World media has Valley in camera lens. (A Special Report: The Secession Question).

Dateline: Cleveland, Ohio. Headline: "State's Citizens Take Lawmaking Into Their Own Hands."

Sound familiar? The story ran in early October in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. That's Cleveland, as in Ohio. And, although not the central focus of the piece, San Fernando Valley secession caught the attention of the writer exploring a growing trend.

It took a while, but media coverage of Valley secession, particularly over the last few weeks, has ramped up across, not just the United States, but the globe. In many cases, the stories aim to simply explain the issue and move on. In other publications, such as the New York Times and Washington Post, coverage has gone deeper, with stories ranging from the impact on the Latino population in Los Angeles to the debate over how water and power would be shared if the Valley were to become its own city.

"It's been a subject that has been of latent interest, but it is a sexy issue," said Kevin Roderick, author of "The San Fernando Valley: America's Suburb." "It has overtones of revolution and, well, it is Los Angeles."

Prominent players on both sides of the breakup campaign, from Richard Close to Zev Yaroslavsky, have popped up on the pages of newspapers in nearly every major U.S. city.

In June, Roderick launched a link on his own Web site, Americassuburb.com, called Secession Watch, which offers a daily roundup of media reports on the cityhood movement and sometimes offbeat but related topics, along with his own critique of the press coverage.

"I knew I was going to be asked to write about secession and it was a good way for me to keep up on the issue," said Roderick, also a contributing writer to Los Angeles magazine.

Roderick himself was recently interviewed by United Press International for a story on the historical and geopolitical issues driving the cityhood movement. In other words, media covering the media covering the media.

Who said the issue lacked momentum?

Producers from Swiss National Television, for example, recently dropped in at Valley Independence Committee headquarters, just as producers from CNN were wrapping up an interview with Richard Katz, committee co-chair, for Lou Dobbs' Moneyline.

Reto Caduff, director of operations for Swiss Television, said he interviewed Mayor James Hahn, Valley mayoral candidate Keith Richman and VICA Chairman Fred Gaines for a news magazine show called Ten Vor Ten (Ten Before Ten) that will air in Switzerland, Austria and Germany on Nov. 1.

"This would never happen in a place like Zurich or Paris or London," said Caduff. "If the people in Paris heard the city wanted to break up, you'd have people rioting in the streets. Here, people just don't seem to care that much unless you jump in their back yard, which our viewers will be very interested in."

"It's a little bizarre to think that people back in Austria are going to see me on TV with my mouth moving and someone speaking in German over me about Valley secession," said Gaines.

Katz said he wasn't surprised by the swelling interest in the secession story because the movement itself represents a clear example of how democracy is supposed to work.

"People from around the country are able to take a bigger view of this issue than the streetlights, as we do," said Katz. "They see it as the democratization of government. And I think there's a lot of talk around the country and overseas that, if this can happen in L.A., it can happen anywhere."

RELATED ARTICLE: Times, Daily News Battle Mirrors Secession Conflict

Perhaps nowhere has media coverage of the secession campaign more perfectly mirrored the divide between secessionists and City Hall than in the Daily News and Los Angeles Times. The two papers have served as the yin and yang of the secession movement, with the Times placing a higher emphasis on coverage of the pitfalls of secession and the Daily News focusing on the ills of city government.

Secessionists and critics of the Times say the paper was slow to begin in-depth coverage of secession because it didn't take it seriously. Only when it became clear that voters would have an opportunity to decide the issue, many suggest, did the Times assign a five-person team of reporters. But much of the coverage, they add, has been one-sided.

"To find balanced coverage in the Los Angeles Times on cityhood, you've really got to look hard," said Valley Independence Committee co-chairman Richard Katz.

Calls to the Times for comment were not returned.

On the other hand, opponents of a breakup have criticized the Daily News for its apparent bias and have accused Managing Editor Ron Kaye of crossing the line between impartial reporting and advocacy journalism.

Kaye did not return calls to the Business Journal.

"I think it's clear both papers have an editorial position on the issue, but clearly more so in the Daily News," said Kevin Roderick, author of "The San Fernando Valley: America's Suburb."

The paper gave Valley VOTE $60,000 in 1998 to fund the initial study on Valley secession. In addition, former reporters and editors of the paper have said their stories were often tweaked to present a more favorable view of the cityhood movement and its key players.

On the other hand, the Times is reported to have paid a $40,000 membership fee to the Los Angeles Business Advisors, an anti-secession group.

Daily News circulation is just under 130,000 in the San Fernando Valley, compared to the Times Valley circulation of 151,190.

Some believe the Daily News would gain significantly in both advertising revenue and readership if the Valley were to become its own city, explaining, they say, the paper's coverage.

The Daily News is said to be working on plans for covering a new Valley city.

Industry experts say opportunities for economic gain as a result of secession for either paper are very hard to calculate.

"Retail and national advertisers make their decisions on where the paper is picked up," said J.J. McGrath, managing editor of Editor and Publisher, a newspaper industry magazine. "So that likely won't change much. But from a business perspective, the legal advertisements are probably the only things you can count on if you are looking at revenue increases."

McGrath said legal advertising typically constitutes about 10 percent of the classified ad revenue for a daily newspaper, and classified ads typically represent roughly 40 percent of the paper's overall ad revenue.

Roderick suggested the Daily News' whole-hearted coverage of secession and its reporting style in general may not remain all that appealing to the changing profile of its readership which, over time and with or without secession, could switch over to the Times.

"The larger issue for the Daily News is identifying so closely with a particular viewpoint (on secession). Only time will tell whether that was a good business call or not," said Roderick. "And, as the Valley grows and becomes more cosmopolitan, it looks more like L.A. all the time, so the Daily News' style may not match the interests of those readers the way the Los Angeles Times may."