TIME TO FRESHEN UP THAT EDITORIAL LAT STAFF LISTING! Despite LOS ANGELES TIMES sportswriter Mike Penner last week admitting to being a transsexual and officially changing his public name to Christine Daniels, the newspaper has yet to recognize the new byline:

The pink arrow denotes Penner, the blue arrow points to LAT sportswriter Lisa Dillman, who was married to Penner/Daniels and has now filed for a divorce.

More SbB Penner/Daniels coverage:
• BEFORE MS. CHRISTINE DANIELS, ‘TWAS MIKE PENNER
• TRANSSEXUAL FOLLOWUP BANISHED TO BIZ SECTION?!
• DANIELS COUNSELED BY TRANSSEXUAL SPORTSWRITER
• LAT SPORTSWRITER ADMITS TO BEING TRANSSEXUAL

BEFORE MS. CHRISTINE DANIELS, ‘TWAS MR. MIKE PENNER: A photo of LOS ANGELES TIMES transsexual sportswriter Mike Penner, before his transformation to Christine Daniels:

Mike Penner/Christine Daniels Updates:
• TRANSSEXUAL FOLLOWUP BANISHED TO BIZ SECTION?!
• DANIELS COUNSELED BY TRANSSEXUAL SPORTSWRITER
• LAT SPORTSWRITER ADMITS TO BEING TRANSSEXUAL

LAT TRANSSEXUAL FOLLOWUP BANISHED TO BIZ SECTION?! LOS ANGELES TIMES reporter James Rainey conducted a Thursday interview with transsexual sportswriter Mike Penner, who now is known as “Christine Daniels”.

The paper’s website noted the interview (which according to LAT website sources is BY FAR (!) the most-viewed LAT piece this calendar year) on the front page, but for some *strange* reason, the Q & A was completely ignored by the website’s sports section - instead bizarrely banished to the fourth lead in the business section.

Rainey describes Daniels now as “a tall woman, with long, strawberry blond hair (a wig), light makeup, muted lipstick and a trio of bracelets on one wrist.”

Rainey also reports of Daniels: “She will be writing a blog about Southern California sports. Latimes.com also plans to give Daniels space to write about the experience of a gender transformation, under the tentative heading, ‘Woman in Progress.’”

Since Daniels long ago stopped covering sports events as a working media member and writes her Morning Briefing column from her home, she began dressing as a woman full-time beginning in January - and has apparently been going out in public as a woman for the past couple years.

With that in mind, it’s amazing to note that, according to multiple SbB sources, Daniels only recently began divorce proceedings with her former wife Lisa Dillman, who is also a Times reporter.

Daniels also would not reveal to Times reporter Rainey what her sexual orientation was and/or if she is undergoing gender reassignment surgery - claiming that “it was ‘too early’ and ‘fairly private’ for her to say publicly what she might do.”

MIKE PENNER/CHRISTINE DANIELS UPDATES:

• The LOS ANGELES TIMES has a comments page set up for people who want to weigh in on Mike Penner/Christine Daniels’ transsexual admission today.

As of 3pm PT, there are around 500 comments and in the later posts, there are numerous references to earlier negative comments - most of which were apparently deleted by LAT moderators.

• Penner/Daniels had been married to fellow Times sportswriter Lisa Dillman. The two are now divorcing.

• An LAT source tells SbB that Penner/Daniels had not been seen in the Times offices for months. He works out of his house and writes the Morning Briefing column based on sources (web, wire, radio, TV) that don’t require reporting. Penner/Daniels hasn’t covered a beat in years, so he doesn’t have any interaction with athletes or sports figures of any import - nor does he now attend games as a working media member.

• The media reaction I’ve heard, seen and read today has been 100% supportive except on message boards and comment areas where posters can hide behind a cloak of anonymity (which is one of the reasons I don’t run comments on SbB).

• Penner/Daniels isn’t the first openly-out transsexual sportswriter, Christina Kahrl (formerly Chris), is the Managing Editor for the online sports site “Baseball Prospectus”.

She has a piece today about Penner/Daniels which indicates that she had been counseling him/her for some time before the announcement today. Kahrl also writes that the reaction to her transformation has been nothing but positive from her colleagues.

• Read my earlier post about how the Times buried Penner/Daniels’ piece in the sports section, yet trumpeted it on the front page.

LA TIMES SPORTSWRITER ADMITS TO BEING TRANSSEXUAL: Longtime LOS ANGELES TIMES sportswriter Mike Penner has an announcement to make today.

You can call now call him “Christine“.

Penner announced in the newspaper Thursday that he is a transsexual and “is taking a few weeks’ vacation” to complete his gender reassignment therapy “and when I return, I will come back in yet another incarnation. … As Christine.”

Penner notes that he will continue his work at the paper and change his byline to “Christine Daniels“.

Much more interesting (at least to me) is the way the newspaper handled the story on its website. On the front page (above), Penner’s admission was the only sports-related story.

But in the sports section of the site, Penner’s piece was buried, with his column the fourth story down the sports page (below an Anaheim Ducks game recap?!).

UPDATE: As noted by Deadspin and SportsJournalists.com, Penner was married to fellow Times sportswriter Lisa Dillman. SbB has learned they are now getting a divorce (I know, not exactly a newsbreaker).

Mike Penner of the LOS ANGELES TIMES points out the ABC’s horrendous oversight when Rush Limbaugh was hired over celebrated author (and ESPN.com columnist) Hunter S. Thompson.

Notable gems culled from Thompson’s NFL rants:

On the Baltimore Ravens: "Watching the Baltimore Ravens play football is like watching scum freeze on the eyeballs of a jackass, or being stuck for six hours in an elevator with Dick Cheney on speed. The Ravens will pounce on you and gnaw you to death, which can take eight or nine days."

Thompson wrote the Raiders’ Super Bowl loss was "like being crushed by an airplane full of leeches. … The 48-21 score was deceptively close; it might have been 111-6. Only a baffling rash of freak plays toward the end of the third quarter kept the game close enough to avoid a forfeiture by Oakland. They failed in every way, and so did I."

Instead we get this windbag:

Update by Flint Prose:
The NEW YORK POST reports that Casey Johnson, the 26-year-old pseudo-celeb socialite daughter of Jets owner Woody Johnson, is adopting a 2 1/2-year-old girl from the former Soviet Republic. This after her 56-year-old aunt, who runs an orphanage in Cambodia, refused to let her adopt a girl from that country

Mike Penner of the LOS ANGELES TIMES: "The Netherlands is sending its baseball team to the 2004 Olympics. The United States is not.

"The 21st century is upon us, whether we like it or not, and NBC, for one, must be longing for the good old days, back around, say, 1999, when the United States could still compete. NBC will televise the 2004 Olympics, primarily because it’s too late to back out."

©
- NOVEMBER 14, 2003

WEEDED OUT: KATU-TV in Portland reports the anti-drug program known as D.A.R.E. has decided to disassociate itself from the Portland Trailblazers.

Excerpt: "Program directors say the NBA team does not provide good role models."
The organization will no longer accept free tickets from the Blazers "until the team cleans up its image."

Mike Penner of the LOS ANGELES TIMES inks a piece on how NASCAR has more-than-nudged past the NBA as the USA’s second-favorite spectator sport: "A nation has turned its eyes from Jordan to Gordon, its ears from hip-hop to country, its sensibilities from posses to pit crews, and there might not be any turning back."

All of David Stern’s dancing girls and plate spinning can’t return the NBA to its previous place of prominence. For that the portly Commish can thank over-expansion and high school hardship.

Too many teams mean basic basketball fundamentals have gone the way of the pre-Cambrian age. Teenagers flooding the league means the well of ready-made college stars has permanently run dry.

Those factors have as much to do with the league’s general decline as NASCAR’s appeal.

Mike Penner opines in the LOS ANGELES TIMES that based on ABC-TV’s announcer assignments, the net is treating the Rose Bowl as a more high-profile affair than the BCS’ Championship Game in New Orleans: "If you match up ABC’s broadcasting teams, the Rose Bowl is getting the bigger-game treatment. USC and Michigan get Keith Jackson and Dan Fouts. LSU and Oklahoma get Brent Musburger and Gary Danielson."
To be fair, Jackson lives in Los Angeles and undoubtedly preferred to stay close to home.