LA Times Pushes Back Community News Expansion into South County and Announces OC Arts Section

​The Los Angeles Times announced today that it will expand Times Community News (TCN) coverage into Aliso Viejo, Laguna Niguel and the Orange County arts community beginning Aug. 26.

If part of that sounds like deja vu all over again, it is--with a twist.

A June 30 memo from Times Media Group to newsroom "colleagues" announced the expansion of the Laguna Beach-centric Coastline Pilot into Aliso Viejo and Laguna Niguel was to begin Aug. 12.

See, I already told you so:

• LA Times X's Out Brand X But Expands Community Coverage to Laguna Niguel and Aliso Viejo

Perhaps it took 14 more days for the Times to figure out where the hell Aliso Viejo and Laguna Niguel are. Here's a tip, intrepid Spring Street journos: Aliso Viejo is that cluster of stucco that spoiled the upper part of Laguna Canyon. Yes, with Lagunas Beach, Woods, Niguel, Seco and Return to the Blue, it is admittedly difficult to know which Laguna you are in at any given time. Just know if a real estate agent is telling you the house you're looking at is in Dana Point, you're actually in Laguna Niguel.

The totally new part of today's Times announcement concerns "OC Arts," an entertainment section that will be tucked into the Coastline Pilots of Laguna Beach, Aliso Viejo and Laguna Niguel, the Daily Pilot of Irvine, Costa Mesa and Newport Beach and the Huntington Beach Independent of Surf City and I want to say Fountain Valley, although I'm not positive about that last slice of municipal paradise.

A TCN press release that follows on the next page explains the changes in Orange County as well as in the Pasadena area . . .