On Friday, the Los Angeles Times fussbudget columnist Joel Stein announced that he's "horribly jealous" of conservative pain-in-the-ass Ann Coulter—"After all these years of Coultering, people still get riled up over her obvious attempts to make us mad," writes Joel, obviously pissed off that his own attempts to piss people off haven't delivered to him an iconic reputation such as the one Coulter has, for better or worse. He tests his theory that anything she might say would tick people off like so: "I developed the Ann Coulter Mad Libs™." Now, because someone already did it a month ago, bloggers are calling for his head over the column. We don't know enough to judge—but anything that might prevent Joel from writing is fine in our book!

The New York Times got another one from the LA Times: San Francisco-based housing 'n' biz reporter David Streitfeld, who will be the NYT's Chicago biz-section correspondent. "Most famously, [at the Washington Post] he outed Joe Klein as the author of 'Primary Colors' after tracing his handwriting on a galley of the book that David found in a secondhand shop," says the memo from Business editor Larry Ingrassia.

Los Angeles Times publisher David Hiller has started a blog! But he's said in a memo that "This is internal, just for us, so please don't share the blog content outside the company." David. Honey. Have you been to the internet? [LA Observed]

Congratulations to the LA Times: With the appointment of David Lauter as California editor, now "all masthead editors at the Times will be white men pushing 50 (or 60 in some cases) except for Melissa McCoy, deputy ME for copy desks, design and production." [LA Observed]

Tribune almost-owner Sam Zell visited the Los Angeles Times headquarters recently. How'd it go? Allegedly, "In his talk to the assembled staffers, he said he found the paper 'pretty bland.' He pissed on the business section. He ran down the importance of foreign coverage as opposed to local news. Asked whether front-page ads compromised the integrity of the paper, he called that idea a 'crock of shit.' He made a big point of saying the paper had to print what readers wanted to read, not what LAT editors wanted them to read—an idea that's pretty much in complete conflict with the existing DNA of the Times (which deemed L.A. mayor Hahn's divorce while he was in office not worth discussing, and reported Lindsay Lohan's arrest, after she mowed down some bushes in Beverly Hills, on page B3). All in all, Zell studded his spiel with bad omens for the paper's entrenched twits.'" Hmm, we're starting to like this guy! [Kausfiles]

In a column called "Beating Joel Stein," (not, sadly, a how-to guide) the L.A. Times "humor" columnist introduces you to the finalist of his Comedy Special Olympics. Dude writes for Nerve and Babble and his piece is about circumcision. Sounds like a battle of equals to us. [LAT]

If you've ever wanted to write for the Huffington Post but worry that your late-night liberal ramblings aren't up to their stringent standards, there's good news: You might be able to natter on at will for a California-centric version of that website! An e-mail making the rounds from Liam Gowing, "content producer" for the L.A. Times's forthcoming Calendar Online revamp, explains the crumbling paper's new plan to attract eyeballs: Unpaid content provided by registered users! (Or, as Liam jauntily calls them, "superusers.") Sure, you won't get any money for your contribution to the website, but there are plenty of perks for those willing to post at least five times a month! They'll run your photo and bio, they'll link to your blog or social network page, and new LAT managing editor John Montorio will kill one of your least inflammatory posts each month. This plan rules. Which is to say, really might suck.

New York Post changed a wire story from the LAT about an LA "detox doctor" so much that they opened themselves up to legal action from the doctor—and the LAT gloats. [LA Observed]

The Wall Street Journal's Brooks Barnes has just been seduced by the New York Times, it'll be announced soon— and also by Los Angeles. From out there, he'll cover the film industry for the New York Times's Biz section. This will be much-needed reinforcement in the paper's battle with the LA Times—for years, New York was gaining an upper hand. But recently, things have not gone well for our hometown paper on that other coast. For one thing, arts and television reporter Edward Wyatt has been dying in Los Angeles.

If you're bookish, you might've heard about the lit imbroglio swirling around the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In the wake of similar reorganizations at the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, that paper has made a controversial decision to eliminate its book review section, along with the job of its books editor, Teresa Weaver. Maybe you got an email from a friend urging you to sign a petition to keep her employed, or someone hipped you to the read-in protest taking place in Atlanta this Thursday. Or maybe you read author Michael Connelly's impassioned essay about the important but foundering symbiosis between newspapers and reading culture. "My 10-year-old daughter's love of reading books is slowly leading her toward the newspaper sections that are spread every morning across the breakfast table," he says, asking, "Now where will new voices be discovered?" Well, Michael, maybe they'll be discovered by... blogs. Crazy, right?

Yesterday's article by Mike Penner—the Los Angeles Times sportswriter who is undergoing gender reassignment—was a bonanza. By last night, it had got half a million page views, becoming one of the most requested pages on LATimes.com over the last year (can you hear the NYT snickering?), and 1000+ comments on the site's message boards. Today, LAT editor Jim O'Shea announced that his columnist Joel Stein would undergo a series of operations that would helpfully turn him funny. "For many years," said O'Shea, "Joel has secretly felt that his brain has been wired for humor. Hopefully, these surgical procedures will at last allow that part of his persona to emerge." O'Shea additionally called for twenty-five newsroom staffers to similarly change gender—and chronicle their passage in both the paper and on the web—or face "voluntary separation" from their jobs.

• LA Times sportswriter Mike Penner to become LAT lady sportswriter Christine Daniels. Expect plenty of stupid headlines like the one above. [LAT]
  

"If F. Scott Fitzgerald had gone to Yale instead of Princeton, set his novel among precociously successful designers and financiers, with a struggling freelance journalist rather than a Midwestern bond dealer narrating, it might have turned out a bit like "The Tourists," a new novel by a 27-year-old Angeleno transplant named Jeff Hobbs," begins Scott Timberg's LA Times mag tongue job about that precocious novelist. "I'm almost embarrassed by the comparison," Hobbs is then quoted as saying. How modest and cute! Also cute: that author photo with a doggie woggie! This book must be great. Hey, look, there's a copy of it lying around our offices! Let's dive right in.

• Los Angeles Times to offer buyouts to 150 employees. Editor Jim O'Shea tells everyone not to panic; they do anyway. [LA Observed]
  

• Very odd array of online publishers, print media, and actual businesses look to cash in on whole environment thing. [LAT]
  

Well, look at that. The Pulitzers have been announced, and they certainly have spread the wealth: the Wall Street Journal wins two, but no other paper gets more than one, including the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, which each win one. The Washington Post gets completely goose-egged, though the paper had finalists in several categories. (Complete list here.) Interestingly, the Daily News editorial board wins for editorial writing "for its compassionate and compelling editorials on behalf of Ground Zero workers whose health problems were neglected by the city and the nation." That's great for the DN and all, but it's a slap in the face to the newsroom, which, you'll recall, got slammed by the New York Times in February for not doing its due diligence on the story of a supposed "first responder" to the scene who later fell ill, which then led to some newsroom mudslinging as the news side felt abandoned by editorial. Look who's come out on top now!

So! The Tribune Company's finally (almost certainly!) been sold, praise be, and the LA Times has decided to ask its readers what they think about the sale. Perhaps this is that vaunted "citizen journalism" everyone's been yammering about lately? Or maybe they're really looking for some useful tips!

• There's a lot of backbiting and infighting at the Los Angeles Times, which is completely unusual behavior at a major newspaper. [NYT]
  

• The Post has never heard of Whitewater. [NYP]
  

Not long ago, both the NY Times and the LA Times opened the golden gates of their movie review sections to You, the person of the year. Oooh, it's Web 1.34! Well, Your reviews are in—and You totally suck! You suck even worse than Stephen Holden!