The coverage of the near-fatal beating of San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow at Dodger Stadium has generated intense interest since March 31. On Sunday, the breaking news of the arrest of a suspect in that beating was posted, with updates, on the Los Angeles Times website, latimes.com.

A number of readers asked why The Times did not use a photo of the suspect, identified by the Los Angeles Police Department as Giovanni Ramirez, 31, especially on Monday afternoon after some news-media websites briefly "published a leaked mug shot of Ramirez from the file kept on him by parole agents."

The Times did not have a picture initially because it is against LAPD policy to release booking photos. After a leaked photo of the suspect was circulated, LAPD officials requested that it not be published because they feared it would taint possible witness identifications. After careful consideration, The Times decided not to use the photo.

As it reported Tuesday, The Times "received the photo but decided not to publish it in light of the ongoing investigation." As part of the investigation, police are planning to conduct identification lineups, which could be compromised if witnesses see a photograph of the suspect beforehand.

-- Office of the Readers' Representative

Editor Russ Stanton issued this statement Friday about The Times’ coverage of former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's acknowledgment that he fathered a child out of marriage:

The Los Angeles Times has decided not to publish the name of Schwarzenegger's mistress and her child to protect their privacy. Because we share content electronically with other Tribune Co. newsrooms, a story and picture identifying the mistress appeared briefly on latimes.com on Wednesday morning. They were removed.

In an earlier Readers’ Representative Journal post, Stanton commented on the decision not to publish the names. In addition, the paper's On the Media columnist, James Rainey, discussed the way The Times and other media have handled the issue.

-- Office of the Readers' Representative

The Times on Tuesday broke the news that former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had fathered a child out of wedlock more than a decade ago with a member of his household staff. The original story and subsequent coverage of the revelation and of Schwarzenegger's separation from his wife, Maria Shriver, have provoked vigorous online comment and debate.

One of the themes has centered on The Times' decision not to publish the names of the woman or child in order "to protect their privacy."

Among the comments from readers regarding that decision: 

From Nick -- Why does the L.A. Times think that "the other woman" deserves anonymity?  After ten years working around Ms. Shriver and her children, it seems to me that she's culpable and deserves to be exposed to public contempt.

From SooZeeQ -- Why do we have to know who he had the child with?  It does not matter! What purpose would it serve except to hurt the child? Why does the public believe that they are entitled to know things that are none of their business?

Other readers wondered why The Times offered what they saw as "partial" reporting: publishing the news of the affair, yet not disclosing certain details. And some asked why other media had chosen to name her.

For the Los Angeles Times, Editor Russ Stanton explains that "the public has a legitimate interest in the behavior of someone who held high office in this state and is likely to remain prominent for a long time. Schwarzenegger's conduct is what was newsworthy."

"In some circumstances," Stanton adds, "it might be necessary or appropriate to reveal the identity of a politician's mistress. In this situation, we thought it was not. We hewed to the principle of protecting the identity of an innocent child. To have identified the mother would, in effect, have been to identify the child. Different media companies have different standards. We will stick by ours, regardless of what others do."

-- The Office of the Readers' Representative

The Times' Editorial Awards for 2010 celebrate what Editor Russ Stanton called "an incredible year by any measure, an extraordinary one journalistically when we step back ... to honor the best work produced by one of the very best newsrooms on the planet."

The winners:

Beat Reporting (two winners): Jeffrey Fleishman, for his reporting from Egypt. Fleishman visited Egypt's economically depressed Nile Delta, spent time with the urban poor in Cairo and managed, with rich details and lyrical style, to tell readers what it was like to be inside the minds of the Egyptian people, tapping into a current of dissent broiling just under the surface.

Don Lee, for his coverage of the national economy from Washington, D.C. Lee told us how the slow start that young people are getting in the workforce will haunt them for years to come in the form of diminished lifetime earnings and paltry retirement funds. He explained that the biggest beneficiaries of much-heralded U.S. manufacturing incentives might actually be overseas. And when consumer spending finally began to show signs of life last year, he warned us that too much of that increase was coming from the rich, a sign of an uneven recovery.

Breaking News: Haiti earthquake -- Reporters Tina Susman, Tracy Wilkinson, Joe Mozingo and Ken Ellingwood and photographers Carolyn Cole, Rick Loomis and Brian van der Brug. From the first-day story, which correctly identified the sweep of the disaster, to the gut-wrenching street scenes that followed, the reporting and photography detailed the breadth of destruction as well as the diplomatic efforts to marshal relief. 

Investigations: Bell -- Ruben Vives, Jeff Gottlieb, Kim Christensen, Paloma Esquivel, Paul Pringle, Robert J. Lopez, Hector Becerra, Corina Knoll, Richard Winton, Christopher Goffard. For their series of stories exposing officials' exorbitant salaries and financial misdeeds in the small working-class town of Bell. The Times' stories sparked legislative reform efforts aimed at public pay and pension abuses, including a bill that would require California's city, county and schools officials to disclose their compensation online.

Explanatory Reporting: Christopher Goffard, for his coverage of Los Angeles County's Project 50, an effort to help the most intractable cases of homelessness. Goffard's two-year pursuit of the story was likened to the program itself -- difficult, quixotic and dangerous.

Opinion: George Skelton, for "Capitol Journal." Judges said Skelton's long institutional memory provides an expert's perspective on the Capitol and its denizens. "He has a knack for finding examples that resonate with readers. Everyone knows California is broke. How broke? 'It's about to run out of toilet paper in its rural parks,' Skelton wrote. Talk about getting to the bottom of it."

Feature Writing: Faye Fiore, for her portraits of America's home front. Fiore's eye finds the symbolic and intimate details of the lives of the men and women lost to war: A can of beer left on a soldier's grave. A box of Ritz crackers marked down to $1.99. An empty chair where a grieving mother's son once sat.

Sports Reporting: Eric Sondheimer, for his prep coverage. In 2010, he wrote 243 stories, contributed mightily to the Varsity Times Insider blog and trained himself as a videographer. Among his columns, he lectured Santa Margarita and the Catholic Diocese of Orange about transparency and openness; wrote in colorful detail about how the boys' basketball coach at Verdugo Hills High led his team to its first league championship since 1959; and recounted how Los Angeles Dorsey's primo sacker was so much more.

News Blog: Technology -- Nathan Olivarez-Giles, Jessica Guynn, David Sarno, Tiffany Hsu, Peter Pae. The Technology blog has seen its traffic soar by being relevant, posting often and being first. 

Features Blog: Show Tracker -- Martin Miller, Joy Press, Scott Collins, Melissa Maerz, Greg Braxton, Yvonne Villarreal, Robert Lloyd, Mary McNamara. This team breaks a lot of news on the blog, which last year included such big stories as CNN's firing of Rick Sanchez, Piers Morgan's replacing of Larry King and KCET's pulling out of the Public Broadcasting System. But the talented editors, staff writers and freelancers who make this blog work offer plenty of fun, compelling features to pull viewers' fingers away from the remote and onto a computer –- whether it's for extensive recaps of programming, interviews with TV players, live chats or riffs on trending topics.

News Photography:

Carolyn Cole, whose images of life (and death) in and around the Gulf Coast after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill told the story of massive environmental devastation in so many ways. Cole has never waited for a story to come to her. She found -- and patiently observed -- the stunned pelicans, the terrified shrimpers and the furious hotel owners. To get these enduring images, Cole lived out of a rental car for nearly three months.

Feature Photography: Barbara Davidson, whose "Caught in the Crossfire" photos illustrate the narrative of hope, love and loss in South L.A., Compton and Watts. Davidson took these photos over a period of two years, taking her time to earn the trust of her subjects, a feat that brings a sensitivity and understanding to her work that would have otherwise been impossible.

Multimedia/Video: "Caught in the Crossfire" -- Barbara Davidson, Mary Cooney, Alan Hagman, Jeremiah Bogert, Albert Lee, Myung J. Chun. At a time when overall crime rates have declined, "Caught in the Crossfire" goes behind the scenes to offer powerful portraits of crime victims. Judges said the project vividly illustrated how a moment of random violence can lead to a lifetime of pain, anguish and suffering for the victims.

News Design: Tim Hubbard, who was described as a catalyst for the success of three major 2010 news events: the Vancouver Winter Games, the World Cup soccer tournament and the Lakers' run to another NBA championship. His work runs the gamut, from poster-worthy covers to labor-intensive agate pages. And most important, he is cool under the most intense situations.

Features Design (two winners): Joey Santos, whose design was called an effective storytelling tool. He knows when to hold back and let three strong photos lead a story, as with Image's fall denim feature. Conversely, he knows when more is, in fact, more, as with Image's swimsuit spread. His other highlights included the Health story on salt, the webby design of "City Walk" and his use of clever illustrations (Vitamin D).

Rip Georges, who gracefully manages the union of words and images in LA Magazine. For the last three years, its stylish and unique look -- in print, online and on the iPad app -- was his.

Graphics: Brady MacDonald, who produced graphics on such topics as the "Ring" Cycle, Peter Pan, Tiger Woods and the Lakers. But his biggest accomplishment in 2010 was his outstanding and innovative work on the Vancouver Winter Olympics, a performance worthy of our own gold medal.   

Online Presentation: "Four Seasons in Yosemite" -- Mark Boster, Kathy M.Y. Pyon, Jason La, Calvin Hom, Don Kelsen, Stephanie Ferrell, Tia Lai, Michael McGehee, Mary Forgione. Judges said the elegance of the design in "Four Seasons in Yosemite" matches the elegance of Mark Boster's photos. This presentation has everything: stunning photos, an interactive map for visitors, photography tips and Boster's video journal.

Copy Editing: Marina Levario of the features copy desk. The judges said she would rightfully deserve the award any year for her excellent editing and headline writing. But last year, she went way beyond her "day job," doing work that helped the entire newsroom as it moved to a new content editing system.

Headline Writing: Linda Whitmore of the features copy desk. Whitmore "bowled over" the judges with her ability to transform the pun into literary metaphor. "Snappy," "sophisticated" and "layered" were some of the adjectives used to describe gems such as "Claire buoyant" on a profile of actress Claire Daines; "Toto recall" on a spate of "Wizard of Oz"-themed movie projects; and "Do fence me in," about a Texas museum dedicated to barbed wire.

Assignment Editing (two awards): Catharine Hamm for Travel: Hamm is described as a team leader who inspires excellent work and leads by example -- by being, among other things, an outstanding storyteller in her own right. She also has a huge hand in producing our second-largest community event each year, the Los Angeles Times Travel Show.

Shelby Grad, Steve Marble, Kimi Yoshino of the city desk: These three guided the coverage of Bell and deftly managed a stellar team of veterans and younger reporters. They were not merely satisfied with getting stories on Page A1 but pushed for -- and sometimes produced themselves -- the broad range of work now required: breaking-news alerts, blog items, broadcast interviews, tweets, Facebook posts. And they never lost sight of the larger mission: to use the power of the press to hold our elected leaders accountable.

Editor's Prize: "Grading the Teachers" -- Jason Felch, Jason Song, Doug Smith, Sandra Poindexter, Ken Schwencke. In their outstanding and controversial five-part series, a team of reporters led by Felch and Song did what the L.A. Unified School District would not: They used the district's own data to identify the most effective -- and least effective -- teachers and schools. And they put the information out in the light of day, for all to see. Stanton said "Grading the Teachers" was "a courageous and consequential piece of journalism."

Publisher's Prize: Bell -- Ruben Vives, Jeff Gottlieb, Kim Christensen, Paloma Esquivel, Paul Pringle, Robert J. Lopez, Hector Becerra, Corina Knoll, Richard Winton, Christopher Goffard, Sam Allen, Abby Sewell, Catherine Saillant, Jessica Garrison, Shelby Grad, Kimi Yoshino, Steve Marble. Times Publisher Eddy Hartenstein praised the team, led by reporters Gottlieb and Vives, that showed the staggering and covert salary excesses of public officials in the small, working-class community of Bell: "Robert Rizzo and his cronies, I think, savored their windfall and knew all too well what they were doing and knew they had to keep it secret. And if anyone was bold enough to uncover it, it was some of our folks here. They went to ask the city clerks at Bell, Calif., and the response they got repeatedly was 'Those records aren't available; come back in two weeks.' But they wouldn't accept that.... When [the lid] finally came off the Bell salary scandal, it was not because of a grand jury or a conscience-stricken official or anything like that. It was because of two intrepid L.A. Times reporters."    

Photos, from top:

"Haiti": In Port-au-Prince, a man stands in the ruins of the Notre Dame Cathedral at the start of a three-day period of national mourning in Haiti, a month after the devastating earthquake Jan. 12, 2010. Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

"Deepwater Horizon": At the Fort Jackson Bird Rehabilitation Center, an oiled brown pelican gets pre-treatment to loosen the oil before being bathed June 21, 2010. Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

"Caught in the Crossfire": Ten-year-old Erica Miranda was shot in the back, knee and hip while playing basketball outside her home in Compton. Credit: Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times

"Yosemite": The last rays of sunset cast an orange color on the face of Half Dome on Jan. 31, 2010. Credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times

A memo from Managing Editor/Online Jimmy Orr: 

It was another great month for latimes.com -– recording its second-highest-trafficked month in the history of the site, with 159 million page views. This is a 20% increase from our average in 2010 and falls short only of last month’s record.

Not surprisingly, the day the Pulitzer Prizes were announced was among the most trafficked days in April. Readers who came to The Times to learn more about the Pulitzer-winning work got a timeline tracking the Bell salary scandal, as well as full coverage. They also could view the great photos taken by feature photography winner Barbara Davidson and breaking-news photography finalist Carolyn Cole, as well as other award-winning work from throughout the year.

Unlike with the March numbers, with which we could point to the coverage of one news event as a driving force, April was a much more balanced effort with increases across the site.

Our blogs were representative of that balanced production as they continued to reach new heights. Just last month we announced that it was the first time that eight of our blogs each topped 1 million page views. That record didn’t last long. In April, 12 of our blogs exceeded the million mark. Plus, nine hit all-time records. Our continued growth in this area is a testament to the creativity and energy of the bloggers and colleagues, in particular the copy desks.

The revamped Politics Now, under the guidance of Jim Oliphant, immediately made an impact, recording nearly 2 million page views in its first month out. Jim’s strategy? He stayed in the conversation continually, posting new stories from Washington throughout the day.

Just like Money & Company’s strategy for covering the shutdown of the online poker sites. Not only did John Corrigan’s team break the news, but they continually advanced the story: here, here, here and here. As a result, the blog recorded nearly three times its previous record high.

“We try to pick our spots, and this was one story that had two big things going for it,” Corrigan said. “One, there was significance –- everyone following Internet gambling was wondering when the government was going to take action against what appeared to be blatant flouting of the law. So this enforcement action was news.”

 “And two, we knew there would be wide reader interest, as the legions of online gamblers searched for information about what was happening and what it meant for their online accounts.”

Our entertainment, culture and photo blogs took the same approach to the royal wedding. Jerome Adamstein’s vibrant gallery captured readers’ attention for days. By the time the West Coast woke up, Henry Chu and Janet Stobart in London, as well as a small overnight crew (including copy editors Jessica Parks and Marina Levario, fashion critic Booth Moore, editor Susan Denley, producers Marc Olson and Jenn Harris, and the team at Ministry of Gossip, notably Christie D’Zurilla and Nardine Saad), had plenty for people to read and see.

End result? Ministry, Culture Monster and All the Rage had more readers than ever before.

Of course, this is nothing new to Shelby Grad and his team. Aggressive coverage by Metro on several big stories –- the Dodger Stadium beating, the Santa Monica synagogue bombing, and the Barry Bonds verdict -– led L.A. Now to its second-highest-trafficked month ever.

In entertainment, the Pop & Hiss team –- Todd Martens, Jessica Gelt, Margaret Wappler, Nate Jackson and August Brown, edited by Randall Roberts -– provided start-to-finish coverage of Coachella 2011. Highlights included news of security changes and a Ferris wheel “jumper,” reviews of Arcade Fire and Kanye West, and photos of the scene at the music festival. Randy Lewis returned to the scene for Stagecoach at month’s end.

On the social media front, Martin Beck and Lindsay Barnett continue to make great strides. Readers are sharing our journalism more than ever. Facebook recommendations are nearly twice the level of the 2010 average.  Traffic from search, meanwhile, is up more than 20% over last year’s average.

As we strive to improve the commenting experience for our readers, two more of our blogs are using Facebook Comments. Money & Company and L.A. Now are the latest blogs to take part in this experiment. The goal? Better comments and fewer trolls. It’s working.

User-generated content is working too. Our Southern California Moments gallery, in which we feature a reader photo every day, drew more than 700,000 page views in April.

Making sure latimes.com is technically sound is an important priority. We’ve started working with an outside firm to help eliminate technological problems affecting our site. The firm recently conducted an extensive audit and identified some significant problems. Our team is working with Tribune to rectify these issues to make sure the site is working properly and optimized for high traffic.

We’ve also retained the services of one of the top usability firms in the world to conduct an analysis of our site. We’ll use its audit to improve the overall user experience in terms of readability, ease of navigation and design friendliness. Focus-group testing will begin late this month, and we can expect a full report in June.

Now the tale of the tape:

Record-breaking blogs:

1. Ministry of Gossip
2. Money & Company
3. All the Rage
4. Pop & Hiss
5. Politics Now
6. Culture Monster
7. Dodgers Blog
8. Jacket Copy
9. Opinion L.A.

Top 10 blogs (page views)

1. Framework (12,073,683)
2. L.A. Now (7,495,616)
3. Ministry of Gossip (2,924,134)
4. Show Tracker
5. Travel
6. Politics Now
7. Technology
8. Money & Company
9. Top of the Ticket
10. Booster Shots

Top-read articles or blog posts

1. Three largest online poker sites indicted and shut down (Nathaniel Popper)
2. Gang tattoo leads to a murder conviction (Robert Faturechi)
3. Why Hillary Clinton must run in 2012 (Andrew Malcolm)
4. Flash mob on Venice boardwalk ends in shooting (Gale Holland)
5. Ikea’s U.S. factor churns out unhappy workers (Nathaniel Popper)

Ever wondered how an editorial comes to be?

The Opinion L.A. blog posted excerpts of an email discussion among members of the editorial board about an upcoming memoir by Jaycee Dugard, who was kidnapped as a child and held for 18 years by her captors. She was repeatedly raped and bore two children.

Was it "sad and strange" for her to write such an account, and so soon?, Editorial Page Editor Nicholas Goldberg wondered in his opening email to the board. 

Michael McGough said he agreed, but that it would be "strange to seem to lecture her on deciding when to tell her story."

And Karin Klein added, "Her public persona has been that of victim. ... This is a chance to emerge from that embarrassed privacy, to assert some self-control over a life that has had little to none, and perhaps to have fame based on the image of her as a strong survivor, and one who wrote a book."

The discussion, which lasted about an hour, led to Wednesday's editorial, "The Jaycee Dugard Story."

In a post on the Afterword blog, obituaries writer Valerie J. Nelson explains the process of tracking down the age of Yvette Vickers, a former Playboy playmate and B-movie actress who was found dead in her Benedict Canyon home.

The challenge, as Nelson describes it: "Actresses, more than anyone I write about, 'prevaricate' about their age."

Indeed, as Nelson recounts, Vickers went from being 74 to 82. Nelson's full post.

After viewing this photo by Wally Skalij on Wednesday's Sports cover, reader Andrea Goettinger emailed The Times:

"The photo of Kobe Bryant pulling off a dunk over Emeka Okafor of the Hornets in the April 27 edition is awe-inspiring. Where was he shooting from -- the top of the backboard? Kudos to Wally Skalij on one of the best sports photos I've seen in a long time."

Deputy Managing Editor Colin Crawford, who oversees the photography department, answered for Skalij, who is traveling: The photographer wasn't on top of the backboard -- but his camera was.

The Framework blog described the remote camera setup at Lakers games in an October post: "One photographer + 3 cameras = awesome angles"

--Deirdre Edgar

The April 23 crossword puzzle in Calendar carried a note: "Can you spot the unusual feature in today's clues and answers?"

The answer was not in what the puzzle contained, but what it didn't. As crossword editor Rich Norris explained on the TribNation blog, the entire puzzle was created without the letter "e."

Norris wrote:

If you were to ask crossword writers (called "constructors") what letters they think are the most fun to put into a puzzle grid, most of them would mention the high-scoring Scrabble letters X, Z, J and Q. However, rarely does the opposite happen. That is, we don't often ask ourselves what letters would be the most fun to avoid putting in a crossword puzzle. Yet longtime constructor Michael Wiesenberg of Calgary, Alberta, did just that. A few months ago, he proposed a puzzle devoid of the letter E. Such puzzle grids had been constructed before, but Wiesenberg went one step further: Not only would the answer grid lack E's, so would the clues.

TribNation has the full story.

The puzzle is online here.

--Deirdre Edgar

The royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton has inspired a trove of articles about Britain: tips for traveling to London; finding a bit of Britain closer to home; a look at some less-than-regal wedding souvenirs; even a commentary from a British expatriate.

Invariably, articles about British culture mention tea. Afternoon tea, that is. However, a couple of recent articles have referred to the snack with pastries and finger sandwiches as "high tea," which readers have quickly pointed out is another meal.

The confusion first popped up in a photo caption in the April 3 Travel section with an article about a special royal-wedding-themed event at the Fairmont Empress hotel in Victoria, Canada. The caption with a photo of a silver tea service said that "high tea" was a tradition at the Empress.

Reader Burton Karson of Corona del Mar wrote, "Your writer of captions and your copy editor should know that 'high tea' is a working man's supper that includes a hot dish, and that the elegant tea referred to here is 'afternoon tea.'"

It happened again Monday, in a headline on the front page of the Calendar section.

A commentary by Simon Reynolds, a British music critic and author living in South Pasadena, argued that Americans are more excited about the royal wedding than Brits because they’re enthralled with a fairy tale image of Britain: "A fantasy land of castles and cucumber sandwiches, trusty valets and well-spoken villains."

Another line of the article was pulled out into larger type: "More than any other institution, PBS is responsible for maintaining the illusion that Britain is a country where everybody takes afternoon tea."

But the headline read: "Kings, castles and high tea."

Andy Gilchrist of Manhattan Beach wrote that "it's a major faux pas to confuse 'afternoon tea' with 'high tea'! They are very different servings, but since 'high' sounds more uppity, the misunderstanding is common."

Calendar copy chief Steve Elders said the headline intended to set a mood for the piece; the subheadline read, "Americans love the illusion of a quaint, fairy tale Britain. Blame films and PBS." Unfortunately, however, "high tea" isn't synonymous with "afternoon tea."

As Gilchrist suggested, the name "high tea" does not refer to high class, but to how the meal is served. High tea is served at a high dinner table or counter, while afternoon or "low tea" is traditionally served on low tables in a sitting room.

After the fairy tale royal wedding, it's much more likely that Prince William and his bride, like guests at the Empress hotel, will enjoy afternoon tea.

-- Deirdre Edgar

Photo: Afternoon tea at the Fairmont Empress, published April 3 in Travel. Credit: Empress Hotel

Editor Russ Stanton sent the following award announcement to the newsroom:

The Pulitzer Prizes we celebrated yesterday honored our coverage of events in our own backyard.

Today brings further recognition -- this time for our foreign reporting.

Our coverage of last year’s devastating earthquake in Haiti has won a 2011 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award.

The Times’ winning entry in the international print category showcased the work of reporters Joe Mozingo, Scott Kraft, Tracy Wilkinson, Tina Susman, Ken Ellingwood and Mitchell Landsberg and photographer Liz Baylen.

The RFK Award recognizes “outstanding reporting on human rights, social justice and the power of individual action.”

All were themes of our reporting on the disaster in Haiti. Among the highlights were Joe’s heart-rending story about a mother’s quest to save her child from a cholera epidemic, Scott’s piece on an 11-year-old street urchin surviving on wits alone in the days after the quake, and Liz’s gallery of still and video images that showed how one survivor struggled to master an artificial leg and then rebuilt his ruined home with scraps of wood and sheet metal.

Please join me in toasting these colleagues and their distinguished work.

Barbara Davidson wins the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography for "Caught in the Crossfire." 

[Updated, 1:30 p.m.: Here is the Pulitzer board's award citation.]