In an memo to staff on Wednesday (first posted at LAObseved), Jon Landman, the paper’s deputy managing editor, promised a real estate blog by Damon Darlin in a few days and said more blogs were in the works. Even more “are at the idea stage,” he said. Noting that the paper has “come late to blogging” (trailing the Washington Post at a great distance, for example), he nevertheless declared, “Nothing is more important to the future of our web ambitions than to engage our sophisticated readers. Blogs are one way to do it.”

Still, he added, they “make some newspaper people nuts; they’re partisan, the thinking goes, and unfair and mean-spirited and sloppy about facts. Newspapers make some bloggers nuts; they think we’re dull and slow and pompous and jealous guardians of unearned ‘authority.’”

The new blog is Carpetbagger and it’s a temporary affair:

The Carpetbagger is a daily blog designed to run the length of the Oscar season. The gesture is one of a bulletin board about Oscar coverage and will not be in the handicapping business, in part because you would be well advised to listen closely to any of my predictions and then go the other way as fast as possible. (If no one knows anything in Hollywood, that must mean I know less.) The Academy Awards are preceded by a campaign that everyone pretends is not a campaign: screenings, mentions, and minor awards are all major elements of an ineffable process that can lead to over-the-top speeches and riches beyond imagination, or at least enough legs for robust DVD sales. The Carpetbagger is designed to examine those glitzy folkways as they unfurl, and to have some laughs along the way.

It seems pretty light and breezy but does manage a bit of investigation of its own from time to time. On Spielberg’s Munich exclusive with Time:

Pesky cynics have suggested that director Steven Spielberg granted Time the one and only interview in what has been a stealth campaign on behalf of the movie in return for cover placement and some editorial love. The Carpetbagger reached Time magazine managing editor Jim Kelly in Dubai – don’t ask; well okay, we sent him an email, but still – and he said it went like this: “I’d been hearing great buzz, but I hear great buzz about a lot of films. In this case, I had great interest in the topic, and was very curious how Spielberg would handle it,” he wrote. “We pushed to see it early, and the folks who saw it thought it was terrific, so I decided we should make it the cover.” The lavish licking of Mr. Spielberg’s legacy (alliteration is the crutch of the uninspired writer) could bring plenty of normal human beings in those middle places into the theater, but that is not what puts one’s grasping hands around the base of a golden artifact. However, many folks in the Academy in Los Angeles saw “Munich” this weekend at dedicated screenings, and there were second-hand reports of weeping, which is always a hopeful sign when it comes to statues.

Of course the problem with a mainstream newspaper blogger covering a topic like this is their willingness or ability to link to other mainstream competitors. I haven’t read it all but on a quick once over there are few links to TV show sites but I didn’t noticed any to the LA TImes or Washington Post! It’s early days.

Technorati Tags: blogging and journalism

First up are the reports that Mel Gibson may be the new favorite for replacing Arnie as governor of California. The Age reports that conservative Republicans are disappointed with Schwarzenegger’s move to the center and are hoping for a more gung-ho approach from Gibson. The story was sparked by the establishment of a Mel for Governor web site.

This is a made for media story: Terminator versus Mad Max. But there is probably not a lot to it with Gibson’s spokesperson pretty much dismissing the rumors. It does give way to this entertaining take in the LA Times:

I want ‘em both to run. I want a bruising Schwarzenegger versus Gibson primary. Even though I’m sick of Schwarzenegger’s script-twist speechifyings, how could I — how could anyone — resist the gladiatorial pas de deux of The Terminator versus The Patriot?

• Schwarzenegger wows Latino voters with his “Hasta la vista”; Gibson goes pre-Columbian — some lines in his new movie “Apocalypto” are in Mayan.

• No one chooses his father, but Schwarzenegger’s was a Nazi brownshirt, a storm trooper. Gibson’s is a renegade Catholic, part of a fringe splinter ideology that doesn’t believe the Holocaust happened and that no pope has been legally chosen in the last 40 years. And Gibson’s hugely successful “The Passion of the Christ” dipped into the old-time-religion poisoned well for its “Jews killed Christ” theology…

• When it comes to the death penalty, Schwarzenegger seems to be OK with lethal injection; I wonder whether Gibson would try to bring back the rack.

• Schwarzenegger has seven Mr. Olympia trophies. Gibson has two Oscars. Both are statues of naked guys, but Schwarzenegger’s are anatomically correct, and how.

• Schwarzenegger still owns Hummers, as far as I know; I saw “Road Warrior” — Gibson knows how to survive a gas crisis.

In other news a fascinating feature about the possibility of a Hillary versus Condi 2008 US Presidential race. This has been discussed before but is the subject of renewed speculation with the publication of a book on the subject by Dick Morris a former key Bill Clinton political adviser. One of the interesting aspects of the story is the way Hillary is deliberately building her presidential “brand”

Hillary Clinton has always wanted to be the first woman president of the US. Shortly after her husband’s election in 1992 the couple’s closest advisers discussed plans for her eventual succession after Bill’s second term. Things didn’t turn out quite that way, but her election to the Senate in 2000 gave her the national platform she needed to launch her new image – the “Hillary Brand” – and begin her long march back to the White House.

While this is another example of the clebrification of politics and the hyping of political news, the underlying possibilities of this story are wide reaching. If this race occurs, and it seems that it is becoming a more likely possibility, no matter who is the ultimate victor, the race itself would change the nature of American politics. The symbolic significance of two women – one of them black – running for the White House would shift the cultural center of politics. This is an example of how real issues of political importance – gender and diversity – can be negotiated even through a staged popular culture performance. We can’t just bemoan the lack of seriousness in current reporting, we have to also look at the new possibilities that are opened up by new styles of public culture.

Reports of her impending flight from “Today” to sign on as Dan Rather’s successor as evening-news anchor at CBS have dwarfed most other talk in the television-news business, even the official designation this week of Bob Woodruff and Elizabeth Vargas as the anchors of ABC’s newscast, succeeding the late Peter Jennings.

Rumors have floated out of CBS and elsewhere about potential offers of $20 million a year for seven years, and about some unusual window in Ms. Couric present contract that would allow CBS to snatch her up this month, long before her deal ends on May 31. But in an interview yesterday Ms. Couric herself dismissed most of that – especially the rumor of a contract window, which she said was false.

“Obviously my contract is up in May; that’s the one thing that is actually true,” she said. “I am in the process of figuring out what I want to do.”

She did not deny that CBS News might be in the mix of that decision. “I am really fortunate and flattered that I have some opportunities, a variety of opportunities,” she said. “I am trying to make a thoughtful decision while being in the middle of this media spotlight, which I am trying to ignore.”

Couric herself notes that “her personality” suits the Today show format, but maybe the changing nature of news also demands a new type of anchor:

“Every day I get jazzed about this show,” she said. And she acknowledged that “Today,” which asks her to take on roles as varied as interviewing victims of terrorist bombings and singing duets with Bette Midler, is a show that fits her many talents

“I do think my personality in many ways seems tailor-made for this format,” she said. But she added that she believed the broader television news business was changing. “People don’t want to see robo-anchors regurgitating whatever is on the teleprompter in front of them. They want people to be natural, people who feel things, who react to things.”

Those comments may be music to the ears of Leslie Moonves, the CBS chief executive, who has openly discussed his desire for a news anchor who would break the old “voice of God” model of network news.

So will she be getting “jazzed” for the CBS news and what might this mean. One satire site considers the possibilities:

Good evening. I am Katie Couric and here is tonight’s news.

Another car bomb went off in downtown Baghdad today, marking a further escalation in the violence that has plagued Iraq over the past two and a half years. There is still no official word on how survivors of the bombing feel about the upcoming Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes baby.

Ellen Gray from The Philadelphia Daily News asks whether Couric’s statement that she wants to be taken seriously as a journalist is compatible with her prospective $20million deal with CBS:

For all I know, Couric feels the same about her work, and views that $20 million as just a sign of respect, which is how many well-compensated people view their salaries, assuming they’re getting enough to pay the mortgage and care for their families decently.

The problem, though, is that $20 million starts to sound like real money, even in a business where they throw it around pretty freely….

Will it be the news-gathering capabilities of CBS News, an operation that’s at least as important to an anchor’s credibility as whether he or she dresses up for Halloween?

Or will it be Couric herself, who for $20 million a year might not be able to say no to CBS honcho Les Moonves’ apparent hopes for a brighter, more entertaining half-hour, one that’s probably not going to guarantee her a mention in the same breath with Walter Cronkite?

She speculates that perhaps Couric should negotiate down in terms of money but up in terms of control if she really wants to take on the mantle of “serious”. Gray ends with an amusing take on this:

Instead of demanding respect in the form of money, she could trade away a few million for control – and win real respect.

As they might say on those credit-card commercials:

“Reading the news a half-hour a night: $8 million.

“Contributing to ‘60 Minutes’: $5 million.

“Never having to interview another runaway bride or ‘reality’ show castoff: Priceless.”

For a long and serious look at the anchor wars check out David Blum’s recent New York Magazine feature and the Chicago Tribune’s take on Couric