Newsroom

In the wake of the firing of KCST-TV (Channel 39) news director Ron Miller earlier this month, the station eliminated the jobs of two newsroom veterans last week, heightening the feeling of unsettlement that has plagued the news staff for the past year. Associate producers Mark Heaslet and Barbara Schwartz, both longtime Channel 39 staffers, were told Thursday that their positions had been "dissolved."

The new management team at KCBS-TV Channel 2, in an apparent attempt to improve the station's sagging news ratings, is overhauling its newsroom roster and is set to hire former KNBC Channel 4 anchor Tritia Toyota. The changes, according to one KCBS employee who asked to remain anonymous, are in keeping with what the source termed the station's desire to feature "rock 'n' roll news."

Years ago, an editor whose opinion I respect told me that I could be sure I was doing something right if what I wrote managed to anger everybody involved in the story. That, he said, meant that I was not taking sides and that the truth tended to hurt even the righteous. Although my editor was exaggerating a bit, those loaded words have hung with me and, over time, have boiled down to the maxim that objectivity may be one of the most subjective elements of a news story.

Many familiar figures in TV news have recalled in books how they got those stories and the big interviews. Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, Dan Rather, Sam Donaldson, Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Fred Graham, Larry King, Andy Rooney and Peter Arnett are among the broadcasters who have written their memoirs. Lesley Stahl will add "Reporting Live" (Simon & Schuster) to the collection in January.

Denne Bart Petitclerc, whose fan letter to Ernest Hemingway in the 1950s led to him becoming close friends with the writer and adapting "Islands in the Stream" for the screen, has died. He was 76. Petitclerc, a former journalist who created the television series "Then Came Bronson" in the late 1960s, died Feb. 3 at UCLA Medical Center of complications from lung cancer, said his wife, Wanda.

The Voice of San Diego office has the trappings of many newsrooms -- messy desks, glowing computers, journalists hunched over phones. But something about the mood seems a little off. Where's the anxiety? Why isn't anyone trolling those websites that obsess about the latest layoffs in the news business? Where are the sidelong glances when someone gets stuck too long in the editor's office? All of that was missing when I visited the Voice of San Diego ( www.voiceofsandiego.

The nonprofit investigative news organization ProPublica won a Pulitzer Prize on Monday for its detailed look at the actions of an overwhelmed staff at a New Orleans hospital during Hurricane Katrina, underscoring the growing impact of nontraditional business models in the struggling newspaper industry. The majority of Pulitzers went to mainstream newspapers -- the Washington Post won four and the New York Times won three. ProPublica's investigative reporting win for a story by Sheri Fink was co-published by the New York Times Magazine.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, grappling with sharp declines in circulation and ad revenue, said it expected to lay off 68 newsroom employees, about 16% of its editorial staff. Several reporters at the Inquirer, Pennsylvania's largest newspaper, said they were told that their jobs were being eliminated. The employees said they were told to meet with personnel officials today to discuss details of their severance pay and health benefits.

Blacks and other racial minorities constitute 16% of the work force of American newspapers but only 8% of the news and editorial staffs, according to the American Newspaper Publishers Assn. The ANPA survey, made public Wednesday, also said that 37% of the papers' employees are women. In the nation's overall work force, minorities constitute 21% and women 47% of the total. The study suggested that the newsroom was the place in a newspaper plant where minorities were least likely to be found.

Out on the sidewalk, a placard newsboy in real jeans and a real, if fading, T-shirt holds up a menu to beckon diners into the small, casual Newsroom Cafe. In the lobby of an office building on the corner of Wilshire and 6th in Santa Monica, the Newsroom is one of the few places I've found where eating alone is not only easy, but may actually be preferable, given the wealth of available distractions.