News Director Leaves KCET for NPR West

Philip Bruce, the news director and reporter for KCET’s “Life & Times,” has jumped ship for National Public Radio’s West Coast headquarters, where he will take the new title of supervising editor for California. He’ll start Aug. 16.

The move, said Cinny Kennard, manager of NPR West, is the latest in an expansion that has brought the Culver City branch to more than 60 staffers from 25 when it opened in late 2002.

A veteran television journalist with more than 25 years in broadcasting, Bruce led the daily operations of “Life & Times” since 2001. He had been a correspondent for the show in the two years before that. Before joining KCET, Bruce was a staff reporter for “News at Ten” on KTLA (Channel 5) and served for nearly a decade as Washington bureau chief and national political correspondent for KHOU (Channel 11) in Houston.

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L.A.’s latest new magazine in development is Privilege.

David Dizenfeld, president of Privilege Publishing Inc., said the magazine would be geared toward coverage of charities, non-profit foundations and philanthropy.

Not many details have been disclosed, but one of the big money backers is John Palmer, an owner of Le Dome restaurant in West Hollywood. The Santa Monica-based magazine plans a fall launch.

“We have just moved in and are getting ramped up,” he said of the magazine’s new digs at the Water Garden complex. “We are not putting out announcements before then.”

By Pat Maio