Comments on: Stupid Management Tricks: Alan Mittelstaedt Fired

By: visit

visit — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:24:51 +0000

I like your website; I will share this with friends

By: Jeannine G

Jeannine G — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:19:27 +0000

Yeah, he’s a pretty good editor, but he kinda looks like a turtle.

By: Sam Z

Sam Z — Wed, 28 May 2008 05:04:00 +0000

I hear that on June 12th they are re-launching the paper, a friend of mine is writing some type of bi-weekly column for them – I hear it pays ok and that there will be many new things in the new paper including a new logo/cover – I’ll reserve judgment but I was sad to hear about Alan getting fired he is a good egg – I hope he continues to write occasionally for the rag…as for the new editor commie chic or whatever, kudos I think she is raising hell and citybeat now finally has a pulse…

By: Celeste Fremon

Celeste Fremon — Wed, 28 May 2008 00:37:40 +0000

Arrrggggghhhh! I’ve only typed Alan’s last name (correctly) maybe 543 times in the course of working with him so the fact that I managed to get it wrong this time (twice!) Is indeed a thing of wonder.Thnx for flagging it. Me and my blackberry have made the corrections.

By: Joseph

Joseph — Tue, 27 May 2008 22:17:15 +0000

Eh, I can’t say this is such a terrible thing. The L.A. Weekly, for instance, has been in steady decline every since the New Times bought it out, and excellent writers like Harold Meyerson began jumping ship. The golden days for me were when I could count on an excellent piece by John Powers, some hard-hitting local writing by Meyerson, and then a searing Cooper column. Now all that’s left is Cooper. Mittelstaedt, meanwhile, took his irritating LA Sniper schtick to City Beat, which was no great loss for the Weekly (which had already dropped to low quality for the aforementioned reasons). I have no opinion on the CityBeat since I gave up on L.A.’s “alternative” weeklies a couple years back, but I highly doubt that Alan’s departure is going to be such a crushing blow for any parties involved.

Oh, and it’s “Mittelstaedt” with “ae”, not “ea” as your topic line reads.

Alan Mittelstaedt

By: Ex-Beater

Ex-Beater — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:59:33 +0000

It’s worse than you all know. The guys who run CB are a bunch of self-serving hacks. I worked there for a few years. While we all busted our asses to make CB a great local newspaper – for next to nothing each week, they cut staff and salaries while playing poker in Malibu and giving themselves huge bonuses and perks.

It’s too bad. CityBeat was a great little paper. I’ll miss it.

By: one who knows

one who knows — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:59:13 +0000

Commie Girl will be the downfall of CityBeat.

By: WBC

WBC — Tue, 27 May 2008 05:58:01 +0000

I was always amused by Alan, although some of his guerrilla tactics may have rubbed some pols and people in power wrong way. When he showed up to ride the subway with the Mayor, that story was dead-on, not offensive either; he was one of the few who have a sense of history about the subway, and the endless reinventions of Zev Y and Waxman, from the ones who stalled the Subway when it could have provided critical relief, to among those who now jump out at the front of the caboose of any transportation train. (He was off on always ribbing the Mayor for not giving “credit” where it was due on Pico-Olympic — the opposite was true, Zev lobbed a totally unthought-out grenade out there about one-way streets, and when it was refine and studied by the Mayor and Weiss for some 18 months, it was Zev who never put in ONE kind word on their efforts to salvage his plan as workable.)

Alan also started a wild rumor that it was the Mayor and his supporters who were behind the (retrospectively, we can see) short-lived plan to get Rocky removed as City Attorney, to put in their own supporters. Rocky needs NO help in making himself look like a moron, and if ONLY he’d been taken down at least a year ago.

But I wonder if Alan’s last trick, of harassing David Nahai over his water bill — even showing up unannounced at his home to try to get it from his wife — had something to do with complaints that he went too far? Steve Lopez does that kind of stuff, but with a movie coming out and a celeb status, maybe it just goes to show, that only celeb reporters OR any celeb in any field, can get away with being in-your-face obnoxious to pursue a story.

Alan is a great writer though, and if he can “grow up” will surely land on his feet again and again. Good luck! (The one I’d love to see removed is that Marc Cooper — whatever one thinks of Hillary Clinton, it’s utterly unpro to write hit piece after hit piece, week after week on her, without even a pretense of objectivity in the Dem race. The suck-up pieces on Obama, in contrast, make me barf.)

By: Listener

Listener — Tue, 27 May 2008 02:01:47 +0000

Gah! I am sorry to hear this.

Absolutely, penny wise and pound foolish. Alan, if you’re out there, shoot me a new email address. I’m not inclined to lose track of you now.

Damn. Indeed. This does suck.

By: Woody

Woody — Tue, 27 May 2008 00:50:55 +0000

Well, I wasn't going to give the bacon bra link, but Celeste knows what readers want. Randy, how about a salmon skin bikini created by a Chilean fashion designer? Alan, see what management wants from its news editors? If you can wrtie about, say, a bacon burka, you'll be in high demand.