Comments on: LA Times Editor Fired: Deja Vu All Over Again

By: Sam Thornton

Sam Thornton — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 19:40:28 +0000

Woody sez: ‘…corporations exist primarily to provide competitive returns to investors rather than focus on what is Ã¢â‚¬Å“good for society.Ã¢â‚¬Â’

Sounds like a good working definition for any garden variety criminal conspiracy. Must be more to it than that. Or is Woody being sarcastic?

By: Randy Paul

Randy Paul — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:45:40 +0000

How can it be good for shareholders if it puts out a product that people turn away from because itÃ‚Â´s crap?

By: Woody

Woody — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 03:00:09 +0000

Don’t take this negatively, but corporations exist primarily to provide competitive returns to investors rather than focus on what is “good for society.” How can a business be “good for society” if it goes bankrupt because it didn’t watch the bottom line?

By: WBC

WBC — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:07:04 +0000

The OC Register is also downsizing for similar reasons: people want instant access to news, resulting in fewer hard copies sold (the printing costs of which are going up) and lower ad revenues. They’re taking a different approach: eliminating the stand-alone business section and incorporating “newsworthy” business items into the front section. Stock prices etc. will still be found online. This must be happening across the country.

In the case of the Times, it seems the cuts were to be across the board. (At a time the paper is already doing less targeted local coverage — which I think is foolish, since the papers that are hanging on best are focusing on localized coverage. E.g., the Daily News has become more Valley and blue-collar oriented, and often downright anti-metro.)

O’Shea (quoted in L A Observed) makes a persuasive case for why cutting experienced journalists who take the time to write and vet their pieces with professionalism — leaving us with blogs which traffic in gossip and innuendo — is a loss to our society.

By: Woody

Woody — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 15:32:32 +0000

WBC, if I’m the editor of the L.A. Times, I would concentrate on doing the best that I can at my job and let others handle theirs. The editor doesn’t clean the toilets and the editor doesn’t try to run the business. The changing nature of the media is a concern for the publisher–not the editor. Now, he’s out on the street. So much for symbolic protests.

By: L.A. Resident

L.A. Resident — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 06:44:55 +0000

I used to subscribe to the L.A. Times years ago and then just bought the newspaper on Sundays. Now with the explosion of news services and information at your finger tips who needs to buy a newspaper? The last time I actually bought a newspaper, I was going to the movies and wasn’t home to look up the movie times and locations. The other advantage is, I no longer leave my dirty handprints on the walls, from the newspaper ink. Even for weekly sales ads I just go directly to the stores web-sites, to look at weekly specials. So L.A. Times can’t even sell ad space like they used to. I sure most people buying the paper are over 50 years old, or need something to line the bird cage.

By: WBC

WBC — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 06:27:08 +0000

woody, it’s a more general problem of MSM vs. “new” media: how would YOU, as editor/ publisher, keep up ad revenues when the Times has had to, like its competitors, put its contents online? What “benefit” is there to buying the actual paper?
Sunday grocery coupons? Macy’s ads and clip coupons? Misc. small ads you might not otherwise read? Convenience? WHAT would you do if you had to increase revenue?

By: Woody

Woody — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 04:52:22 +0000

A classic case of not learning from history. The workers forget that they are not management, which has a duty to maximize profits for the owners. If someone working for the Times cannot accept that, then there’s the door to follow others who couldn’t.