More churning in local media: The Daily Voice, Tom Johnson and Bill Lobdell’s online venture covering Newport Beach and Costa Mesa, is folding after only 10 months. But Johnson still will compete with the paper he used to run, the L.A. Times-owned Daily Pilot. He says he is joining Allan Simon’s Laguna Beach-based Firebrand Media as publisher of two weekly freebies, the Laguna Beach Independent and the soon-to-launch Newport Beach Independent. “A lot of people still like the printed product,” Johnson says …
As for Lobdell, the former LAT journalist recently joined the controversial San Diego-based Fraud Discovery Institute, a stock-shorting operation run by convicted scammer Barry Minkow of ZZZZ Best notoriety. Turning the tables, Minkow’s FDI investigates and publicizes negative information on executives and companies it contends are fraudulent or shoddy. It’s in a heated feud with homebuilder Lennar, which has sued FDI for defamation, extortion and fraud. The lead story last week on FDI’s iBusiness Reporting Web site, which Lobdell edits from Costa Mesa: “Lennar’s Top 10 Red Flags for Fraud—The Sequel.” Minkow is senior pastor of Community Bible Church in San Diego, and Lobdell is author of “Losing My Religion.” Says Lobdell, “Yes, Minkow and I make an odd couple—ex-con turned pastor and an ex-religion reporter turned atheist” …
Meanwhile, Irvine journalist Will Swaim said he closed down his Long Beach alternative paper, The District Weekly, a month shy of its third birthday because of “the economy, bad management and the vicissitudes of our industry.” He’s now running operations for prepaid credit card company CardFlex Financial Services in Costa Mesa and also freelancing …
Defense lawyer Richard Marmaro told an Association of Business Trial Lawyers gathering that Federal Judge Cormac Carney’s December dismissal of options backdating charges against his client, former Broadcom CFO William Ruehle, occurred on “Bill of Rights Day,” or as they now call it in the Ruehle household, “Rights of Bill Day” …
“Stay tuned,” the Insider advised when change-agent Supe John Moorlach joined the board of the OC Vector Control District, the agency that deals with rats and other critters. A year later, district manager Gerard Goedhart is out …
UCI’s 2010 Medal recipients are Allergan CEO David Pyott, UCI Foundation trustees Salma and Hazem Chehabi, retiring Vice Chancellor for Research Susan Bryant and engineering prof Scott Samuelsen. First Foundation Advisors’ Rick Keller and wife Anne chair the Oct. 2 awards gala …
Chapman U marks the 10th anniversary of its Holocaust education program Sunday with a gala honoring Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel …
If ever a wiz there was, it was S. Paul Musco. And if ever a ringer there was, it was former Radio City Rockette Juliet Fischer-Schulein as the leggy lioness in the CHOC Follies’ “The Wizard of OC.” The production raised $800,000 and increased to $5 million the Follies’ 13-year net for Children’s Hospital.
