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FeedThe News that Fits
EXTRA, EXTRA? With local circulation for The San Diego Union-Tribune in a precipitous decline, and tens of millions of dollars in estate taxes to pay following the death of matriarch Helen Copley, the Copley Newspapers organization continues to retrench. First came word Copley would divest itself of newspapers in Illinois and Ohio. Then what was left of its suburban newspapers in Los Angeles went on the block. Here at home, the flagship Union-Tribune dissolved its “shopper,” Today’s Local News, laying off 26 writers and editors in North County, where previously the paper had been seeking to expand its market. Late last summer, the U-T began running advertising on its once-sacrosanct section cover pages, including Sports, Food and Currents. Then came word 67 senior employees at the U-T would be offered early-retirement packages. As of the December deadline, 42 had opted to take the buyout—including 17 veteran reporters, editors, photographers and researchers. And then last month, more belt-tightening. While full-page house ads in the newspaper ballyhooed the change as “Better Than Before,” some readers may have been skeptical. Unveiling its new local-news section, renamed Our Region, the U-T boasted of “Expanded Coverage.” In fact, what the paper did was eliminate its South County and East County editions five days a week and drop its North County inland and coastal editions three days a week, folding them all into the new “enhanced” one-size-fits-all local section.
THE POKING NOSE: Former Chargers QB Ryan Leaf, one of the biggest busts in the history of the NFL draft, landed last year in little Canyon, Texas (population 13,000), as quarterbacks coach of the Division II West Texas A&M Buffaloes football team. But last month, he may have found his higher calling. Leaf, who spent lots more time on the links than the gridiron during his four sorry NFL seasons, was named head coach of the Buffaloes’ golf team . . . Meanwhile: If the Chargers would like to take another stab at a quarterback named Leaf, they’ll have to be patient. Ryan’s kid brother, Brady, was a junior quarterback last season at the University of Oregon . . . Gavin Kaysen, the celebrated chef at Rancho Bernardo Inn’s El Bizcocho Restaurant, lost out in the finals of the prestigious Bocuse d’Or World Culinary Contest in Paris in January. But his fame is secure. He turned up last month on NBC’s Today Show, instructing viewers in how to create romantic, French-inspired dishes for Valentine’s Day . . . Win some: San Diego ranks fourth-best among Men’s Health magazine’s “Best & Worst Cities for Men 2007”—based on “health, happiness and abs.” Our health and happiness must have ranked high, because our abs were way down at number 22.
IN PASSING: It’s not often a 93-year-old’s death seems untimely. But the passing of Frankie Laine last month came as a surprise to most who knew him. He was forever young, and his love for music and lust for life were contagious. We shared a passion for music, and it brought us together as friends. The last time I visited his home in Pont Loma was seven years ago, so Frankie would have been only 86 then. But he had an agenda. He respected my ear, he said, and wanted me to hear his latest recording. By then, his career had spanned seven decades, and his recording career had produced sales of 110 million and 21 gold records, but that was all yesterday to him. “This one,” Frankie said, “this one is gonna be bigger than all of them.” . . . Sometimes celebrity deaths come in twos. The passing of Perry Allen, a radio icon in San Diego and Los Angeles, brought a frenzied exchange of e-mails from friends and colleagues who needed to reminisce. His early work was at KDEO, where the weak signal, he once said, “went down the block, around the corner, and nobody knew where it went from there.” His later, afternoon-drive stint at KFMB (where he reigned as “P.A. the P.M. D.J.”) introduced more San Diego listeners to one of the most instinctively funny men ever. Perry also hosted a couple of TV kids’ shows, in Denver and Los Angeles, where he claimed to have brushed immortality by throwing up on camera. But his TV career was short-lived, which might have had something to do with the instructions he gave his kiddie audience one slow day: “All right, boys and girls,” he told them, “I want you to go out to Dad’s workshop, get a hammer and nails, and then nail the dial in position, so your folks can’t change the station.” But alas, said Perry, “the station changed hosts.”
THE BOTTOM LINE: San Diego Congressman Duncan Hunter’s formal announcement of his presidential bid didn’t bring any groundswell of support. But it did get him a mention in a Time magazine handicap of four “GOP Explorers.” Hunter figured dead last—with odds of 142-1 against him. And Time on Hunter’s plus side: “Co-wrote the bill to put a fence along Mexico’s border” and “will protect the unborn and military contractors, too.”
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