Wednesday Morning Linkage

Dean Baquet Booted From L.A. Times for Refusing to Gut Newsroom Product
Well, he didn’t quite quit. Dean Baquet spit into the eye of the hurricane. In September, the editor of the Los Angeles Times let it be known that he would not be making any new cuts in his newsroom budget, even if the owners at the Chicago Tribune Company asked. He then gave a speech on Oct. 26 to Associated Press managing editors in New Orleans about an “irrational era of cost-cutting.” He said that editors should “put up a little bit more of a fight than we have put up in the past.” He told editors, “Don’t be shy about making the public-service argument.” And he said, “We need to be a feistier bunch.”

Hearst-MediaNews ruling extended
A federal judge on Tuesday extended an order she issued last month that barred The Chronicle's owner and the owner of the San Jose Mercury News and other Bay Area newspapers from collaborating on local distribution and national advertising sales.

Amateurs working as journalists are giving rise to a new wave of 'citizen newspapers.
A woman in Venice Beach reviews "The Lion King" and declares it the best musical she's seen — of the four she's ever seen. In Dallas, a group of professional reporters and "citizen journalists" collaborate on a federal government exposé. And a Milwaukee news magazine's experiment with amateur reporters yields fresh insights into city planning, fire department politics and "taco butt," that unsightly parting of the derrière caused by too-tight denim inseams.