Attn: L.A. Times readers. Is it me or does the editorial section really...

[devilgrrl]

suck ass these days? It's always been annoying but these days it's just downright unreadable, so much so that I'm considering cancelling my subscription.

[SteppingRazor]

1. Well, that would make sense....

since the Times has no editorial editor. It just fired Michael Kinsley a couple weeks ago.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. Kinsley was the problem, not a solution.

he caused a lot of disarray there.

now, the TribCo can embed its neocon ideas just like in Chicago and other locations.

[SteppingRazor]

3. Huh?

TribCo's about as hands-off a media corp as you'll find. Every paper is allowed to handle its own editorial content.

Though I certainly agree Kinsley was a problem. However, having no one there at all is even worse.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

4. hands off?

The company forced a pro-Bush endorsement - and they lost 10,000 subscriptions in Illinois.

It was so bad that they hired a PR company to try to recover the readers, sent out incredible deals and even called people up to "talk about it". I know, I received one of those calls. And two personal letters.
Their public Editor, Don Wycliff was forced to apologize about the endorsement, without actually saying I am sorry.

It was not hands off, not during the last election cycle.

[SteppingRazor]

5. That was just the Chicago Tribune's idiocy...

Not that of Trib in general. Seriously, take it from someone who knows. If you write for a Trib paper, you don't have people in Chicago calling you up and demanding you cover things in a certain way. It just doesn't work like that -- now, granted, one may have trouble with one's editor at the paper, but that's not the same thing as Tribune Co. enforcing a mandated political viewpoint, the way NewsCorp does.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

6. OK

I am sure that your info is much better.


I just hated what they did here in Illinois.

But it was fun to watch them scramble and make excuses as their readership #s dropped even more than national figures.

[JDPriestly]

15. If they try a right-wing coup in LA

they will be out of business. The rag is in its last throes already. It gets thinner every week. It used to survive on ads from May and Macys. Now that Macys is eating May, it is having to get by on fewer and fewer ads, less and less revenue. When the Times refused to print anything on the DSMs, I wrote and threatened to cancel my longtime subscription. A lot of people must have joined me because they finally published a small story or two. The editorial page features something by someone from a right-wing illusions tank almost every day, maybe actually every day. They have enlarged the print on the letters to the editor so that we won't notice they are printing fewer and fewer of them. Actually, the letters to the editor were always the best, most liberal part of the paper.

They need to get with the LA spirit which is liberal, liberal, liberal. Think Villaraigosa. A really liberal newspaper would be a huge hit here. Especially if it had some Spanish/Chinese/Korean sections and lots of local news including even more Schwarzenegger bashing than the Times.

[Oerdin]

18. "The rag is in its last throes already"

Sorry to disappoint you my friend but the LA Times most certainly isn't "in its last throes". You may not like it but it's a top five paper in the US and has been since the 1920's so it's very profitable and isn't going any where.

[bemildred]

7. I agree.

The writing sucks. It's like they fired all the editors and just let the writers blather away. There is a diversity of viewpoints, but that only gets you so far if the writing is incoherent or turgid.

[Cleita]

8. I stopped reading it because the editorials had too much

Max Boot and Linda Chavez and too little Molly Ivins and Robert Scheer. I think they had a change of staff that is turning the times into another propaganda rag for Bush and the GOP. Sad, isn't it.

[yorkiemommie1]

9. not to mention Ramirez cartoons

n/t

[ronnykmarshall]

10. Oh GAG!

I wish I had a bird so it could crap on his toons.

[Cleita]

11. Aren't those so freeperish? They used to run Conrad, who

was brilliant. I couldn't believe they replaced Conrad with Ramirez.

[yorkiemommie1]

12. absolutely repulsive

we get the Times because our other alternative is the Daily Breeze which is worse. Husband likes to have a paper and I thought he'd learn a little something from the Times. ( He's a bushbot ). I throw the paper out when I get home.

we get the paper at the school i work at and can only stare aghast at Ramirez's crap.

in fact, when the Times called me to renew once I complained about Ramirez. Someone else from the Times then called and I reiterated my complaint about R. He said they'd had lots of complaints about him. But they still have him. The guy almost expired when I told him the Times was too conservative for me!

I send them lots of letters and get published every couple of months.

[kestrel91316]

14. I think there is less Ramirez these days though, and lots more

Ted Rall and Toles, both of which are hysterically funny and anti-Bush.

[not fooled]

13. Hear, Hear

I live in San Diego, which has a true Freeper rag paper, the Union Trib. Hence, I made a point of buying the LA Times every day, even though doing so was a colossal hassle (vending machines).

However, the recent decline of not only the Editorial Page, but the entire paper, has caused me to quit the daily LAT quest. They are cutting, cutting throughout the paper = now it sucks. The last straw was when they knocked off the LAT Sunday magazine, substituting that POS McRag Parade.

And yeah, the Ed pg is getting more 'puke-friendly, as well as dumbed-down (go hand-in-hand). Also just get tired of seeing stories on the front page that pussyfoot around the debacles in Iraq and Washington (i.e., * admin follies)

Really a shame. But, just means more time spent scanning DU and Buzzflash. :)

[MindPilot]

16. There used to be a San Diego version of the LAT

and it was way better than the U-T. I canceled my U-T subscription years ago over their union-busting. I even canceled my subscription to Car & Driver because they went too far right.

[Oerdin]

19. The Union Tribune isn't a rightist paper.

The still seem to have the old "the journalist shouldn't take sides" sides mentality which is hard to find now days. Their editorial pages do seem to have a rightist bent but the other 10-12 sections are pretty clean. Progressives would do well to start submitting editorials as the UT has an open submission policy as long as it fits a certain word count and is topical.

[katty]

17. yup, the worst drivel

[devilgrrl]

20. I can't take it anymore. Today's "CURRENT" section is the straw that...

broke the camels back. What is going on there? :crazy:

[MindPilot]

21. Yeah that's like own own little local version of Cosmo

Couples living together is news?

[Panda1]

22. Worse than ever...I canceled my subscription

What's the point in reading more blastfaxes with the additional insult of Ramirez? The format change was the deal breaker and made me cancel. To change the "Opinion" section to the "Current" section and further bury it shows that dissent of any kind is frowned upon. My local area rag is just as bad so I get news off the net, radio (AAR) and C-SPAN.

LA times is a bizness...ka-ching, ka-ching.
Today A-1 "The New Deal"

LA Times
The Safety Net She Believed In Was Pulled Away When She Fell

Debra Potter made a good living selling disability coverage. But like many working Americans, she learned the hard way that federal law now favors insurers.

By Peter G. Gosselin, Times Staff Writer

Until a few years ago, Debra Potter made sure that her family could cruise the Caribbean, watch the NFL on big-screen TV and keep her elderly mother and in-laws at home in comfort.
...
But when Potter began falling down in 2002 and was subsequently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she discovered that the protection didn't work anything like she'd expected.
....
"People need safety nets, and that's what I thought I was selling them," Potter said. "But here I am with all my knowledge of insurance and I couldn't make it work for me."

When middle-class Americans talk about safety nets, they usually mean such things as food stamps or housing subsidies — public assistance on which generally only the poor depend. In fact, working people up and down the income spectrum lean heavily on a long list of protections such as healthcare coverage, unemployment compensation and pensions or 401(k)s.
... rest at link


It would appear chickens are coming home to roost for Middle Americans...well didn't we try our best to warn everyone that it should be called the RAW Deal Republican plan? It's the finest corporate welfare system known to mankind. The Times has a round file full of my letters on a range of subjects to do with the thugs in power.
One by one, these "it couldn't happen to me" stories will dribble out. The consumerism and greed running rampant is about to come to a screeching halt. Why isn't the LA times telling its readers about the credit card minimum payment changes coming in October? Coincidentally, October is when bankruptcy can no longer be declared by common citizens...only corporations.

The LA Times is NOT serving its readers well.
The rest of the front page is a total disappointment. Where's Cindy? Where's Iraq? Where's Lieboy?

I've found the online version to be a better source...and no newsprint mess all over my fingers. :)