Why has no one taken notice of the fact that this is another act committed by the team of geniuses from the Chicago Tribune who have turned the LA Times into the West Coast AA farm team of that pile of fascist toilet-paper substitute that is the Tribune? So far, none of those bozos has been able to demonstrate the ability to find the zipper on their fly with both hands on a clear day with a 3-hour advance notice since they took over.

TcinLA: Agreed. I almost wrote a concluding paragraph reaming the Tribune Company for its ongoing campaign to destroy a once-great newspaper, but decided to spare my blood pressure the agony.

Who cares?

The LA Times is a private company. I don't care how it picks its guest editors.

Ron: No it isn't. It's owned by the Tribune Company of Chicago, a publicly traded company.

TcinLA: Agreed. I almost wrote a concluding paragraph reaming the Tribune Company for its ongoing campaign to destroy a once-great newspaper, but decided to spare my blood pressure the agony.

Please, please watch that Frontline doc "News War."

...not to cluck mindlessly over appearances. We should leave that to Maureen Dowd.

Ha!

Good one, Kevin.

Thanks for the post, Kevin.

Check out my blog for new stuff today.

Journalists flip over the weirdest things. Remember when "Primary Colors" came out, by an anonymous author, and everyone promptly asked everyone they knew whether they wrote it, and the true author (naturally) denied it? Somehow that got played as the downfall of journalism.

Oh, snap. Drum 1, Dowd 0.

So what if the Chicago Tribune is publicly traded. This isn't about stock manipulation, or anything remotely related to the kinds of disclosures required by the SEC. This is an internal management decision.

Who is hurt by the "scandal" anyway?

Not the LA Times or its shareholders. People will be reading just to judge how well the guy does.

Sheesh, you journalists need to get a grip.

Ron, it seems you don't understand some basic ideas about the "product" (if you want to look at it that way). The LAT's ability to sell advertising is based on subscriptions which are based on how many people are willing to pay for information they more or less trust.

Not that Grazergate shakes that trust, but that's the issue in question, not the speed of the conveyor belt in widget sector 12.

Too bad Kinsley is never right about, you know, anything that actually matters...

I don't know much about journalism, but I do read the LA Times every day. When I first saw this story a couple of days ago, I thought, "Huh. He brought his girlfriend's client in to be the first guest editor. That's kind of bogus." I don't know exactly why this seems unethical, but it does.

When I read this I assumed that it was the result of some sort of power struggle. Everything I've read seems to indicate that, as you said, no-one thinks Martinez actually did anything wrong. That leads me to believe that this is pretextual. Anyone have any insight on internal politics at LA Times? I suspect that someone lobbied hard to block this, and that was the last straw for Martinez.

As I reflect on it, maybe it's because the girlfriend's job is to do PR for Grazer, and this guest-editing thing is good PR for him. A little too neat. Like she and Martinez didn't talk about it over daiquiris in the hot tub.

The political correctness of newsrooms of relatively liberal publications seems second only to that of academe.

I remember when a well known liberal columnist for the Boston Globe, David Nyhan, was savaged in a witch hunt by these PC creeps.

Apparently one day Nyhan was planning to go out with some friends to a card game, but one of them said he couldn't go because his wife wanted him at home. Nyhan joked that the guy was "pussy-whipped." Unfortunately, the joke was overheard by a PC Nazi.

You can almost guess the rest. Nyhan was raked over the coals by the PC crew in the newsroom. Charges of sexual harrassment filled the air. Nyhan was fined by the management for his remark, and had to issue endless abject apologies. Soon thereafter, he was "retired" from his position as columnist. Soon after that, he "retired" from the Globe altogether. At the age of 64, the man died of a heart attack.

I will simply never forgive those PC scum for their treatment of a basically good man of high values. These are truly evil people who would in another era gladly have joined the Inquisition.

I've never had any real respect for the Globe since that time. They are capable of anything in service of their ideology.

Sorry, but it would be hard to defend Ron Brownstein remaining a political reporter when his wife works for McCain. If he wanted to remain in that position, his wife should've chosen to do something else. That was totally between those two.

That isn't an appearance of impropriety; it's a conflict of interest. Reporters write on the revolving door in Washington and the cozy relationships between lawmakers and lobbyists.

His wife's position would've been too cozy, too. Plus, how would one go about proving actual impropriety? How could one ever tell that Brownstein intentionally overlooked a McCain matter?

The Martinez stuff is murkier. But I see no upside in killing the section. How does that help readers? Go with an editor's note that discloses and quietly tell Martinez not to do it again.

There's so many other choices out there.

Ron, it seems you don't understand some basic ideas about the "product" (if you want to look at it that way). The LAT's ability to sell advertising is based on subscriptions which are based on how many people are willing to pay for information they more or less trust.

Posted by: Uli Kunkel on March 23, 2007

Simple admission. I grew up in a newspaper family. My dad taught me early that advertising rates are based on circulation. Explain to me exactly how this "scandal" is going to adversely affect circulation. We are talking about a "guest" editor job in a "new" section of the newspaper.

This isn't core journalism. Hell, it's not even the sports section. It is more like the "style" section or the book review page. It is filler cut or dropped as soon as an advertiser pays for the space.

As far as the newspaper's front office is concerned they would probably prefer somebody start a rumor that the girlfriend had to have sex with somebody for Gazer to get the job. Nothing sells like sex, except violence. In the long run this helps circulation.

No, this is an invented scandal like Britney cutting her hair. Much ado about nothing.

As to the resignation. Dollars to donuts Martinez really had another reason for quiting a good paying journalism gig. I doubt he was asked to leave over Grazer.

My guess is he was leaving anyway and this scandal was part of an agreed exit strategy that helps both him and the paper.

Then there's this little problem of Conrad Black:

'Regardless of what else happens in the Black saga, the jury-selection process has already provided an extraordinary window onto the way regular Americans, randomly selected, view their elites--not as heroes but as thieves. As far as Black is concerned, this is all terribly unfair--he is being "thrown to the mobs" because of rage at the system and, unlike American billionaires, he doesn't "dress in corduroy trousers" or donate his fortune to AIDS charities. Black's lawyers even argued (unsuccessfully) that their client could not get a fair trial because the average Chicagoan "does not reside in more than one residence, employ servants or a chauffeur, enjoy lavish furniture, or host expensive parties." - Naomi Klein
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070409/klein

Drum - In the case at hand, my guess is that no one -- literally no one -- think Andres Martinez actually did anything wrong.

Bad guess.

LA Times:

Martinez blamed Hiller and Times Editor James E. O'Shea, who both came from Chicago last fall after their predecessors left the paper under pressure from The Times' parent, Tribune Co.

[Martinez:] "I do think there is a larger dynamic here of an editor and publisher who have been sent out here and who have a very tenuous grip on the provinces," he said. "They did something that placated a few people in the newsroom, the vocal ones that made them look foolish to the outside world."

Responding Thursday night, O'Shea — who oversees the news and features sections but not the opinion pages — said: "As editor of the paper I'm the custodian of a public trust, and I felt there was a bad situation that could harm the integrity of the paper. Above all, it's my responsibility to protect the paper's reputation. This was not an overreaction."

Many reporters and editors in the Times newsroom supported the publisher and editor. "O'Shea stepped up to the plate when the paper's credibility was in question," veteran reporter Henry Weinstein said. "He did the right thing and he did it with alacrity, which was a good thing for this newspaper. And I'm glad Hiller made the right decision."

Kevin, I don't think you're quite right about this one: http://www.danielmunz.com/blog/2007/03/keeping_up_appearances.html

Plus, it's not as if the world suddenly ends just because another conservative, pro-war, Bush-enabling ninny throws a hissy fit and quits.

Credit the otherwise conservative Tribune for taking a principled stand on a left-coast conservative who made a career of "priggish" sermonizing and embarassing brainstorms like risible "guest editorializing" featuring the mother of all 24 fear-hyping sleazoids, Brian Glazer.

Plus, it's not as if the world suddenly ends just because another conservative, pro-war, Bush-enabling ninny throws a hissy fit and quits. - LAT Reader

It's not as though there aren't plenty more where he came from...makes you wonder if they are churned out by the gross in some factory in Shenzhen.

No where do you mention, Kevin, that under Andres Martinez's watch, the opinion pages of the LA Times have furthered the slide into right wing propaganda that began with his predesessor and defender, Michael Kinsley.

Both of these jokers are just as responsible as the corporate creeps in Chicago for the destruction of this once great newspaper. Good riddance to all of them.

LAT Reader: agree about Grazer. Just a day or two before Grazergate I said aloud how annoying Grazer's portrait was becoming in the paper, and whatever else, this guest spot was a lot of publicity for someone who already seems to try too hard at self-promotion.

Grazer's remark that "what I've really been doing is pursuing a 25-year journey of curiosity. Curiosity informs everything I do" was an accidental parody of the self-important, deluded Hollywood player who isn't content with making huge amounts of money but also wants to convince us he's facilitating Art.

Oh, and I agree with what several other posters are pointing out above--Brian Grazer was a strange and ridiculous choice for this experiment. The man has more than enough venues to satisfy his ego, we do not need him guest editing our weekend opinion pages.

I almost wrote a concluding paragraph reaming the Tribune Company for its ongoing campaign to destroy a once-great newspaper, but decided to spare my blood pressure the agony.

As I said before, we flyoverlanders are holding the print media of you lalalanders hostage until you put some decent programming on TV.

Seriously though, the Tribune Corp is looking to sell off some of its assets -- if you don't like the way the LAT is run, and you think you can do better, then put together an investment group and make an offer.

Perhaps Paris Hilton will decide it would be 'hot' to have very own personal paper churning out Paris Hilton stories nonstop...oh, wait...

Disputo:

We ALL know that the Tribune is looking to sell. There HAVE been several groups of local investors trying to buy, but the Tribune group is not cooperating. You can find any number of articles in the LA Times and LA Weekly or on LA Observed (and many many other publications) going over the details.

So, your "serious" point is...?

I like the way lalalanders define "rejecting lowball offers" as "not cooperating".

Really, folks, get some nads. Stop blaming all your problems on Chicago (or, per another thread, IA and NH).

The more important question here seems to be why in the hell would you want Brian Grazer as an editor. Who cares what a hollywood producer thinks about anything. .. and I work in the biz

Just tell me when they get rid of Goldberg.

no more 'kabuki dance,' please.

Private equity doesn't like short, simple, direct or honest. Like Mr. Bush, it needs to bend its assets to a single purpose. In private equity's case, it is making a lot of money now; running a successful business makes money over time, something private equity finds boorrring. They also don't know how to do it.

Making money selling news ain't nothin'. Making money enabling a political party that can approve ownership rules, merger or divestiture rules, or spit on that party's rivals under the guise of selling news, that can make a lot of money. It's called Fox, or rather, Faux News.

The only solution for the LA Times is for The Tribune Company to take one of those offers on the table, and sell the Times back to somebody that wants to run a news business rather than dismantle it for cash.

Two points: this is a paper that had a pay for play scandal eight years ago under Capt. Crunch (Mark Willes, who came to the newspaper business from the cereal business), so you would expect working reporters like Henry Weinstein to care about this sort of chumminess on the editorial side, even if nothing more than favors and gratitude were exchanged.

Second, while "the appearance of impropriety" may seem like an absurdly unrealistic standard, it's a term taken from the legal standards governing conflicts of interest on the part of attorneys, governmental officials and public employees, fiduciaries and other closely regulated individuals. The notion is to create a no-go zone around those individuals so as to prevent such conflicts from arising, rather than leaving each case to be viewed on a case by case basis. It can be wildly overinclusive--as when the City of Los Angeles tried to prevent housing inspectors from maintaining private businesses (e.g., tax preparation practices run out of their homes on the weekend), on the theory that they might just might do business with someone doing business with the City--but it serves a purpose, in theory at least, of keeping people from coming too close to whatever boundary separates acceptable and unacceptable influence. While the pernicious sort of influence (pulling ads to discourage critical comments about car dealers, to take one recent example) may be part of the landscape, that's no excuse not to enforce whatever rules the Times had developed against this sort of editorial logrolling.

Does that mean that Martinez' resignation was required? No idea--as other commenters have noted, we don't know all the relevant facts and I'm no ethicist.

First, under Martinez' watch, the opinion pages of the LA Times became almost unreadable and a mockery.

Second, Kinsley is the last guy who should be talking about a conflict of interest, or lack of it, with the LA Times, since they fired his ass and he didn't like it.

For what it's worth, the planned for editorial columns in the cancelled Sunday issue sounded pretty interesting, so I give that dude credit even though it was shit-canned.

This has nothing to do with Martinez being an overall liability to the newspaper.

Martinez is not "that dude" who directed The DaVinci Code, in case you're wondering, but I forgot his name and don't care to look it up right now.

It's a joke that Martinez claims his girlfriend had nothing to do with it.

Well, at least this would be OBVIOUS cross-promotion. Having different power players editing different weeks would make it seem more fair....actually, LAT could have a section guest-edited by someone different every week. I think the way it's playing out-it's a scandal, unless of course you, Kevin get to do a guest-edit one week. You're not related to anyone on the LAT, are you?