Grazergate, the epilogue
David Hiller's decision to kill the Brian Grazer section this Sunday makes my continued tenure as Los Angeles Times editorial page editor untenable. The person in this job needs to have an unimpeachable integrity, and Hiller's decision amounts to a vote of no confidence in my continued leadership.
I regret that my failure to anticipate and adequately address the perception of a conflict in this matter has placed Hiller -- whom I like and respect a great deal, incidentally -- and my colleagues on the editorial board in such an awkward position, not to mention Brian Grazer and Kelly Mullens, who did nothing wrong here but have been caught up in all this. Nick Goldberg and Michael Newman are two of the smartest, most talented people I have worked with, and any lapses in judgment here were mine, not theirs.
I accept responsibility for creating this appearance problem, though I also maintain that the newspaper is overreacting today. We are depriving readers of an interesting, serious section that is beyond reproach, and unfairly insulting the individuals we approached to participate in this guest editor program by telling them it is a corrupt concept. How we come about this decision when 24 hours ago the managing editor of this newspaper was assuring me he didn't see a story after I walked him through the facts, and while Hiller maintains we did nothing wrong, is a bit perplexing. In trying to keep up with the blogosphere, and boasting about their ability to go after their own, navel-gazing newsrooms run the risk of becoming parodies of themselves.
Among the biggest possible conflicts of interest a newspaper can enter into is to have the same people involved in news coverage running opinion pages. I am proud of the fact that Jeff Johnson, Dean Baquet and I fully separated the opinion pages from the newsroom at the Times. I accept my share of the responsibility for placing the Times in this predicament, but I will not be lectured on ethics by some ostensibly objective news reporters and editors who lobby for editorials to be written on certain subjects, or who have suggested that our editorial page coordinate more closely with the newsroom's agenda, and I strongly urge the present and future leadership of the paper to resist the cries to revisit the separation between news and opinion that we have achieved.
We're a long ways removed from the fall of 2004 when Michael Kinsley and John Carroll lured me out to the West Coast, with promises of investing more resources on the LAT opinion pages and web site. Some of the retrenchment is understandable given the business fundamentals, but I have been alarmed recently by the company's failure to acknowledge that our opinion journalism, central to the paper's role as a virtual town square for community debate and dialogue, should not be crudely scaled back as part of across-the-board cuts. Decisions being made now to cut the one part of the paper that is predominantly about ideas and community voices go too far in my view, and are shortsighted.
Still, I am proud of what we've accomplished in the last two years. The Times has a provocative editorial page of intellectual integrity that adheres to principles over time, rather than the tactical, shrill partisanship that has become too much the norm of our public discourse and plenty of other editorial pages. The op-ed page continues to provide a lively mix of opinion from all quarters, and we have put in place a strong roster of weekly op-ed columnists and contributing editors. Sunday's Current is firing on all cylinders and we have recently launched a series of online-only feautres, including more columns, weekly online chats, weeklong debates and other features.
It has been a tremendous privilege working here on Spring Street and being associated with the talented team of opinionators on the second floor, and the vast majority of other journalists at the Times building and around the world who are hugely talented and committed.
I am sorry I let you down,
Andrés
Martin Luther King hospital was treated to a scathing, series of inspections that created high stress levels among the staff.
Yet the treatment we recieved is unfair, why ?
Not because we (MLK) under went the reviews but because it is obvious that no one else has, that is no other county hospital.
I was sent to LAC-USC and of course I am sensitive to many of the issue that have been raised at MLK. You cannot walk in the Emergency Department or any ICU and not see the glaring deficiencies that were the stated cause of so many problems at MLK.
I assume that "fairness" is not an issue in the inspection process that CME, DHS or JACHO utilize.
Do Racho Los Amigos, Sylmar, Harbor UCLA, High Desert, or anyother Los Angeles County facility undergo the same review. One look at LAC-USC says no, no way they could pass the level of detailed inspection that MLK has had.
Do I expect anything to be done, do I expect the Los Angeles Times to write another Pulitzer Prixe winning lie, not really.
Posted by: Gerald R. Zollar | March 31, 2007 at 01:34 PM
Hollywood, greed, money and sex continued.
Remember Maurice Templeton, the New York diamond dealer who based on Edward Jay Epstein’s book, THE DIAMOND INVENTION, "arranged the meeting for Harry Oppenheimer with John Kennedy when Kennedy was President-elect ... at the Carlyle Hotel", was also responsible for “advising” First Lady tramp Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, following the deaths of both her husbands who combined left her a pitiful estate, how to take the $25 odd million and “turn it” in to a whopping $500 million without the DeBeers Anglo American Cartel [DAAC] insisting that she continue to spread the Kennedy Clap.
Without me informing you who exactly told me that the “New York diamond dealer” was in fact Templeton let me have you focus on the very precise wording used by high profile investigative journalist and Hollywood blockbuster author increasingly edgy EJE.
The idea is to get the reader to focus on thinking more about WHO the New York Diamond dealer is then WHO really “arranged the meeting for Harry Oppenheimer with John Kennedy when Kennedy was President-elect ... at the Carlyle Hotel.”
Can you imagine in a million, trillion years President elect John F. Kennedy now fully guarded by the Secret Service, moments away from being sworn in as President and Commander In Chief of all United States Armed Forces, with the eyes of the world including all the world’s intelligence services watching him like a hawk, going along with a New York Diamond dealer “arranging the meeting” with the head of the Mafia of Mafia?
Do you know what day it is today?
I am thinking of spending my birthday tomorrow all day in the surf when not in bed all day with Marie Dion Gevisser not giving a single thought to what you or anyone else in this world thinks apart from my two dogs, MDG and God.
Why not email EJE or for that matter everyone you know and ask them whether they think it is funny, sad or neither or both that there is no mention of Charles Engelhard having “arranged” on United States soil such an EXTRAORDINARY meeting bearing in mind that in the entire book there is no mention of when CE, a central figure in this conspiracy of conspiracies, died.
Moreover, the reader is left with the impression when getting to this section of Chapter 18, THE AMERICAN CONSPIRACY that Charles Engelhard might have already been dead when his mafia crime partner Harry Oppenheimer delivered the very clear message to the next President of the United States as well as the remaining two branches of the United States Government that the DAAC buttered all their bread.
Now ask yourself what it must feel like to be on my FOOLS NAMES, FOOLS FACES IN PUBLIC PLACES list as all members of today’s United States Secret Service who know WHY their other job is to protect the currency of the United States of America are now, THIS INSTANT, all brought “fully up to speed”.
The 3 Branches of the United States Government, the United States Congress, the Judiciary and the Executive Branch all know that the job of the President of the United States of America is to print money and protect the currency and declare war on any country who refuses to accept our worthless-fictitious and totally nonsense DeBeers-Dollars.
The DAAC are the money launderers of money launderers, counterfeiters of counterfeiters whose clout OBVIOUSLY continues to this very hour.
Posted by: Gary S. Gevisser | March 23, 2007 at 10:02 PM
"I believe my personal relationships are a private matter," Mullens said. How many other "relationships" do you have going?
So much for media crisis management expertise - you're blowing this one big time.
Posted by: A Smith | March 23, 2007 at 06:01 PM
For the sake of "God and Mr. Gomez," where is Jack C. Smith
when you need him?
What next?
The CBS Evening News with Katie Curic (spelling?/I don't watch it)
headline: CBS cans Katie; starting with May sweeps, its
"The CBS Evening News with Pat Buttrum."
As the Faye Dunaway line in "Network" goes...
"all I want out of life is a 20 rating and a 30 share."
Posted by: bg mendell | March 23, 2007 at 03:04 PM
Tribune is giving Chicago a bad name.
Kelly Mullens, Allan Mayer, and 42West made money off Brian Grazer by landing him as a client in February after successfully pitching him for the LA Times guest opinion editor in January. Add in the estranged Martinez’s affair with Mullens, and you have all the elements of a ten-cent PR thriller. You don’t have to be from Chicago to know that Hiller did the right thing.
But, I have issues with you LA folks. You are unfairly dumping on our beautiful city at any opportunity. I’m sure some of you are terrified that we will win the U.S. Olympics bid over L.A. in April. And perhaps others fear that Frank Gehry will move to Chicago to be closer to his Millennium Park. Others simply see the Tribune as the evil empire, and therefore, Chicago must be awful too.
To set the record straight, the soaring Tribune Tower is not buried in snow. We no longer butcher hogs. Al Capone is dead. Kennedy really did win the election. The mafia does not own the city. Our universities are legendary. And we are just as embarrassed about Tribune’s inexplicable wild spin, with no discernable direction in sight.
I hope many of you will come to visit long before we get the Olympics. It’s a beautiful place: safe, clean, fun, affordable, and intellectually vibrant. And we love visitors, even from L.A.
Posted by: ChicagoGirl | March 23, 2007 at 01:07 PM
Just another layer of ice on the downhill-bound snowball that is the LAT. To my friends who work there, as they say in the fighter-pilot biz, "Time to hit the silk."
P. Michael Olguin
Whittier
Posted by: Patrick Olguin | March 23, 2007 at 11:12 AM
Dear DavidB Good, I do not get my news from the LA Times; I haven't for over a decade. As I previously stated, I learned of this Much Ado About Nothing from a morning television program. If I depended on learning of this item from the Los Angeles Times, I still would not know of it. And, I would be a better person for not knowing of it.
But you David, B Good.
Posted by: bg mendell | March 23, 2007 at 11:07 AM
Why is no one asking some of the other million-dollar questions, which are: Is a newspaper supposed to operate in the public interest, and if so,
a) Would the public have benefited from reading what these top-flight writers wrote for the occasion?
b) Does the newspaper trust its readers enough to provide them with the relevant information along with the an articles and let them decide? – Rather than treat them like children and withhold the articles?
c) If the articles were good enough to pass every stage of review until then, why would the paper kill the articles, removing the one proof of what value it was bringing readers with them?
d) With all the recent turmoil at the paper, is it really wise to let reporters essentially decide editorial page content? Is the paper trying to commit suicide by dithering over bold decisions, making and then rescinding them, scrambling to lose its best help as fast as it can?
e) This move is such a farce that it almost looks like it was delibarate orchestrated by those trying to drive down the price of this formerly venerable institution so they can pick it up, one only hopes with the intention of restoring boldness and relevance in place of insipid decay. (It wasn't, clearly, but it's so bad as to almost suggest that).
f) Was this a deliberate attempt to generate publicity by a paper slowly sinking into it’s own self-preoccupied navel? (To paraphrase Mr. Martinez).
Lastly: If we are to go by Mr. Hiller's decision, far stricter rules would have to be imposed on journalists, editorial writers and editors, essentially barring them from relationships with people who workn in information realms. Completely impossible, (these are the minds & spirits that enjoy ideas and information - and discussing same) and not quite a recipe for promoting personal happiness either.
It’s a disaster of the LAT’s creation, and all the last minute wavering and weaving about thier own integrity suddenly being heard will not create a cloth large enough to cover its own butt.
Posted by: MS Fried | March 23, 2007 at 10:21 AM
After hearing that Glazer was suggetsed by the Editor's girlfriend's boss - I conclude that this was not the appearance of a conflcit of interest - but an ACTUAL conflict of interest. If my wife's boss wanted me to do somthing - I probably would - whether I thought it was right to do or not.
Posted by: Edward S. | March 23, 2007 at 09:15 AM
Since Mr. Martinez hire, the LAT Editorial page has been nothing if not bland and directionless. Now, we hear from Mr. M himself. Again, bland and directionless.
As one spiritualist said, "the more words used to describe a situation, the less likely the truth is being told." Mr. Martinez used too many words.
Joseph R. Moreno
Santa Monica, CA
Posted by: Joseph R. Moreno | March 23, 2007 at 08:45 AM
I am constantly amazed by some of these comments, especially the ones that cry, "I haven't purchased the LA Times in 10 years", or "I cancelled my LA Times subscription two years ago. I didn't realize they were still in business." Of course they are are in business, you big dummy, as you access the online version of the paper to post your comments! As for Mr/Ms Mendell, who hasn't purchased the Times in a decade, but continues to suck its news feeds, via the Internet, in much the same way a vampire extracts blood from its prey, your comments reflect your own personal credibility - zero, zip, nada.
I don't like the Tribune's takeover, and its aftermath; but let's keep the discussion substantive and germane to the issue at hand.
Posted by: DavidB | March 23, 2007 at 08:39 AM
Martinez out to take his coterie of anti-God, pro deviant behavior columnists with him.
Posted by: AL GOMA | March 23, 2007 at 08:26 AM
Andres, my boy, you can't leave your wife and your under-one-year-old son for the snacky flack you've been having an affair with AND then later claim the moral high ground. It just doesn't work that way, son.
Is the upshot of all of this that I soon won't have to read Meghan Daum's solipsism in my LA Times anymore?
If so: there is a God.
Posted by: Meeky | March 23, 2007 at 08:15 AM
Conflict of interest? First of all, someone has to be interested in the tripe you print for there to be a conflict. You delude yourselves that this tempest in a teacup has anyone's interest outside your own inter-breeding newsroom.
Handing off the opinion sections to anyone remotely attached to Hollywood is the dumbest thing a paper could do. No part of Hollywood is interested in anything that occurs outside of their palm tree lined streets if it doesn't make money for them. Don't be fooled by the "charitable actions" of the Hollywood elite, if their charitable actions don't land them on the front pages of YOUR paper, then it's not worth their time and effort. Having such close ties to such an egotistical group of drug addicts and alcoholics only served their cause, not the cause of the majority of your reading public.
Maybe this "uproar" will allow your "newspaper" to cover Hollywood in the light it deserves; not as collective media darlings but as the backstabbing narcissistic group of spoiled brats that they are.
Never mentioning them at all would be just fine to the rest of the world.
Posted by: randf | March 23, 2007 at 06:57 AM
Here's the...."revenge of the tooting dixie guineas".......
I now will read and log the ads on every page of the Los Angeles Times.
I will always carry on my person this list of the Los Angeles Times advertisers.
I will first refer to this advertising list before I purchase any product or service
(from fritos to furniture) so that I do not accidentally purchase any product or service advertising in the Los Angeles Times (please tell me that Snickers does not spend money with the Los Angeles Times).
Posted by: bg mendell | March 23, 2007 at 06:57 AM
Saw something on the fact Glazer was going to guest-edit up here in London, Canada a week ago. I thought then, "say what?" A sign of the 'Times', I guessed. I'll say. I thought the idea was whacked out before the revealed 'connections'. Should we care? No. But this idea should have been ikshnayed at the get-go. Who cares who the editor is screwing? I just wouldn't want to see Glazer screw the section.
Posted by: Donald D'Haene | March 23, 2007 at 06:11 AM
As a rule I am not caught dead reading or especially purchasing an LA Times product. On the very rare occasions that I do, it reconfirms the truth of what the Times has become; an anti-American, anti capitalist, anti religious mouthpiece for the enemies of freedom.
The one useful thing the Times does provide is a written record that I can effectively use to show people (who still read the paper) what a near complete tissue of lies and editorial comment passes for journalism at LAT. That will be the only thing I miss when you finally go out of business, as you deserve to do.
All this hand wringing by and about Andres is boring. You guys are truly deluded if you think anyone still believes there is a shred of credibility left at LAT. For God's sake, the entire paper, save parts of the sports scores has been one big editorial section for twenty years.
Like a previous poster wrote, they are hiring at Air America. You will all be more comfortable there, or perhaps Al Jazeera. They hate me and the United States about as much as you do.
Posted by: Fourtunato | March 23, 2007 at 05:49 AM
An over-reaction, yes. Sign of panic, yes, I would say so. Comparison to the Staples Center fiasco, absurd. Newsroom people mau-mau-ing each other over "ethics" is not a pretty sight.
Meanwhile, the LA Times is still, in 2007, running articles about the rise of the blogosphere that have in them no links to the blogs that are the subject of the article. In fact, no links at all because the staff can't seem to get it together well enough to make use of this innovation--linking!--that the Web introduced ten years ago. I think I would fix that before I worried that someone's girlfriend works with the guy that someone asked to...
Posted by: Jay Rosen | March 23, 2007 at 05:46 AM
I share Grumpy Old Man's sentiment. This inward-looking "journalism" is a waste of time. Think otherwise? Re-read this stuff a month from now and notice how silly and irrelevant it all seems. Let's opine on things that matter.
Posted by: Grumpy Young Man | March 23, 2007 at 04:56 AM
Andres,
Bwa-ha-ha. I hear Air America is hiring, dude. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha...
Posted by: Moonbat 1 | March 23, 2007 at 04:22 AM
Who?
Posted by: bropous | March 23, 2007 at 02:47 AM
I wonder if was really about him hanging around talk show host conservative John Ziggler from KFI way to much....
Posted by: dresden | March 23, 2007 at 02:46 AM
The "L.A. TIMES" has been lost ever since the Chicago Tribune bought it and the Staples Special Magazine Section scandal erupted (over improper business conduct). I don't fault Martinez for this latest episode. Hell, this paper fired the ONLY opinion writer, Robert Scheer, who accurately predicted everything that has come true concerning the Iraq war amid the corrupt interests and motivations of the Bush administration. Martinez walking is just another sad chapter in the inept mismanagement of the "L.A. TIMES" by the clueless board running the Chicago Times.
Posted by: Sam | March 23, 2007 at 02:29 AM
The LA Times got rid of one of the best oped cartoonists in the industry, conservative Ramirez. It's been downhill since.
Posted by: Jim | March 23, 2007 at 12:45 AM
Good news now dont let the door hit you in your left loser ass.I can only hope this LEFT leaning fish wrap will no longer be.You reap what you well you know the rest.OLA
Posted by: Bruce Barker | March 23, 2007 at 12:33 AM