Entertainment stories are cracking the front page of the Los Angeles Times more than ever, according to entertainment reporter Claudia Eller, who spoke to PR pros as part of a recent PR Newswire and Entertainment Publicists Professional Society panel in Hollywood.

Eller, a former writer for Variety and On Location, said the national paper is "pushing for more A-1" stories, which, she said, "rarely occurred in the past."

Eller (Claudia.eller@ losangelestimes.com, 212/237-0715) said she is inundated with e-mail so she wants PR pros to call her with ideas. "It's arrogant to say don't call me. I'll call you when I'm interested in your story," she said. "My job is to gain access to your clients, the executives, and you guys are the facilitators and you can help me do that."

Associated Press business writer Gary Gentile acknowledged the wire service is fairly new to the entertainment news game. "We've only been doing it, fulltime, in a serious way, for about five or six years," he said, adding that for the longest time the AP was "not serious" about covering the industry.

Gentile (gary.gentile@ap.org, 213/346-3125) noted the expanding geography of the entertainment beat.

"Companies are doing business all over the world," he said. "It's not just Hollywood or New York anymore. It's about China, India, Hong Kong and all these places…"

Gentile also said the "appetite for business news" has grown significantly in the last five years since he's been on the beat in Los Angeles. For example, he noted the rise of reporting movie industry financials. "Who knew that box office receipts would be such a staple of the media just a few years ago? So, now we're looking at things like film finance, DVD sales, product placement, production credits, [Writers] Guild issues and backend deals," he said. "It's a broad area of interest."

He stressed that AP is a 24/7 operation. Whereas many publications have one or two deadlines a day, Gentile said, the AP has deadlines every hour. He did acknowledge that he follows New York deadlines, 3 p.m. is a common one, often to get stories into East Coast papers for the next day's business sections.

'Symbiotic relationship'

Nicole Sperling, film business editor for Hollywood Reporter, said reporters' relationships with publicists is symbiotic. "We both need things from each other and I like working with publicists and I appreciate what they do," she said.

The three-and-a-half-year veteran of the Reporter is a former writer for Red Herring and had a brief career in PR. [Six months] was all that I could take so I respect you all for staying in there, because it is often a thankless job," she told the PR-heavy crowd.

Sperling said the Reporter is spending more time on feature stories and taking longer views, resulting in more analytical, longer pieces. "We're receptive to those ideas that might have broader trends," she said.

Lindsay Chaney, senior editor for Daily Variety, said the entertainment business has a broader appeal than most other sectors. "Of any business in the U.S., the entertainment industry, particularly the film industry, is probably the subject of more interest by the general public than any other business."

Chaney (lchaney@reedbusiness.com, 323/965-2446) pointed out that Variety has five publications with a slightly different emphasis. DV has an L.A. and New York edition and contains considered hard, breaking news.

Weekly Variety has a more analytical bent, she said, longer stories and a look ahead in trends. The Life is a lifestyle and features publication aimed more at the consumer than a trade audience. "News releases should be written in AP style and clear enough that an intern could turn it into a story, if necessary," she said.

All panelists, with the exception of Eller, prefer to hear from PR people via e-mail with a follow-up by phone.