Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | L | Los Angeles Magazine

The Z factor: frazzled nerves, gospel choirs, and Korean TV: covering city hall in the age of the pop star mayor.

Article Excerpt
SAY IT WITH ME: CONFETTI cannons. A shower of party-colored paper slowly dotted the floor of a South Los Angeles high school one late summer afternoon. It marked Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's celebration of his education reform bill's passage in the state assembly. Villaraigosa was preceded to the stage by a blasting of U2's "Beautiful Day," which was followed by the First AME Church choir singing "Oh Happy Day." Then, as the mayor finished his remarks underscoring what right now looks like a great victory, somebody cued the confetti cannon.

Sure, stagecraft is important. But along with it people have to be engaged; they have to care. If a confetti cannon explodes in a forest and nobody hears it, did it happen?

Right now people care a lot. We have, for however long this ride lasts, a pop star mayor, and when the media are following you everywhere and when citizens are interested in what you do and who you are, stuff just naturally happens that makes reporters happy The stars align.

David Zahniser, the city hall reporter for the L.A. Weekly, doesn't look so happy most of the times I see him. He tends to look like it's been a long day, and he's been at City Hall and the courthouse all morning and has a Warren Olney interview to do. However, Dave Z, as he is known, is having a great run at a propitious moment: He is the best city hall reporter to emerge in years, and he arrives at a time when a lot more people than usual are paying attention to city hall. (Full disclosure: Zahniser is an Echo Park neighbor and someone I have known for years.) Last year, while still reporting for Copley News Service, he uncovered a group of employees at a Miami-based airport-concessions company making questionable contributions to Villaraigosa's mayoral campaign. This discovery came just when Villaraigosa was scorching James Hahn over ethics transgressions, tarnishing his own image as a reformer. The stories Zahniser wrote made a lot of folks sit up and take notice of a paper based in Torrance--Torrance!--that was scooping the Daily News, the Times, and everybody else.

Some days the Times sends...