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November 16, 2006 7:07 AM
Careers Always, Readers Never Soft Writing and Hard Times at the LA Times By Catherine Seipp I’ve been struck by the odd notion - reportedly run up the flagpole by David Geffen, a possible Los Angeles Times buyer - that the way to improve my favorite paper is to lure Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich and Alex Witchel from the New York Times out to Spring Street. Now that’s just crazy, because why should they go, when everything about them is so essentially New York? Also, much of the problem with the L.A. Times is elitism combined with insecurity. Why do people keep thinking that importing yet more out-of-town Jaspers to explain our city to us is some kind of great solution? The money quote in all the coverage recently about the L.A. Times and its troubles is in last week’s Wall Street Journal story, courtesy L.A. Times managing editor Doug Frantz, who’s spent much of his career moving back and forth between the New York Times and the L.A. Times. “I didn’t want to come back to work for a really good local newspaper,” Frantz told the Journal, about why he was lured from New York to L.A. by recently ousted L.A. Times editor Dean Baquet, “and I still don’t.” This, in a nutshell, is the essential problem with the L.A. Times: Those who work there care a great deal about their careers and very little about their readers. I’m not one of those who think the paper should dismantle its foreign and national bureaus - of course a big-circulation paper in a major city like L.A. should have at least some of its own reporters around the world - but it’s possible to maintain all that while also realizing that readers can now just as easily subscribe to the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal for home delivery as the L.A. Times. So you’ve got to give locals a reason to get their local paper instead, and probably that means a renewed emphasis on local news, even though, yes, being a foreign correspondent is much more glamorous. A good example of how the L.A. Times constantly fails at all this comes courtesy of Sharon Waxman’s smart, engaging little piece last week in the New York Times, about Carrie Fisher, a Los Angeles personality who’s about to appear in a one-woman show at a Los Angeles theater. So naturally, the New York Times did the story first. Fluffy stories like that don’t win Pulitzers but they do draw in readers — especially young readers, who like to go out on the town to see one-woman shows, or even if they don’t have the money at the moment, are interested in what wise-asses like Carrie Fisher have to say. So the powers that be at the L.A. Times tend to overlook them, and their circulations continue to shrink. Oh, eventually, I’m sure the L.A. Times will get around to doing something on Fisher - but you can bet it will one of those long, boring writerly things…like the tedious thumbsucker that freelancer Fred Schruers produced about Christian Bale for the L.A. Times last week. The L.A. Times has very little budget for freelancers lately, so they obviously think Schruers is really something, and here’s an example why from that story: As chance would dictate, [Bale’s] being asked about how that affects his family life when his pretty, engaging but seemingly somewhat shy wife, Sibi, wanders in to accompany him to his last appointment of the day. They have a 19-month-old daughter back home in Santa Monica. One can practially hear Mrs. Bale rolling her eyes at Schruers’ question, even while one can’t really see why such a lot of increasingly tight features space was given over to these musings - one just has to chalk it up to the mysterious ways of Spring Street, one supposes. But then there are the Calendar columnists, about which one can’t resist pointing out that when Patrick Goldstein puts his thinking cap on, run for cover. Take this Goldstein column from last week, about Jason Apuzzo and Govindini Murty, founders of the rightwing Liberty Film Festival. What stopped one - or at least me - short was Goldstein’s observation that “Libertas’ politics often drive me around the bend, especially when Murty goes on about how Hollywood movies are undermining the war on terror. (Silly me, I thought the war on terror was being undermined by the war in Iraq.)” Certainly, reasonable people can disagree about whether the war in Iraq undermines rather than aids the war on terror. But that “silly me” means that the writer thinks there is no debate: Of course the war in Iraq undermines the war on terror, and silly you if you don’t agree. Sure, it’s Goldstein’s column, and he’s entitled to air his own opinion in it. But how sadly insulated to signal such a complacent disconnect from readers like that! (Even though plenty of Goldstein’s fellow staffers are equally complacent.) You don’t have to be a mean old Republican to notice this, by the way. My friend Sandra Tsing Loh (an NPR Democrat if there ever was one) is constantly railing about rich and isolated L.A. Times editors and writers she runs into who send their kids to private schools without bothering to set foot in their local public schools to check them out - even when those public schools are so rarefied that people with less money than Times staffers regularly lie about their addresses to get into them. Weeding out all that is going to take years, so in the meantime, why not focus on improved local coverage and commentary? One way to hurry up the process might be to encourage all the Ivy Leaguers and ex-New York Timesers there to stop constantly looking back east. They might also try to spend more time outside their posh and cocooned little social circles in the upperclass enclaves of L.A. Sure, the catering won’t be as good, but the ideas might be fresher. PajamasMedia Special Correspondent CATHERINE SEIPP writes the weekly “From the Left Coast” column for National Review Online, a monthly column for Independent Women’s Forum and freelances other places, such as the Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal op-ed pages. She previously wrote columns for: Buzz, Mediaweek, UPI, New York Press and Salon. Her work has also appeared in Reason, Penthouse, TV Guide, the National Post and Forbes. ——— Comments (7)happyfeet :jm : I couldn't agree with you more about the Patrick Goldstein column. He and fellow Calendar columnists Rutten, Martinez, Turan and Chicano share one thing in common -- they're hell-bent on pushing one political agenda, which, guess what, is anti-Bush. My eyes glaze over. Outpost37 :"Such pieces in the L.A. Times are always noticably written (or edited) down to a 5th-grade reading level." Well, they're writing for the Hollywood "Elite," after all, ya know, like, "our betters," like, because they're rich, and like, ya know, we're not. Dean Wermer :As I talk to people across the political spectrum in Los Angeles, the themes that you mention for fixing the Times pop up in virtually every conversation. Enhanced and improved local coverage: everything from politics (LA proper and the suburbs), to local sports (high school and college), to local entertainment (food, music, shopping, etc.). Given what appears to be a general consensus in the local reading public on what needs to be done to increase demand for the Times (with of course some differences on the details), it's really a mystery as to the continued resistance on Spring Street, though I would agree that NYTimes emulation and envy is a problem. Basic economics suggest that instead of competing with the NYTimes in its areas of entrenched strength (national domestic and european/middle east politics), the local Times should emphasize its areas of comparitive advantage. That includes looking ahead to the areas of the world that already are of tremendous importance to our lives in SoCal and will assume even greater importance in the decades to come - many of which have large immigrant communities in the basin. So scrap the European and Middle Eastern bureaus and share or purchase coverage of those areas from other news organizatins. Invest heavily, alone or with other news organizations, in China, Asia, Indian, Latin American and Pacific Basin bureaus and coverage. Some say that readers aren't that interested in those areas, I disagree. And better coverage which points out the importance of those regions and their local connections will only enhance reader interest. Given the possibilities of innovative coverage of those areas, enhanced by the myriad of local connections to those areas, the investment dollars associated with that "heavy investment" can be controlled. Purchase the LA Weekly (and wrap 50% of it into the Weekend section sans the escort adds of course) or raid its staff to enhance local coverage of restaurants & food (why is the "counter culture" column of popular low cost food choices in the Weekly and not the Times?), movies, books and music (there's still a value to readers in collecting in one place all the club music listings each week which makes it easy for one to compare their entertainment choices - why is it in the Weekly and not the Times; even if it's due to advert rate discrepancies, why not come up with an innovative way to make it economically feasible). NY likes to pretend it is the center of the food universe, but LA's diversity of food choices puts that claim to shame. The Food section is a good start, but strengthen it's depth of coverage. Enhanced coverage of cheaper (and more diverse) food/restaurant choices and not just the showy hollywood/west side openings. Why the pathetic music section, when there is a wealth of music writers that could be obtained on the cheap that would be thrilled for the exposure. Ann Powers is better than the decrepit Robert Hilburn - anyone would have been - but what connection does she/did she have with the Los Angeles music business and scene (oh yeah, she used to work at the NY Times). Unfortunately, she emphasizes the showy/big pieces that are unfortunately dull and don't really assist readers in their local music purchases (concerts, downloads, cd's, understanding the business of music, etc.). No one who is interested in music reads more than a paragraph or two of any story she writes. And everyone, I mean all readers, agree that the book section is still a joke (why have a book section - why not just wrap coverage into daily calendar pieces of quality - oh yeah, the local Times has to have a book section because serious papers like the Old Gray Lady do), and "West" while marginally better than in years past, remains barely readable. In area after area, the local Times has ceded coverage of areas of local importance and reader interest to specialty publications. As everyone agrees, coverage by the Times of the local entertainment industry is laughable for a paper centered in the midst of that community. Why can't the Times raid two or three qualified and connected reporters from Variety and the Reporter? Or joint venture with one or both of those publications to purchase stories or assist in a weekly project (the Thursday "Weekend" section). Local business coverage, same problem. The Times has largely ceded that area to specialty publications. The Los Angeles Business Journal contains the coverage that belongs in the local Times. Again, buy and/or raid and/or joint venture in order to improve coverage. Angelenos love design and fashion (and our local fashion district is significant). But, even though LA is and has been a national trendsetter in fashion and design, the Times defaults to the notion that important design trends are created in NYC and Europe (and what counts is coutre fashion and the related sexy/big shows of Paris, Milan and NYFashion Week). When the Times picks up on trends, including locally created trends, it's typically months and years late, and in slavish following of NYTimes earlier coverage. And, to top it off, don't forget that LA is more than the Westside. For example, people in the San Gabriel Valley by and large subscribe to their local papers (SGValley Tribune, Pasadena Star Tribune) because of the willful ignoring of those areas by the Times. None of these ideas are new. They've all been talked about amongst readers. But the Times consistently fails to innovate, to try - even if it risks failure. When the Times does try, it's choices are predictable and safe. Given the circulation freefall, it's really hard to see at this point, the risk of significant, radical innovation at the Times. BigFire :I dropped my subscription to LA Times and changed to WSJ 2 years ago. The writing is just consistently better, and I don't get the in-your-face politics (or less). My brother still insist on getting LAT mainly for the sports section & the Friday Fry's Electronics ads. Jerry Carroll :Shed no tears over these old dinosaurs. They deserve to die, the sooner the better. Susan Salisbury :I stopped reading the Los Angeles Times about 10 years ago, and feel my life is much better for the decision. As a consequence I don't know many of the names you mention. The Times management has made it more than clear that it doesn't really want my patronage, nor the patronage of the hundreds of thousands of residents who think like I do. The complete disconnect between the Times and its readers is symbolized by a misbegotten Times project of about a decade ago where they decided to invite essays about what people do on Sunday mornings. I never heard more from it, but I suspect after they received 200 letters from people, of all races and ethnic origins, about how they go to church on Sunday morning, the Times editorial staff decided the time wasn't yet right for their secularized view of the world. We former Times readers are tired of a newspaper that has degenerated into a leftwing propaganda sheet. We are tired of a newspaper which purports to report on Los Angeles but reads like it is written from Manhattan. These writers know almost nothing of Los Angeles and its history. They react in wonder to find out that there is an enormous Asian community in the San Gabriel valley. Many of them don't even know where the San Gabriel Valley is, of course. (about 4 miles east of their offices in downtown Los Angeles) They have never heard of Howard Jones and barely know who John Wooden is. They wonder why there is a statue of George S. Patton, Jr. at a church in the San Gabriel Valley and some of them have no idea that it snows in Los Angeles county every year. And yet they think they are smart and knowledgeable. The great Los Angeles writers like Jack Smith and Matt Weinstock are long gone and have been replaced by writers who are more familiar with Manhattan than Los Angeles. The political pages are a joke. Los Angeles has never been liberal, it has always been moderate or conservative. Nancy Pelosi couldn't win a statewide election in this state because the votes and the money are in L. A. What surprised me is that when I expressed these thoughts to a hapless student trying to sell me a subscription to the L. A. Times he told me, all of my neighbors had said the same thing. And this in a precinct that always votes Democratic. Fire all the editorial staff including most especially Robert Scheer. Put at least one true conservative column on each editorial page. Start running people like Ann Coulter and Thomas Sowell in addition to the liberals and people will start to read the Times again. Comments have been archived for this page. |
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It's hard to see the problem at the LAT as all that fraught. The enclaves you cite - that seems like the key observation here. LA is not a community like NY or Chicago, so the Times doesn't try to cover it like one - it doesn't really matter why. Or maybe it does, but I could care less. And Sandra is NOT an NPR Democrat by any stretch - she's insightful, funny, charming and talented.
Nov 16, 2006 09:07 PM