The LA Weekly will soon start making its online act a daily live show.

“We’ll be able to respond to breaking news faster, so whenever a big story hits, our reporters will be able to weigh in, even on weekends if the story warrants it,” the Weekly’s editor, Laurie Ochoa, said via e-mail.

Ochoa said she often gets complaints because the free paper, best known for its leftist politics and sex ads, currently counts between 75,000 and 150,000 visitors weekly on its Web site, with half a million page views when a story generates buzz. Recent examples Ochoa cited were Nikki Finke’s discussion of Jay Leno’s politics, and Marc Cooper’s interview with Gore Vidal.

There is no date for the transformation; the Weekly is recruiting a managing editor for the daily Web edition and wants to launch by the end of the first quarter of 2005.

The site will continue to feature the Weekly’s printed content, plus added links, chat rooms, forums and staff-written blogs.

“Over the course of the presidential campaign this year, we had a lot of success with blogs by our political reporters Joshuah Bearman and Marc Cooper especially found a devoted audience with their political blogs, which they have continued to write,” she said.

Finke has been known to break news on her own Web site. Asked if that was a factor in the stepped-up online presence, Ochoa said, “That wasn’t a big issue. We’ve known for a while that we had to improve our Web site.”