Angeles Times Ethics Guidelines, the statement of principles and standards from which all others follow.

– Russ Stanton
   Henry Fuhrmann
   on behalf of the Standards and Practices Committee

SOCIAL MEDIA GUIDELINES
Social media networks – Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and others – provide useful reporting and promotional tools for Los Angeles Times journalists. The Times’ Ethics Guidelines will largely cover issues that arise when using social media, but this brief document should provide additional guidance on specific questions.

Basic Principles

• Integrity is our most important commodity: Avoid writing or posting anything that would embarrass The Times or compromise your ability to do your job.

• Assume that your professional life and your personal life will merge online regardless of your care in separating them.

• Even if you use privacy tools (determining who can view your page or profile, for instance), assume that everything you write, exchange or receive on a social media site is public.

• Just as political bumper stickers and lawn signs are to be avoided in the offline world, so too are partisan expressions online.

• Be aware of perceptions. If you “friend” a source or join a group on one side of a debate, do so with the other side as well. Also understand that readers may view your participation in a group as your acceptance of its views; be clear that you’re looking for story ideas or simply collecting information. Consider that you may be an observer of online content without actively participating.

Guidelines for Reporting

• Be aware of inadvertent disclosures or the perception of disclosures. For example, consider that “friending” a professional contact may publicly identify that person as one of your sources.

• You should identify yourself as a Times employee online if you would do so in a similar situation offline.

• Authentication is essential: Verify sourcing after collecting information online. When transmitting information online – as in re-Tweeting material from other sources – apply the same standards and level of caution you would in more formal publication.

Additional Notes

• Using social media sites means that you (and the content you exchange) are subject to their terms of service. This can have legal implications, including the possibility that your interactions could be subject to a third-party subpoena. The social media network has access to and control over everything you have disclosed to or on that site. For instance, any information might be turned over to law enforcement without your consent or even your knowledge.

• These passages from the “Outside affiliations and community work” section of the Ethics Guidelines may be helpful as you navigate social media sites. For the complete guidelines, please see The Times' library's intranet site or, if you are outside the company network, see the Readers’ Representative Journal.

Editorial employees may not use their positions at the paper to promote personal agendas or causes. Nor should they allow their outside activities to undermine the impartiality of Times coverage, in fact or appearance.

Staff members may not engage in political advocacy – as members of a campaign or an organization specifically concerned with political change. Nor may they contribute money to a partisan campaign or candidate. No staff member may run for or accept appointment to any public office. Staff members should avoid public expressions or demonstrations of their political views – bumper stickers, lawn signs and the like.

Although The Times does not seek to restrict staff members’ participation in civic life or journalistic organizations, they should be aware that outside affiliations and memberships may create real or apparent ethical conflicts. When those affiliations have even the slightest potential to damage the newspaper’s credibility, staff members should proceed with caution and take care to advise supervisors.

Some types of civic participation may be deemed inappropriate. An environmental writer, for instance, would be prohibited from affiliating with environmental organizations, a health writer from joining medical groups, a business editor from membership in certain trade or financial associations.

– Standards and Practices Committee

We are pleased to announce that Steven Zeitchik is joining The Times’ entertainment team as a reporter and blogger assigned to cover the movie industry.

Steven, a resourceful, creative and collaborative journalist, comes to The Times from the Hollywood Reporter, where he was a regular front-page presence, writing about studio business and the independent film scene with expertise and aplomb. In addition to his work on breaking news and feature articles, Steven also anchored the Reporter’s popular Risky Business movie blog, revealing himself to be a film omnivore with an inexhaustible work ethic, writing knowledgeably about such divergent topics as the talents of Sidney Lumet, the cult of Megan Fox and the latest cliffhanger in the Weinstein Co. saga.
 
Previous to his tenure at the Reporter, Steven worked for more than two years as a staff writer at Daily Variety. And before his tour of duty in Hollywood, he worked for Publishers Weekly in New York and as an Associated Press correspondent reporting on conflict and politics in the Middle East from Jerusalem and the West Bank.  He also lived and worked in Berlin while on a journalism fellowship in 2003.

His work covering media, business, travel and culture also has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the New York Times.
 
Steven received a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and graduated cum laude from New York’s Yeshiva University.  He has enjoyed a bi-coastal existence up until this point, splitting time between New York and Los Angeles, but he will move to Southern California full time for his new position (which, he is convinced, will only help his tennis game).
 
Steven will be seated next to Chris Lee and report to movie editor Tim Swanson when he arrives in November. Please help us welcome him.

Colleagues:

Lisa Fung, who has overseen our arts and culture coverage in Calendar for the last nine years, is our new online arts and entertainment editor, effective immediately.

She will oversee our formidable online entertainment report for latimes.com and theenvelope.com, which includes more than a dozen blogs and a team of producers, editors and freelancers. Lisa also will work closely with editors and reporters in Calendar, Company Town and The Envelope to keep these sites fresh 24/7. The goal is to extend our online readership locally, nationally and globally.

In addition, Lisa will be responsible for developing new properties and services that enhance our standing as the authoritative source for news, features, information and analysis about pop culture, celebrity, movies, music, television, social media, video games, arts, culture, awards and the business of Hollywood. She will report to Sallie Hofmeister, Assistant Managing Editor for arts and entertainment.

Earlier this year, Lisa won a Times editorial award for her passionate embrace of the Web. She has built the Culture Monster blog into a must read for arts lovers and one of latimes.com’s top 10 blog destinations. Reflecting our place in the world’s entertainment capital, Lisa gave the blog a pop culture and celebrity spin, with posts on everyone from Dudamel to Dylan to Danger Mouse. She is among the newsroom’s most active Twitterers, is an expert at dissecting Omniture trends to find ways to bolster traffic and, as a former tech editor in Business, is as comfortable with HTML and Facebook as she is with Wagner and Warhol.

As arts and culture editor, Lisa has run our coverage of theater, art, architecture, classical music, opera and dance. Her staff broke stories on the financial difficulties of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Esa-Pekka Salonen’s retirement at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the appointment of Gustavo Dudamel as Salonen’s successor and the controversy over Gustav Klimt paintings looted by the Nazis. She has encouraged the critics in her department to write expansively, which, among other things, has resulted in three Pulitzer Prize finalists. 

Lisa joined The Times in 1988 from the Des Moines Register, where she worked on the metro, national and foreign desks and in features. At The Times, she helped launch the national edition and worked in Metro and in Business before joining Calendar in 2000.

Russ Stanton
Editor

Colleagues:

I’m pleased to announce that Sean Gallagher, managing editor of latimes.com, will fill the masthead-level position of managing editor/online, effective immediately.
 
Sean has played a key role in the growth and continued improvement of our website, including overseeing the recent redesign that has won much acclaim from our readers and industry colleagues. In his new position, Sean will be responsible for the overall reader experience on latimes.com and the rest of our nearly dozen other digital efforts, which we will continue to expand.

He will work closely with section editors and his colleagues on the masthead, particularly Jon Thurber, managing editor/print, to ensure that the needs of the paper and the site are being met and that our coverage on these platforms is complementary. This includes coordinating and implementing the daily news and features report for our online readers, supervising the large and talented team of your colleagues who produce latimes.com, and helping with the continued integration of our print and Web efforts.

Over his 16-year career, Sean has mastered virtually every facet of online publishing, whether running a news report, producing home pages and building new sections, or working with sales, marketing and IT to develop new products. He joined latimes.com in 2006 as an associate editor; in that job, he helped coordinate the news report and then oversaw the expansion of the Health and Business sections online.

In the three years since, Sean has worked with almost everyone in the newsroom, educating and training staffers about the workings and wonders of the Web, helping with the integration of the print and Web staffs, and finding solutions to vexing technological problems. He also was a member of the Reinvent Committee, formed in 2007 to recommend improvements to the paper during this period of rapid change.

Before joining The Times, Sean was Web director of sddt.com, the website of the San Diego Daily Transcript, where he ran the daily news report. He previously spent more than five years at nytimes.com, where, among other things, he rebuilt and then ran the Science and Health sections and was a producer on the home page. He also worked at the Village Voice as a researcher and at Scholastic Books as a production editor.

Sean is a 1993 graduate of Fordham University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in media studies with a focus on print journalism.

Russ Stanton
Editor

Meredith Artley, Managing Editor, Online, addressed several often-asked questions last Thursday. Two of those questions have persisted: Why did the “print edition” option disappear, and “where is California news?” More information on those and other questions readers have asked over the last few days is below.

• Where is California news?
That question comes in still, even after Artley answered Thursday to say that “by clicking ‘Local’ in the navigation bar ... you will find continuous coverage there, including our breaking news blog, LA Now, other daily coverage and recent special projects.”

Reader Wayne Dernetz is one who probed more: “But that says nothing about coverage of state political news. Is the L.A. Times cutting back on its Sacramento Bureau?  Egads, I hope not.”  The response from Assistant Managing Editor, California, David Lauter: “You can reassure readers on the state news issue, and particularly the reader who asked about Sacramento: The Times recently added another reporter to our Sacramento bureau, and we have plans to expand the bureau further in the fall as we continue to ensure that we provide our readers -- in print and online -- with the best, timeliest and most authoritative coverage of California government and politics. We've grouped all that coverage as part of "local" because California's local and state institutions are so intertwined.”

• Add more space to the left margin!
Editors say they’ll be adding more space to the left margin.

• Bring back the single-page button.
Readers have asked, editors have answered: The option to read a story on one page is coming back as soon as possible.

• I don’t like having to resize the font every time I change pages.
A number of readers have made this clear; editors are working on possible solutions.

• I’m having trouble finding one place to go to find out what’s in the print edition. Did that link disappear?

The “print edition” option as it existed doesn’t exist anymore, and editors aren’t planning on bringing it back. As online editors put it, it was a form of organizing the news -- by print section -- that doesn’t work as well online.

As the information at www.latimes.com/printedition explains, almost all articles from the print edition of the Los Angeles Times do appear at latimes.com. Subscribers to the print edition are able to sign up for the e-edition for free. (And in any case, the front-page PDF is free, at the link above). You can find more information about the e-edition at http://eedition.latimes.com/newsstand/main.

• Two Sports questions

Please provide a link for major-league soccer.

OK, readers asking for a link to MLS didn't always say "please."

Sports Editor Mike James says that even before the redesign, there wasn’t a separate MLS listing for Sports. Says James: “We have a listing for the Galaxy, one for Chivas USA, and one for Soccer. All of which go to the soccer page, which incorporates those teams, MLS news and international soccer news.”

James says that editors are working on the horizontal navigation bar at the top of the page; space limitations mean editors are juggling what ultimately will end up there. For now, the link to soccer is located in the More Topics box in the right-hand column beneath the scoreboard and ad.

Where is the daily TV sports schedule?
It's been fixed since the question first came in. From Sports editors: “The TV Listing, or daily highlights as we call it, is now in the More Topics box in the right rail, below the Scoreboard and Cube Ad."

• Where can I find Column One?
To get to Column One, click on "Site Map" at the bottom of the homepage. You’ll find the link for Column One in the left column of the Site Map page. Here is a quick link: http://www.latimes.com/news/columnone/
 
• The “My News” feature – where did it go?
It was, relatively speaking, very rarely used, and has been discontinued. (Editors weren’t keeping it updated recently and actually were surprised to hear from a few readers on this feature.)

• Where can I find Fry’s, or garage sales, or other newspaper ads?
Display ads can be found in the print ad section, which is accessible from the site map (a link to which can be found lower right on the homepage,  just above the ink splotch):

http://latimes.p2ionline.com/shoppingchannel/rop/

To search for classified ads (garage sales, pets, etc.), readers should click on “More Classified” at the very top right.  That gets them to the classified search page.

John Cherwa, who was deputy sports editor to Bill Dwyre from 1990 to 1995 before leaving to become sports editor of the Chicago Tribune, is returning to The Times as deputy sports editor. John will have a variety of duties that will include developing multimedia strategies, working on investigations and projects, helping to run the daily operation of the section and directing the department in my absence.

Many of you will remember John from his days in Southern California; he began at The Times in 1980 in the Orange County Edition, becoming sports editor there before moving downtown. He worked tirelessly through the 1984 Olympics in L.A. and was the architect of our expansive and award-winning coverage of the soccer World Cup in 1994. John is a past president of the Associated Press Sports Editors, has won several APSE awards for sections, news reporting and investigative reporting and was editor of the year at the paper in 1995. He left Chicago for the Orlando Sentinel in 2002 and, among other duties, has been the sports coordinator for Tribune papers and in charge of special projects in Orlando since then. His role as Tribune coordinator will continue to be an important one for him in L.A. We’re fortunate to get him back. And by the way, for those of you who don’t know John, the ‘w’ in his last name is pronounced as a ‘v.’
 
Also, Houston Mitchell, an outstanding member of the Sports copy desk since 1998, will be moving to the Sports staff as an assistant sports editor. Houston will help with web production and the creation of interactive features for the website, take over responsibility of the Fabulous Forum sports blog and assume line-editing duties as well.
  
Houston has worked his way up since starting at The Times in 1991 as a desk assistant and has become a reliable sounding board for reporters during his time on the copy desk. He is a creative and thoughtful editor who has been responsible for creating many of the charts that provide important added value to our stories.

John and Houston will begin their new positions the week of Aug. 30.

Less than 24 hours ago we launched a new latimes.com. We’ve been reading the feedback very closely, including comments on this journal, on Twitter and via regular old e-mail.

The majority of the feedback is positive, which is music to our ears. There are also some vocal voices who prefer the old site. We appreciate hearing from so many savvy readers who care about news presentation, design and navigation. Here are the most common complaints and what we are doing about them:

I can’t find the crossword puzzle/Sudoku…
You can find both in the black navigation bar at the top of every page in the “Games” section, which is available under the “More” tab. We also added it as the last item under “Living” in the text navigation at the bottom of every page.

Where are the obits?
A link to the obituaries section can be found in both the local and national sections. And we added it to the text navigation at the very bottom of every page, under “News.”

Where is the print edition?
Virtually all stories that appear in the printed version of The Times continue to be found on the site. An image of page one of the newspaper is updated daily at latimes.com/print. At that link, you can also find home delivery information and links to the e-edition, Kindle services and archive search services.

Where is California and local news?
You can find our outstanding local coverage by clicking “Local” in the navigation bar. You will find continuous coverage there, including our breaking news blog, LA Now, other daily coverage and recent special projects.

Meredith Artley
Managing Editor, Online
Los Angeles Times

Welcome to the new latimes.com.
 
We’re bringing you a site that’s easier to read and use and that better showcases the world-class journalism our newsroom produces around the clock. 

Thanks to your frequent visits, latimes.com has seen unparalleled growth among top newspaper sites over the last year. We’re breaking more news than ever on latimes.com; we’ve expanded our blog network; we’re publishing more stunning visual, interactive journalism; and we have savvy readers like you contributing to conversations.

And now you can find all that and more in a cleaner, crisper, more innovative site. 

Key changes include:

- Streamlined navigation at the top of every page, highlighting our main coverage areas such as local news, sports and entertainment. The idea is to make it easier to get around the site from wherever you are.

- Right below the black navigation bar, you’ll see topics “In the News.” Here, you’ll find quick access to big stories we are following, whether it’s the state budget or the Emmys or coverage of unrest in Iran.

- Our new modular approach to the homepage means you can quickly find and access multimedia packages of the news of most interest to you. Scroll down the page, and you’ll see features including the award-winning investigative coverage of “Mexico Under Siege,” excerpts from popular blog posts and columns, top headlines from well-read sections and interactive databases such as Mapping L.A.

- Our video player has improved, with faster-loading video and more sharing features.

- We’ve simplified our articles, making them easier to scroll without interruption from related content or advertising. We’ve enhanced our article-sharing features as well to include more seamless interaction with social-networking sites and the ability to send articles to instant-messaging services and mobile devices.

- Design aficionados will note that we have gone from a sans-serif font (Arial) to a serif font (Georgia). Not only did we find that this was a more readable font, but we also felt it connected to our overall brand much better. 

For more details on what’s new, check out our site tour.
 
Our work is not done. We approached this redesign as another step in the evolution of the Los Angeles Times, as a building block for more things to come. 
 
Thanks for supporting the work we do by visiting us and engaging and interacting with the site. As always, your feedback is welcome in the comments below or by e-mailing readers.rep@latimes.com.

-- Meredith Artley, managing editor, online,
Russ Stanton, editor

[Updated: Artley answered some reader questions in a follow-up post Thursday.]

Colleagues: Latimes.com drew 142 million page views in July – up 10% over this time last year. And we had more than 23 million unique users, an increase of 27% from last year. Visits from local readers continue to grow at a solid pace of 30% year over year.
 
Some incredible work this month, including the launch of an ongoing video Q&A with Harriet Ryan and Andrew Blankstein on the evolving story of Michael Jackson’s death. Also, look at this slick, in-depth, interactive timeline on Jackson’s life.
 
In addition to the Metro team’s insightful coverage of the tragic and untimely death of young Lily Burk, there is this timeline tracing the criminal history of Charles Samuel through court and prison documents.   
 

Top blogs for July:
Another great month for blogs – total page views were 18.5 million, just shy of last month’s record. Tony Pierce has reached his dream of having five blogs with 1 million page views in a month. So we’ll just have to raise the bar now and go for 10 blogs…
 
1. L.A. Now -- 3,969,640 page views
2. Dish Rag -- 2,443,817
3. Hero Complex -- 1,221,290
4. Top of the Ticket -- 1,201,914
5. Lakers -- 1,051,629
6. Pop & Hiss     
7. Show Tracker
8. Travel - Daily Deal
9. Gold Derby
10. Booster Shots            
11. Fabulous Forum        
12. Dodger Thoughts      
13. Technology 
14. Company Town
15. Culture Monster
16. All the Rage 
17. L.A. Unleashed          
18. Big Picture   
19. Jacket Copy 
20. Up to Speed 
 
 
 
Most-viewed articles:
1. LAX parking lot is home away from home for airline workers (By Dan Weikel)
2. Republican pundits open fire on Sarah Palin (By Mark Z. Barabak)
3. Jani at the mercy of her mind (By Shari Roan)
4. Collision of 2 L.A. worlds may have led to girl's death (By Richard Winton, Ari B. Bloomekatz and Joel Rubin)
5. Opposition to state budget deal mounts (By Michael Rothfeld and Patrick McGreevy)
6. More bodies go unclaimed as families can't afford funeral costs (By Molly Hennessy-Fiske)
7. State IOUs loom as foes' battle lines harden (By Michael Rothfeld and Shane Goldmacher)
8. Girl, 17, found slain in car near downtown L.A. (By Margot Roosevelt and Ruben Vives)
9. Fox 11's Jillian Reynolds untouched as layoffs lay waste to the TV station's staff (By James Rainey)
10. Michael Jackson's children come out of the shadows (By Chris Lee)
 
 
 
Most-viewed photo galleries:
1. Megan Fox's worst pictures
2. Remembering Michael Jackson
3. Michael Jackson | 1958-2009
4. Scene at Comic-Con International 2009
5. Bizarre and unusual destinations around the world
6. Fans mourn Michael Jackson
7. Mischa Barton's mysterious meltdown
8. Behind the gates at Neverland
9. The Image Photo Booth: Comic-Con 2009
10. In Europe, 63 destinations off the beaten path
 
Social media highlights:
 
- Stats: We have more than 300,000 followers across 170+ twitter accounts. We now have more @latimes Twitter 'followers' than breaking email news alert subscribers.
 
- The majority of the newsroom is active on at least one social network (eg, Facebook, LinkedIn) or social media site (eg, Twitter and social news sites like Digg). If you haven’t joined the party yet, talk to Andrew Nystrom.

- After search engines, social sites are #2 type of traffic referrer to LAT.com.

That’s it. Back to the redesign.

Meredith Artley
Managing Editor, Online

 http://www.latimes.com/mjvideo
 
http://www.latimes.com/mjtimeline

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-ho-props-ss,0,4821994.htmlstory
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-charlessamuel-timeline,0,7810737.htmlstory

Rutenberg's letter to the editor started out, "I've been a fan of the Farmer's Market for 52 years, so I loved the story. But c'mon guys! The people of this town are 'Angelenos' not LOS Angelenos. It's one thing when out-of-towners blow it, but it's an insult when the hometown paper can't even get it right."

By the time Henry Fuhrmann saw that e-mail forwarded from the letters department, he'd already fielded some internal complaints along the same lines. Fuhrmann is the assistant managing editor who oversees the copy editors, those responsible for writing the headlines.

To answer several people's questions: Yes, the editor who wrote the headline is from Los Angeles, not another town, say, Chicago.

(For what it's worth, the discussion isn't new, and there isn’t necessarily consensus. Back in 1985, another beloved institution, Jack Smith, wrote in his column, "I am an Angeleno. You are an Angeleno. We are Angelenos, not Los Angelenos." That was in response to a reader indignant that a headline said "Angelenos," rather than "Los Angelenos.")

As for reader Rutenberg's complaint, Fuhrmann said in an e-mail: "I also found the use of 'Los Angeleno' odd, as did a few newsroom colleagues and friends outside The Times. In fairness to our headline writer, I will note that our dictionary lists 'Los Angeleno' as an acceptable term. A search of our clips shows that 225 other stories have used the term or its plural since 1985, so in that regard our writer -- a native Venturan, for the record -- was not alone. Nevertheless, 'Angeleno' wins out over “Los Angeleno” by a ratio of 35 to 1 in past stories, and I’m all for the wisdom of the crowd prevailing here. I will caution our copy desk to avoid 'Los Angeleno' except in direct quotations, the names of works of art or other contexts in which we typically do not change someone else’s wording."

Photo: People, possibly even Angelenos, celebrate the Farmers Market's 75th anniversary last month. Credit: Spencer Weiner/Los Angeles Times

Citing the headline and other language in the article as examples of The Times' "consistent shading of the news," reader Alan Frank of Glendale opened up an e-mail exchange with National Editor Roger Smith.

The article started with this line: "Republicans' unflinching opposition Tuesday to Judge Sonia Sotomayor drew a partisan line in the sand, signaling that any future Obama nominees to the Supreme Court are unlikely to win significant GOP support even if they have solid legal credentials and moderate records."

"Just give us the facts," say numerous e-mails from readers who say they see bias. Smith and Frank's back-and-forth is an example of how editors struggle to frame a breaking news story in a broader, analytical context, and how some readers see opinion in the resulting coverage.

Wrote Frank: "I continue to be intrigued regarding the tone of the headlines and the definite word nuances that appear within the articles. In today's front page report on the Judge Sotomayor confirmation proceeding, the references to 'partisan lines in the sand' and 'Republicans' unflinching opposition' to her made me wonder how you described the unanimous vote against Judge Alito a few years ago. I sure wish I remembered whether the same kinds of words were used to describe the proceedings. Could it be that the Republicans who voted against her just did not agree with some of her decisions? Why not just report the facts on the front page and leave the paper's biases to the opinion section?" 

In responding, Smith acknowledged the need to balance news with fresh but accurate context:

"The tone of the article was the result of some serious haggling among the editors and writers. We knew that the news of the day, the vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee, had been on the airwaves and in the Internet for many hours. We asked ourselves what can we bring to the breakfast table that puts this in a little perspective?
 
"We try hard not to let 'perspective' slip into opinion, although I know reasonable people disagree on this point. In this case we felt that the nature of the vote spoke to the way partisanship had gripped the nomination process (fourth paragraph). In support of that point, we noted how the Democrats had voted unanimously to oppose Alito three years ago despite his long and solid record (fifth paragraph).

"All that said we hope to keep the news pages for news, and I hope you keep reading, and writing."

The reader wrote to say he appreciated the response, and went on:  "I like the idea of 'what else can be brought to the breakfast table,' but I still would like the added value to be the facts ... please let me fill in the blanks. You appropriately noted the Democrats voted against Alito ... those were the facts. You stuck to the facts without any adjectives. [But] you added a lot of flair to the Republicans' vote against Sotomayor as you included words like 'unflinching' and 'partisanship,' clearly setting a different tone than your factual description of the Alito vote.

"I appreciate how difficult your job is, but just know that your loyal subscribers care about what is being written and know that some of us really read the paper. Stick to the facts, the paper will be better off for it!"

And what of the comparison to coverage for Samuel A. Alito Jr. during his confirmation proceedings?

The article at the same point in the proceedings for Alito was published Jan. 25, 2006. The headline and deck read: "Senate Panel Backs Alito on Party-Line Vote: The full chamber will begin debate on the nominee today and its narrow approval could come this week. He could tilt court to right." The first two paragraphs: "The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday endorsed the Supreme Court nomination of Samuel A. Alito Jr. in a vote that split along party lines and highlighted disputes over his conservative judicial record.

"The full Senate will begin its debate on Alito today and a vote on his selection by President Bush to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor could come by the end of the week. Alito is expected to narrowly win confirmation and, as a justice, tilt the court to the right."

In essence, Smith says, the different coverage reflected, simply, the different circumstances. Wrote Smith: "I did take a quick look at the Senate Judiciary vote story on Alito, and we didn’t describe the Democrats as unflinching, etc. The notion of the partisan divide was a little fresh then. We thought the Sotomayor vote more or less cemented it, hence the stronger analytical tone. But the point the reader makes is debated in the newsroom story by story every day. We want to bring value added, but are we getting ahead of the facts? Can we say this? I really like hearing from people like Mr. Frank because it informs our process and reminds us of our duties."   

We are pleased to name Scott Sandell as the morning entertainment editor for the Calendar and Company Town operations. In this newly created position, Scott will give us an earlier jump on the news each day and improve coordination among Calendar, Company Town, the Web, the photo and graphics departments and the rest of the paper. Working a 7 a.m.-to-3:30 p.m. shift, Scott will scour the wires, papers and the blogosphere to put together our early morning coverage. He will be responsible for an internal memo that will be distributed to senior editors at 7:30 a.m. that gives a heads-up on stories moving to the Web and enterprise on deck for the day.

He will work with the entertainment Web producers and the film, television, music, arts, culture and Company Town editors and bloggers to ensure that breaking news is posted online quickly, budgets are updated, we are promoting our wares on Twitter and Facebook and we are identifying fresh angles on hot topics. As the main liaison between the print and the Web operation, Scott also will make sure that stories developed for the paper have elements that maximize their impact online. He will continue to scout the blogs for items that can be adapted for print.

Scott joined the paper in 1993 as an intern and worked as a reporter and a copy editor in the Business, South Bay and Calendar sections.  After a stint in the Valley, he moved to Calendar, where he eventually became copy chief. In 2003, Scott joined the assigning editing ranks, serving first in Home and then Calendar Weekend and The Guide. Most recently, he has been a deputy editor for daily and Sunday Calendar, taking an active role in the Culture Monster blog and in spearheading Calendar’s reverse-publishing efforts. 

Scott has a bachelor’s degree in German and accounting and a master’s in journalism, all from USC. Last year, he spent a month studying Chinese in Dalian, China. In his spare time, he plays hockey (see the skate on his desk), studies Mandarin and attempts to make dinner for his girlfriend, Kim Sim, an attorney.

Please join us in wishing Scott well in his new assignment and doing all that you can to make him a success!

Victor Garcia of Bakersfield was among several readers asking about the July 22 photo published online only with a Business article about the booming economy in the high desert city of Ridgecrest. He wondered if the image had been altered, noting “I don't think you can see the road with all the houses at the top of  the photo. (College Heights Blvd.) from Las Flores, the light signal next to the Toyota dealership (the Toyota dealership is actually further south)  There is an Enterprise Rent-A-Car and a Speedy Lube at the corner of Las Flores and China Lake Blvd. It could just be the way the photo was taken, but it may be worth looking into.”

All such inquiries are worth looking into, and editors did so in this case. It was taken with a long lens, which, as photographer Mark Boster said in an e-mail to the reader, "compresses the view."

This inquiry is one of a growing number of questions that come in about the authenticity of published photos. Other images questioned this year include one of actress Anne Hathaway (someone thought she was too unrealistically ugly) and a picture of a member of the Taliban (readers thought he looked too nice).

One particularly adamant questioning of another photograph published earlier this year came from an online reader who said she teaches Photoshop at a continuing education department of a university in another state. Even after being assured by editors who investigated the original digital files, the reader was unconvinced that the image hadn't been manipulated.

In fact, in all such situations, editors peruse the originals and talk to the photographer to be able to assure readers the photos weren't doctored. Photographer Boster sent editors his original files, notes on where he took the shots -- and even an offer to go back to Ridgecrest to review the area. But this inquiry was a fairly open-and-shut case, says Deputy Director of Photography Calvin Hom, who added: "We seem to get queries whenever our photogs use long lens while shooting landscape. It's a technique that time and again seems to jolt the readers into thinking there's something wrong with the photos."

It’s not just use of long lenses that has readers asking questions. The increase in skepticism can be explained by several factors, including the fact that the growing number of people taking pictures, published now in an increasing number of places, brings with it a growing awareness of the ways in which images can be easily altered. Two more factors: a lack of editing rules at many places that publish photographs, and finally, as Hom says, "all the stories of ethical lapses by media publications -- including ours."

Whether readers remember or not the worst-case scenario at the L.A. Times -- when a photographer was fired in 2003 after manipulating a front-page image (a blow-by-blow description of the way the former staffer changed the image was published two days later) -- more readers than ever seem to send notes questioning, and challenging, the authenticity of photos.

In fact, that lapse and the ensuing action underscores the difference between The Times and many other sites where photographs are published: The Times' ethics guidelines state that photos cannot be digitally altered or otherwise manipulated. Times editors hold specific, stringent standards for accuracy, and take action if those directives to tell the truth aren't met.

A use of a long-lens in Orange County back in January 2001 brought questions for the same reason -- people familiar with the area couldn't figure out how those particular features appeared in one image. The caption noted that the photograph, which can be seen below, showed Mt. Baldy as well as a plane taking off from John Wayne Airport.

Boster's note back to readers, and to the readers' representative office, regarding the Ridgecrest photo, included this information: "The long lens compresses the view, which could confuse some people." Boster's e-mail continued (warning -- this will be of interest only to people familiar with photography): "It was shot with a 400mm lens with 2x converter (equals 800mm) on S. China Lake Blvd through Ridgecrest-looking south ... the picture is looking south down the main street. The picture was made with the following settings, 800mm lens at f/11, shot on ISO 400."

Boster wanted to "capture the city in one frame," so succeeded in taking a compressed view of the small desert town. He lamented that his photo might have caused confusion: "It is a photographic technique to compress as many visual elements as possible into a frame. Unless our readers have an 800mm lens it is doubtful they might have noticed the perspective afforded photographers with the fancy lenses."

The "fancy lenses" create pictures that can be both beautiful and more informative. But if they create questions, too, it might be worth telling readers in a few words in the caption. In this case, says Colin Crawford, deputy managing editor for visuals, the caption could have used a few extra words: “taken with a long lens.”

Photos: (top) A view of China Lake Boulevard in the city of Ridgecrest. Credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times. (bottom) The original caption on this photograph, published in January 2001, read, in part: "On a clear day, you can see Mt. Baldy as well as John Wayne Airport takeoffs from Upper Newport Bay." Credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times

I come bearing sad news. Richard Rushfield, entertainment editor for latimes.com, has been wooed away by Gawker.

Richard is perhaps best known for covering a little TV show called "American Idol" like no one else, bringing unique coverage and discussion of a popular culture juggernaut to latimes.com. But that’s just one part of his legacy – his leadership and contributions to our online entertainment effort are countless and something that our talented team of producers and editors will continue to build upon.

Richard’s last day is Aug. 4. Please join me in thanking/kicking him in the meantime. We will miss him, and even though we thought we’d never say it, we’ll miss that green plaid jacket.

Meredith Artley

Managing Editor, Online

Mike James, deputy sports editor for the past three years, is our news sports editor, effective today.

Mike has been instrumental in maintaining our award-winning Sports section in print while expanding its reach to the Web and beyond. He was an early convert to working in other media, having spent 2000 to 2002 as coordinating producer for Foxsports.com and then on the television side as executive editor of Fox Sports Net. Mike has drawn on those experiences in managing the ongoing transition of The Times’ Sports section to a multimedia operation.

He joined The Times in 1985, supervising daily sports coverage of the Orange County edition as an assistant sports editor. He moved downtown in 1989 as a news editor and later was promoted to assistant sports editor and then senior assistant sports editor. After leaving Fox, Mike returned to The Times as senior copy chief. He was named deputy sports editor in April 2006. He also has written extensively for The Times, primarily on golf.

Mike began his newspaper career as a sportswriter for the Burlington Free Press, where he worked from 1978 to 1981 before moving to the Hartford Courant, where he ran the sports desk. He has a BA in psychology, which has served him well in newspaper management.

Of course, no announcement involving Sports would be complete without a statistic, so here’s this: Mike is only the seventh editor of The Times’ Sports section since 1928.

Russ Stanton
Editor 

[Updated at 4:28 p.m.: Reader David asked what happened to the previous sports editor. A post earlier this month noted that former Sports Editor Randy Harvey had assumed new duties.] 

Bring back various cities.

Editors are considering readers' requests to reinstate certain cities (though adding one means another will have to be removed).

• For readers bemoaning the loss of Colorado Springs, Colo., in the listings, editors note that the city is between two cities still listed (Denver and Pueblo) and say Colorado Springs’ temperatures aren’t too far off from those cities.
• Mission Viejo is still on the map, though not on the list; editors say they’ll add it to the list again (making it one of the few cities that is on both the list and map).

Bring back the daily high-low precipitation column in the U.S. and World lists.

• The list of California cities still shows information for yesterday, today and tomorrow, but  U.S. and World lists now show only today and tomorrow. Editors cut the “yesterday” column figuring Southern California travelers would rather know what to expect on the day they arrive than what happened the day before. They’re thinking of resurrecting the column of information (but it would mean the loss of the forecast information for tomorrow.)

Font size:

• Some say the typeface is too small, but one reader thought fonts should be made smaller to fit in more text. Graphics editor Les Dunseith says that the font sizes are the same as before. (And the text for the listings section is the smallest option available.)

More changes based on readers' requests: 

• “I think we may be able to squeeze Ventura County sunrise/moonrise info back onto the page,” says Dunseith. “We also think we’ve figured out a way to fit tiny versions of the phases of the moon on the page.”

These tweaks and other fixes based on readers' suggestions should start showing up in the paper within the next few days. Editors can be reached at yyweather@latimes.com.

Colleagues:

Claire Noland, deputy obituary editor, is being named Obituary Editor, effective immediately. She will manage the day-to-day operations and planning of our obituary department, supervising a writing and editing staff of four.

Claire joined the department as deputy editor in January 2006, and her strong editing skills and keen news judgment have served the department well. In addition, she has honed her latent writing skills, contributing dozens of highly readable obituaries on a range of topics.

Previously, Claire spent 11 years in Sports, where she worked as an assignment editor overseeing both short- and long-range coverage planning. She also served as sports copy chief, after having been hired as a copy editor and news editor. She returned to Sports last year to work as an editor at the Beijing Olympics.

Before joining The Times, Claire worked as a sports copy editor at the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Los Angeles Daily News. She began her journalism career as a copy editor at the Antelope Valley Press.
Claire was born and raised in Lancaster, has a bachelor’s degree in English from Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles and did graduate work at UC Riverside.

She will report to Managing Editor Jon Thurber.

Russ Stanton
Editor

Colleagues: Our strong, swift coverage of major events in the past month attracted a record-breaking 26 million unique users to our site. That’s up 50% over June 2008. Those 26 million users generated more than 155 million page views, 30% growth over last year. Visits from our local audience grew 30% over this time last year, a good sign that more of our immediate community is turning to us for local news as well as stories in our backyard that have a national or global impact. Speaking of...

Our coverage of Michael Jackson’s tragic death continues to be the most insightful and most thorough anywhere. Our nimble, well-sourced team continues to break news daily on L.A. Now. The photo galleries, which are being constantly updated, have drawn millions of page views. We’ll be launching a few impressive interactive features in the coming weeks as the story unfolds and becomes more complex. We set a new daily record for page views the day Jackson died.

It’s important to note that our coverage of the Jackson story is not the sole reason for this readership leap.

During the height of the crisis that grew out of the Iran elections, readers flocked to Babylon & Beyond to read a constant stream of updates around the clock from Borzou Daragahi in Tehran, Alexandra Zavis and Amber Smith here in L.A. and Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo. Borzou's story of “Neda” was particularly well-read and commented upon.

Readers also came to us for coverage of Farrah Fawcett’s death -- the obituary, appreciations and galleries were all of great interest.

And a hometown team won the NBA finals in the past month --  readers flocked to us for the coverage that included fast-paced staff updates during game time, sharp analysis, live blogging and chats, outstanding photo galleries and video analysis.
 
What a month.

What’s next? We’re throwing a lot of energy at the site redesign, launching in mid-July. Much more to come on this.

Top blogs
Blogs reached a new record – more than 18 million page views across our blog network. That’s 100% growth compared to last year, and 10x the growth from June 2007. Incredible.

1.  L.A. Now* -- 5,708,961 page views
2.  Dish Rag -- 2,668,729
3.  Show Tracker -- 928,069
4.  Gold Derby -- 915,671
5.  Pop & Hiss* -- 825,420
6.  Lakers             
7.  Top of the Ticket         
8.  Fabulous Forum           
9.  Hero Complex              
10.  Technology  
11.  Company Town*        
12.  Dodger Thoughts       
13.  Culture Monster         
14.  Daily Travel & Deal  
15.  L.A. Unleashed          
16.  Comments Blog          
17.  Babylon & Beyond*  
18.  Outposts       
19.  Money & Co.              
20.  Big Picture   

Asterisks denote new records.
 
Most-viewed articles
1. Michael Jackson dead at 50 (By Harriet Ryan, Chris Lee, Andrew Blankstein and Scott Gold)
2. More porn HIV cases disclosed (By Kimi Yoshino and Rong-Gong Lin II)
3. Michael Jackson’s life was infused with fantasy and tragedy (By Geoff Boucher and Elaine Woo)
4. She finally has a home: Harvard (By Esmeralda Bermudez)
5. North Korean labor camps a ghastly prospect for U.S. journalists (By John M. Glionna)
6. Obama to propose strict new regulation of financial industry (By Jim Puzzanghera)
7. Porn actress tests positive for HIV (By Rong-Gong Lin II and Kimi Yoshino)
8. Family, friends mourn ‘Neda,’ Iranian woman who died on video (By Borzou Daragahi)
9. My dad saved me, and I killed him (By Richard Farrell)
10. Porn star recalls nightmare of testing HIV positive (By Rong-Gong Lin II)
 
 
Most-viewed photo galleries for June
1. Michael Jackson | 1958-2009
2. Fans mourn Michael Jackson
3. Lakers courtside: Celebrities at Staples
4. Road trips from SoCal
5. Lakers parade and rally
6. Michael Jackson: Life in pictures
7. Farrah Fawcett: 1947-2009
8. Bizarre and unusual destinations
9. Air France crash
10. Police disperse thousands as celebrations turn ugly after Lakers’ NBA Finals win
 

Lastly, check out these social media highlights from Andrew Nystrom:

The primary L.A. Times Twitter audience (http://twitter.com/latimes) increased by 10% within a few hours of L.A. Now and Nita’s @latimescitydesk account (http://twitter.com/latimescitydesk) confirming Michael Jackson’s death; readership just surpassed 30,000 followers and now outpaces breaking e-mail alert subscribers.

In video news, Mark Milian’s eyewitness interviews with Michael Jackson fans at Detroit’s Motown Museum drew 500,000 streams and 4,000+ comments on http://latimes.com/youtube within 48 hours of posting: http://bit.ly/HVdoJ

Michael Muskal grew his Twitter audience by more than 20% by live-twittering Obama news conference and other major events; he reports this process flows nicely into his early blog posts and web-first news stories.

Andrew Malcolm and Top of the Ticket has surpassed 23,000 followers on http://twitter.com/latimestot. Our 169 LAT-related accounts are fast approaching 200,000 followers in aggregate.

Next up? More Facebook fan pages for columnists and reporters – the main LAT Facebook page now has more than 2,400 fans and its own “vanity” URL: http://facebook.com/latimes (or, if you prefer, http://latimes.com/facebook)

That’s it. Thanks for reading and thanks to those of you -- so many -- for continued great work that resonates with our readers.

Meredith Artley
Managing Editor, Online

The line in question: "Two senior Los Angeles Times editors were given new responsibilities Thursday as part of an effort to create a 24-hour newsroom serving multiple mediums."

"Mediums? Individuals through whom others seek to communicate with the dead? Do you even have a copy desk these days?" Aker wrote, wondering if this apparent goof reflected "the downward spiral of the quality of your newspaper."

(Aker wasn't alone in seeing the specter of psychics in that phrase. On Friday Alan Mutter's Reflections of a Newsosaur blog had a post featured an exchange about the word.)

In fact, Times copy editors put some consideration into using "mediums" (the word, not the psychics). Henry Fuhrmann, who oversees style and grammar in the newsroom, explained in a note to Aker.

Here's the gist of the note that explain the editors' thinking:

The dictionary that The Times uses (Webster’s New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition) lists "mediums" ahead of "media" as the plural of "medium" in general usage.  Fuhrmann says that he and others were aware Saturday when editing the story that "media" is the more widely used term (and that furthermore the dictionary suggests "media" when referring to means of communication). And he acknowledges that using “mediums” varied from The Times' stylebook (which says, "One kind is a medium of communication: newspapers, magazines, radio, television. Its plural is media. Other kinds of medium form a plural by adding "s": happy mediums, psychic mediums."). Still, in this case, says Fuhrmann, he and others were considering the newspaper, The Times' website, Facebook, Twitter and so forth each as a discrete medium; they didn’t want to lump them together as the mass media. That’s why the word choice made sense to editors. 
 
Ultimately, added Fuhrmann: "Here, as in other recent cases we've discussed, the rules work nearly all of the time for nearly all of us, but our dictionary, our stylebook and common sense should allow for some flexibility now and again." And, he concludes, "Of course, it's possible I'm wrong."

Aker responded too: "Although I still disagree with their decision, and the rationale they used, it was good to learn that at least there was some discussion about which word to use.
 
"I consulted several dictionaries and stylebooks before sending my comments and came to the opposite conclusion. Although the website, the print edition, Facebook, Twitter, etc. are each their own medium, I would 'lump them together as the mass media.' The choice of 'mediums' still does not make sense to me, in fact, their reasoning puzzles me, but, again, the editors involved deserve credit for at least recognizing that some readers might not agree with their choice."

(The map above was used by editors in determining which cities to keep on the weather page.)

The weather page will be streamlined starting Sunday, and there are changes as well to the Sunday comics. Both moves are to being made to save newsprint.

Details on changes to the Sunday comics pages are below.

About the weather pages, graphics department editor Les Dunseith says the news, information and listings that used to take up almost a whole page will now be fit on half a page.

In carrying out the cuts, Dunseith said, a decision was made to keep the focus on California. The lists of temperatures and conditions continues for 73 California cities (four were deleted); cuts were made mostly in the lists of U.S. cities (77 U.S. will be listed, down from 93) and  international cities (37 remain; 43 were dropped).  Some other features, including diving conditions and phases of the moon, were eliminated. (Those and more, of course, can still be found online.)

In choosing what to keep and what to cut, editors consulted census data and researched population trends.

Of the California cities listed, editors looked for overlap with the map that will also show cities and temperatures. The four places that ended up being cut from the page completely (Blythe, Mt. Wilson, Rialto, Santa Rosa) were either small in population or close enough to listed cities that the weather information was essentially the same. Editors kept representative locations where temperature or precipitation extremes are often noted in news stories (Woodland Hills, Barstow, Big Bear Lake, etc.)

To decide which national cities to keep, editors checked a graphic from 2007 (shown above) that showed U.S. regions from which California residents have moved or where Californians’ family members are most likely to have relocated. (The map was based primarily on IRS data.) That’s one reason the list tends to skew a bit toward the West and Northeast, with fewer cities from the Southeast and Upper Midwest.

To choose international cities, editors used census data showing the native countries of SoCal residents, and they tried to retain locations with large local immigrant populations. (That’s one reason a larger percentage of Asian cities than Canadian cities remains.)

Dunseith says the graphics department worked hard for a design that would be elegant and logical: "The ultimate goal was to make the information as helpful and useful for as many people as possible despite the smaller footprint." Readers can send their reactions and suggestions to yyweather@latimes.com.

On the comics front, here’s the word from Assistant Managing Editor Alice Short.

“Starting July 5, The Times will print its Sunday comics and other family-oriented fare in six, rather than eight, pages. This reconfiguration is being done to reduce costs -- in this case, newsprint. Nonetheless, I’m happy to report that Michael Whitley, the Times assistant managing editor for design, has skillfully redesigned the pages in a manner that has allowed us to retain every cartoon except ‘Undertown’ and ‘Stone Soup.’ The Kids’ Reading Room, kids’ book reviews and the kids’ crossword puzzle will continue as well. The daily comics pages will remain the same."

Short says reader comments are welcome at comics@latimes.com.