Angeles Times

A rebounding newspaper business helped Times Mirror Co. post a 50 percent gain in earnings for the third quarter of this year, the company said yesterday.With advertising up and costs down, the publisher of such newspapers as The Sun, the Los Angeles Times and Newsday reported third-quarter net income of $55.7 million. For the same period last year, the company earned $35.1 million -- not counting the cost of corporate restructuring."Led by the outstanding performance of our newspaper publishing segment, we exceeded our financial objectives for the 1996 third quarter," said Mark H. Willes, Times Mirror's chairman, president and chief executive officer.

Times Mirror Co., the Los Angeles-based media and information company that owns The Baltimore Sun, reported yesterday that net income for the third quarter fell 40.3 percent, to $41.9 million from $70.1 million in the third quarter of 1989.Revenue for the third quarter rose 2.4 percent, to $895 million from $873.9 million in the comparable period of 1989.The company attributed the drop in earnings to declining advertising among the seven newspapers it owns, especially the Los Angeles Times, the flagship newspaper.

A Los Angeles Rams spokeswoman yesterday said what by now seems obvious -- St. Louis has the edge in the race for the team -- but denied Baltimore is out of the running."

THE controversy that rocked the Los Angeles Times this fall raises a host of profound issues at the core of journalism -- issues that have been lost in the overheated, often ad hominem, rhetoric condemning Los Angeles Times management for directing its news staff to produce a magazine on the city's new sports arena, the Staples Center, and then splitting the $2 million in ad revenues raised by the project.In newspaper journalism, in theory at least, the principles of detachment and objectivity still govern, and there is a general feeling that journalists should keep at arms-length distance from their subjects.

WASHINGTON -- The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee called yesterday for criminal prosecution of The New York Times, saying that its report Friday on U.S. government surveillance of confidential banking records "compromised America's anti-terrorist policies." Interviewed on Fox News Sunday, Rep. Peter T. King, a New York Republican, accused the newspaper of compromising national security when it exposed a Treasury Department program that attempts to track terrorist financing by secretly monitoring worldwide money transfers.

LOS ANGELES - A Los Angeles judge ordered the return of $1 million in cash to Robert Blake yesterday. The actor, accused of murdering his wife, had posted bail for his co-defendant, handyman Earle S. Caldwell. Prosecutors also announced they would not appeal a decision to drop criminal charges against Caldwell. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Darlene E. Schempp, who will preside over the Blake trial next year, ordered Caldwell's bail returned during a brief hearing. Deputy District Attorney Shellie L. Samuels told the judge that her office had decided against challenging Schempp's Oct. 31 decision to dismiss one count against Blake and the only criminal charge pending against Caldwell.

Flat-out denials from representatives for Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono and a Los Angeles recording studio have not persuaded the curator of an auction Web site that a tape box doesn't prove the Beatles held a secret reunion in 1976. "Anything other than denials from the Beatles camp would be shocking," says Gary Zimet of the Moments in Time site (www.momentsintime.com). The Ampex tape box with the titles of five songs, a date (11-2-76) and performers listed as John, Paul, George and Rich, remains on the site.

LOS ANGELES -- Sometimes, fact is stranger than fiction, and nowhere is that more likely to be the case than my old stomping grounds in Southern California. Here's a slightly jaundiced look at some real headlines from the left coast. Headline: Callaway's Operating Chief Resigns Facts: The president and chief operating officer of Carlsbad, Calif.-based Callaway Golf, Patrice Hutin, resigned this week after the company posted a $35 million loss for the quarter that ended Sept. 30. My take: How in the wide, wide world of sports can a company that charges $599 for a single golf club lose money?

LOS ANGELES -- After a humiliating loss of his congressional seat to a political novice, nine-term Rep. Robert K. Dornan was dismissed by many as a sore loser for his seemingly outlandish allegations of voter fraud.But one day after the Orange County Republican filed an official challenge of the results with the House of Representatives, a published report yesterday lent some credibility to Dornan's theory that noncitizens voted for his opponent, Democrat Loretta Sanchez, on Nov. 5.The Los Angeles Times reported that 19 Orange County residents admitted to the newspaper that they registered and cast ballots even though they had not yet become naturalized citizens.

WASHINGTON - A House committee moved yesterday to block media giants from owning television stations that reach more than 35 percent of viewers nationwide, boosting efforts to reverse the Federal Communications Commission's loosening of media ownership rules. In a 40-25 vote, the House Appropriations Committee attached the media legislation to a larger spending bill that is expected to pass. The amendment prohibits the FCC from using its money to implement its proposed changes to the national ownership cap. The move came only six weeks after the FCC's party-line vote to increase the cap to 45 percent.