Longbardi Questions Roderick's Latest Award

ERS News blogger Eric Longbardi is incredelous over a recent award won by West LA based blogger Kevin Roderick, chief correspondent at LAObserved.

You might remember the story that Longbardi has been pushing, originally reported by blogger Luke Ford, that Roderick is allegedly falsely claiming credit for Pulitizer Prize awards won by his former employer The Los Angeles Times in recognition of stories that Roderick did not write but was a member of the team that produced them.

Longbardi is aghast that Roderick recently won recognition from the Society of Professional Journalists for his efforts by a journalist “who uses the new media’s unique characteristics and capabilities while striving to uphold traditional journalism’s highest standards of honesty, accuracy, responsibility and accountability.”

The ERS blogger holds that given his view that Roderick has been less than honest in the Pulitzer issue the LAObserved editor is not deserving of the SPJ award.

In the Thanksgiving Day post, Longbardi recaps the original charges against Roderick including deconstructing an interview by David Markland and former LA Voice blogger and Roderick's colleague at The Times at the same time Mack Reed's opinion that though he had a similar role in the stories and received the same "trophy" from the LA Times as Roderick, Reed does not consider that he himself "won" a Pulitzer.

Whether you agree with Longbardi or you support Roderick, all in all it presents an interesting story that perhaps journalists and some bloggers are way too obsessed with awards and that perhaps there are so many awards they are not as meaningful as they once were. It should be noted that many of these awards may be self-nominated and many of them require the payment of a fee or joining an organization in order to be considered.

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Tuesday

Crime is down in the Valley but still up overall citywide. Despite a "moratorium" on murder called for by members of the City Council, a significant wave of murder and violence swept across LA this weekend. One thing city leaders could to make a big dent in gang violence is to support Jamiel's Law and at least give the Police the opportunity to thin out criminal illegal aliens from Los Angeles. The parents of Jamiel Shaw II - a young, innocent high school student allegedly shot by an illegal alien who had been released from jail hours before - are going to City Hall Tuesday morning to support the overturning of Special Order 40 for criminal illegal alien gangs.

I guess folks who work for doctors, hospitals, lawyers and accounts that have celebrity clients think it's an employee benefit to search through stars' personal records. Previously, over a dozen workers at UCLA Medical Center were busted for snooping through the medical files of Britney Spears. A new report says that months before that several others at UCLA browsed records for actress Farrah Fawcett, who has been battling cancer. Particularly troubling for Fawcett was that news of her illness was covered by tabloids before she could inform her family. UPDATE: The KENNEDY REPUBLICAN's medical records were also snooped in!

A few years back, editorial cartoonist Michael Ramirez was dropped by the Fishwrap of Record and moved onto Investors Business Daily. Now he gets the last laugh - he's won a Pulitzer Prize. And yes unlike some others who claim the journalism award, Mike has his name on the trophy.

I'm not sure if anyone even is paying attention, but the Mayor's State of the City speech is coming up next Monday. Rick Orlov is saying its going to be nothing more than a repeat of last year's speech. So I suggest you tune in instead to the latest episode of "Big Bang Theory," when Leonard and Sheldon meet a 15-year-old physics prodigy, Sheldon is distraught that this boy genius is younger and smarter, so in an attempt to restore his sense of purpose, the boys come up with a solution to derail Dennis ' research.


Zero tolerance and political correctness have rum amok at a Colorado elementary school. An eight year old boy was suspended for coloring a part of his sleeve with a Sharpie and then apparently smelling the ink. However, you can't get high from sniffing a Sharpie.

Foothill Cities Blog snared an interview with California State Senate Candidate Carol Liu. If you read the interview you'll walk away with gems like one of Liu's qualities of an effective legislator: "the rise to a position (or positions) of power within the institution." Yea, that's exactly what we want is legislators spending their time jockeying for personal power instead of solving problems, or even better, get out of the way.

Last week we were treated to a David Markland April Fools' joke that he was really - as Zuma Dogg refers to him - my new friend Eric Garcetti. But the real CityNerd is apparently back online at his invitation only blog. So who is CityNerd? I don't know for sure but my money is on this guy.

Big battle between charter schools, regular schools and the LAUSD over classroom space. A recent court order forced the District to offer up the most amount space ever. Still many charter schools may have to split between multiple campuses and some traditional campuses feel squeezed by sharing facilities with the semi-autonomous schools.

We missed it, but Monday was Jerry Brown's 70th birthday. How did the former and possibly once again Governor Moonbeam spend his special day? With his wife at a trappist monastery. Ah, some things never change! Should we have bought him a Plymouth?

Kevin Roderick A Fraud?

That's what the email in my inbox said. Allegedly.

I've been hearing about this for a while but Luke Ford has bit and published (and yes I know he published it a few days ago, who cares) a piece taking to task LAObserved blogger, the lovable Westside White Guy, Kevin Roderick himself.

It appears that, according to Ford, Roderick has claimed credit for a handful of Pulitzers he didn't actually win.

To be fair, WWG worked as an editor on the LA Times stories he claims the prize for, but the byline and award went to others according to Ford.

I have a friend who won an Emmy and I took him out to dinner. Maybe I should claim that I've won an Emmy?

Its not the end of the world but given how much Roderick often unfairly slams other journos we couldn't resist.