This is a load of self serving pap. The opinion section has been in serious decline for many years and has been reduced to promo pieces for authors hawking books or "celebrity" commentators. Lately it has been suffering from the same entertainment creep as the rest of the paper.

Here's what I wrote to the Times before seeing this post:

Sirs,

Now we see the result of the Times’ sycophantic pursuit of Hollywood: a wholesale debasement of its business and ethics. The yielding of Current to a producer was a ridiculous and failing marketing concept which ran a greater risk of alienating existing customers than attracting new ones. The yielding of your ethics to a tryst with Hollywood’s public relations machine – never known for its truthfulness – is a permanent stain.

The Times should serve as a refuge from Los Angeles’ inane celebrity culture, not its most enthusiastic casting couch participant. Soon, very soon, the weekly dose of disgust which comes with a product I pay for will smother a life long habit and my subscription will end.

We find ourselves in a world continually threatened by disasters poltical, economic and environmental, yet the L.A. Times, already publishing two or three Calendar sections a day, feels that it is acceptable to turn over the opinion section to a Hollywood guest editor. I think that potential conflict of interest due to a romantic relationship is the least of our worries here. However, I wonder if the real reason for not printing the section is that the Hollywood guy turned out to be better at making movies than journalism, and that the product did not meet even the low standards of the current L.A. Times. Alas, we will never know.

It's truly amazing that David Hiller has suddenly discovered the conflict of interest provisions of journalism's codes of ethics. After all, the Tribune Company's strategy has been to exploit situations in which interests are inherently conflicted — such as owning newspapers, television stations, radio stations, and in one truly unfortunate city, even a baseball team, in the same city, and then creating advertorial synergies between them. It's a bit hard to believe anyone spawned by the Tribune Company headquarters is so concerned about ethics. So what's really going on here?

I am dissappointed with this news for a few reasons. First of all, because I am a fan of Mr. Martinez -- enjoying the opinion page he edits more than I used to several years ago. I have learned quite a bit from it and appreciated his efforts to make it thoughtful and not predictable. I am a lifetime fan of his predecessor Michael Kinsley so my loyalty to Mr. Martinez didn't come easily but was more than earned.

I also have had the good fortune to see Mr. Martinez in person a few times and found him both impressive and having the ideal disposition for one in the position he held. Best-selling author James Collins calls the ideal leader one who has "willfull humility" -- a person who is ambitious for his venture (the opinion page in this case) but who pushes his own ego aside as much as possible in the betterment of that venture. I saw Mr. Martinez run a Zocalo panel discussing whether immigrants were the cause of lost jobs to Angelenos and was struck by how didn't feel the need to display his own thoughts and show off his insights (which is unusual and makes an ideal moderator). I was further struck at this event by his generosity of spirit -- a rare ability to rephrase a questioner's unfortunate wording or speechifying and turn it into a representative point of view that could be reflected on and responded to.

In terms of the specific opinion page editorship it seems to me much ado about nothing. Putting aside whatever one's views of Mr. Grazer, he has been enormously successful in the entertainment business so the fact that someone who works for / with him has a personal relationship with Mr. Martinez isn't particularly relevant to me. Perhaps if Ms. Mullens had been asked to edit the Sunday section I might understand. However, whatever relationship Mr. Martinez had indirectly or directly with Mr. Grazer is not especially relevant to me given that Mr. Grazer's bona fides are rock solid even if he's not a professional journalist (which is partly what would have made this effort interesting).

What a shame for LA and the LA Times that we are losing Mr. Martinez.

While it is true that the opinion section of the Times has been on a long downward spiral ever since Janet Clayton was replaced, and that spiral has become sharper under Mr. Martinez, it may be unfair to give him all the blame. The whole paper has been on a downward spiral since being acquired by the hog butchers, and that may be a primary contributing factor. If that's true, things ain't gonna get betta.

I wrote this article in 2002 for the late, great business satire site The Walnut. Pretty amazing how well it's held up:

Tribune Co. Imposes Employee Celibacy

Chicago -- Responding to a long-ago sexual episode involving a star columnist for the Chicago Tribune, that newspaper’s parent company has imposed a blanket policy of celibacy on its 4,500 print and electronic media employees.

The Chicago-based Tribune Co. -- which in addition to that city’s largest newspaper owns 11 other metropolitan dailies and 24 television stations -- imposed the zero-tolerance policy on sexual relations to quash the risk its editorial employees could enter into a conflict of interest.

“There’s a distinct possibility that someone who has sex with one of our reporters or editors could later wind up reading that employee’s newspaper or watching their news broadcast,” said John W. Madigan, the Tribune Co.’s chairman and chief executive officer. “That’s simply unacceptable.We have our ethics to maintain.”

Mr. Madigan added that the enterprise of news-gathering should take precedence over anything else in a journalist’s life. “A hard-working reporter has no business having or even thinking about sex,” he said. “Does it look like I would do something like that?”

Mr. Madigan indicated the new policy was instituted after an episode involving longtime Tribune columnist Bob Greene. Mr. Greene resigned earlier this month after his editors received an anonymous e-mail chronicling a sexual encounter in the late 1980s between him and a woman in her late teens who was the subject of one of his columns at that time. The episode ended Mr. Greene’s 24-year career at the newspaper.

“It doesn’t matter that what Bob Greene did was legal. It doesn’t matter if it was on his own time. It doesn’t matter if the column he wrote was completely accurate and of interest to its readers,” said Chicago Tribune editor Ann Marie Lipinski. “What does matter is that we fully control the lives of all our employees, even the ones whose writing actually attracts an audience.”

Ms. Lipinski said the removal of Mr. Greene was far more clear-cut than how the paper dealt with legendary columnist Mike Royko. Mr. Royko, who died in 1997, had been arrested for drunken driving in 1994 and at the time made remarks virulently disparaging minorities and gays. His columns of that period were riddled with sexist remarks and contained numerous factual errors. Mr. Royko kept his job even after the Wall Street Journal chronicled his behavior in a front-page feature in July 1995.

“Mike Royko had a right to cause accidents driving drunk and libel anyone he wanted, so long as he didn’t sleep with them,” Ms. Lipinski said. “Having a chronic drinking problem and a big mouth has always been okay in our business – everyone just needs to know where that mouth has been.”

The Tribune Co’s move was applauded by a variety of journalism scholars. “Reporters must be completely perfect at all times,” said M. Richard Mabry, executive director of the Point-A-Finger Institute, a Cleveland-based think-tank that closely monitors the personal lives of the nation’s more than 20,000 working journalists. “Otherwise, they risk losing their credibility. As a result, the American public will hate and distrust them even more than they already do.”

However, financial analysts who cover the Tribune Co. were less sure how the new policy would affect future earnings. They noted that companies instituting similar celibacy policies in the past have met with mixed success. “An enterprise seething with sexual tension is going to have its eyes locked on just about anything except the bottom line.” said Allen Hagel, chief economist for Haymarket Securities, a Chicago investment banking firm. “In fact, the only organization that’s had any success with celibacy in the long run is the Catholic Church, and they’ve been a not-for-profit for years now.”

The no-sex policy was met with grumbling by Tribune Co. personnel, but not a single one has resigned as of yet, according to Mr. Madigan, who added that the company would assist them by installing banks of cold water-only showers in its employee fitness centers.

Indeed, Tribune employees interviewed by The Walnut indicated they would tough it out.

“I worked for more than a decade making less than $500 a week, lived in six different cities and cover public meetings that last well into the morning hours,” said a reporter for Newsday, a Long Island, N.Y. daily owned by Tribune. “Believe me, giving up sex is no big deal. It’s one less thing to worry about.”

However, an editor with the Los Angeles Times, another Tribune newspaper, expressed mild disappointment. “My husband and I were going to try and begin starting a family later this year,” she said. “I guess we’ll have to look into adoption, but even then I’m worried that I might be breaking a company rule.”

Another Times employee, a reporter, believed the policy violated his civil rights, but felt there was little he could do about it.

“I wanted to write a letter to the editor to complain, but I’m worried that expressing an opinion may compromise my journalistic objectivity,”he said. “You could lose your job doing that.”

I have read The Times daily for over 40-years, and while I'm not too happy with the direction of editorial/op-ed and Sunday Current, Mr. Martinez at least has tried to change things. I mailnly ignore those sections, but the paper has let another good one get away. This faux journalistic debate over his relationship with the woman is germain only to those holier-than-thou writers, editors and management. Really, the general public could care less. The section could have been printed and only the Romenesko freaks of the world would have cared. And by the way, as a daily reader of the hard copy of the Chicago Tribune, it isn't as bad a paper as some of you news-critique bloggers think it is.................

I hate your commie-lib newspaper and especially the opinion section, but I have to rise to your defense in this particular case. Even though Brian Grazer is probably even worse of a leftist that you people, it would still have been fascinating to read OpEd pieces written by him and the people in his circle of friends. The kinds of criticisms that have been leveled at you are absurd, and likewise the supposed conflict of interest sounds pretty flimsy to me. To anyone outside the MoveOn crowd, the LA Times is hopelessly dishonest anyway, so your minor (or non-existant in my view) transgression pales to insignificance against the Times's pattern of openly lying in persuit of advocacy politics.

At least I could have had my views insulted by someone who is genuinely entertaining (like Grazer et al), instead of the buch of whiny pantywaists who now control your festering newspaper (until the blogosphere and Craigslist finishes putting it out of business, anyway).

Warm personal regards,
Gary Watson
Calabasas CA

I think Mr. Martinez has done a good job with Current, and although this link with the girlfriend and producer seems a little fishy, it doesn't rise to the level of an ethics scandal that requires resignation.

If you look at what gets the LA Times the most readers every day, you'll find a consistently high ranking of stupid stories about the entertainment industry and Hollywood gossip. Yesterday, a report about an actor's father dying in a Texas prison outdid Iraq and the Gonzalez scandal in the ratings, not to speak of the city of Los Angeles which -- lacking a celebrity in rehab-- didn't even make the charts.

So it's not hard to imagine why the editorial page has to pander to the entertainment industry and the producers of such "masterpieces" as The Da Vinci Code.

That said, Martinez has usually gone for quality stuff. Joel Stein, a perpetual celebrity ga-ga adolescent, also happens to be a genius comic and outstanding writer. I read Erin Aubry Kaplan religiously, and even Jonah Goldberg represents the right wing somewhat intelligently (I would definitely axe Max Boot, however).

Bottom line from this veteran teacher: a solid B+ for Martinez with 5 points off for the shady ethics call. I'm sorry to see him go.

Character doesn't matter...nah.

I deal with beautiful publicists all the time, and all I can say to Martinez is, I wish I had your luck.

What a mess. As soon as I saw the first ad bragging about Grazer as a guest editor, I thought what BS is this? I don't want a celebrity guest editor. I want to read interesting opinion pieces by the likes of people like Patt Morrison and Joel Stein, not some crap by pseudo writers. Even though I think the paper leans too far left and has been on a downward spiral, it's the only paper in town. Please do not spoil it even more by pandering to people under 30 with the new Image section which stinks and the grazergate fiasco.

In the fourth paragraph, what exactly does Martinez mean when he says the "newsroom's agenda?" Do the critics of the Times who call the news coverage biased have a point?

I can't say that I approved of Mr. Martinez' ill-considered guest editor scheme, or his management of the editorial pages overall. And I certainly don't approve of Mr. Hiller's lax management skills that gave the go ahead to Martinez and then pulled the rug out from under him. But the kernal of truth that may make the whole affair worthwhile is this:

"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."

Martinez' observation about the Times' reporters and his revelation regarding the incestuous relationship between the news division and the opinion pages. is a more scandalous affair than the one between Martinez and Mullins.

Visit News Corpse, the Internet's Chronicle of Media Decay.

The Los Angeles Herald; The Los Angeles Examiner,
The Los Angeles Times: RIP.
Two things remain constant 1) follow the money; 2) ask yourself "who is sleeping with whom?"
What has long been whispered is now on the front page of the latest
Los Angeles daily to bite the dust. What goes on behind closed doors (apologies to Charlie Rich) isn't behind closed doors. When this paper is truthful and straight forward, (as it beats its chest) and attempts to survive
as the other sinking dailies did by renaming itself The Herald-Examiner,
Sunday, the Los Angeles Times masthead, in the interest of credibility, becomes The Los Angeles Socialist-Times.
And, please, don't ever include the word "News" in your name (maybe "agenda" or "Left-Wing View" might be truthful and straight forward).
There is still the morphed Green Sheet in the valley; there will continue
to be the the yellow-snow journalism on Spring Street.
Just remember what your public reason is/was for removing recent comics
from your paper (or, have we already "moved on?")
Thank you for your time....er, Times.

Gary Watson,You are living in the wrong country. Immediately move to the first dictatorship that will have you, and start your own Fox news/Pravda paper to enjoy.You are what is destroying our great democracy which is based on LIBERAL precepts that you are too dimwitted to comprehend.
As this op-Ed scandal unfolds,I beg the great Ron Burkle,Eli Broad and David Geffen to acquire this once great paper and restore it to the journalistic integrity that we readers deserve. Give me back my OP-Ed and Book Review!
Bar Rachel

EDIT!

Still LMAO!

I find it strange that the same editorial board that bases the Current's direction on building a open public fourm type atmosphere can justify seeking out the interests and observations of popular individuals like Grazer, Speilberg, Steve Jobs, etc. We need the op-ed team to hit the phone book once a week and randomly pick out a name and say "ah, there is our next guest editor.".

Give it a try. Trust that Joe and Jane Doe do have interesting pursuits and interests.

Good luck.

I am an L.A. Times subscriber who has been on the edge of dropping the paper. The gradual movement of the Editorial page to a more balanced view from leftist is the only thing keeping me aboard. I have a tentative developing trust that the paper might look at both sides of an issue fairly.

That there may or may not have been a conflict of interest in this matter is important, but not the major point.

It is ridiculous that Mr. Grazier, a Hollywood producer, would be given control of the Editorial page and influence it's direction. He is an entertainer not a journalist and has no established credibility to frame and direct opinion for the citizens of Los Angeles.

Now I know why you like our Mayor so much.

Hey Martinez! When you go work for your girlfriend's company next month, take Joel Stein with you. With both of you gone I might start reading the opinion section again.

Please spare us the Blah, Blah, blah. Why is the LA Times in decline? Why can't CNN get viewers? Why is the NYT in decline? Somewhere along the way they all forgot what readers and viewers wanted.....plain straight news.

Martinez always struck me as one of those annoying, elitist Ivy League types (you know what I mean), but as an LA journalist myself, I find this episode laughable. There's no actual reason to disbelieve him when he says that his adulterous affair played no role in the Grazer decision — especially since it also appears that he disclosed this relationship repeatedly, to Hiller and others. (To kill the section now, Hiller, is just slimy, because you knew about it all along.) The comparison to the Staples Center debacle is a joke that is ridiculous on its face. I'm all too familiar with self-righteous journalists who prefer to go on witch hunts rather than pursue actual news stories (because I am occasionally one of them; hey — no one's perfect, a byline is a byline is an laobserved link), and it's hard to believe that Martinez has actually fallen victim to this idiocy. The reporters just see it as another scalp. There is a clear distinction between provocative, uncompromising journalism and eating one's own, and the LA Times has allowed that line to blur beyond recognition. Hey, Times newsroom, think about it: Journalism is one the most oversexed professions there is, so if you start peeking into bedrooms ....

Anyhow, you've got to ask yourself, considering the many stories that have appeared in the paper over the past several months: Why are they writing about themselves so much, anyway? Like when the whole Baquet thing was going down? Talk about a conflict of interest! Jim Rainey and his editors should work some leather off their shoes and cover a story that's not happening down the hall. In the end, Martinez will end up back at the NY Times, or whatever, and the torch-shakers will remain on Spring St. publicly wringing their hands over Tribune and praying for Eli Broad's bid to be accepted. Like that would solve anything. Sad.

I was listening to Rush Limbaugh this afternoon when he said the exact same thing to a listener. "I am sorry I let you down."

Let the conspiracies begin!

Even if you accept the premise that Grazer's involvement was some sort of plot to help his career, do they really think letting him guest-edit Current is that big a deal? Yeah, maybe this aspiring Hollywood producer can finally make it big now that he's done a little work for The Times?

First, count up the people in the Times newsroom have had or are having sex with someone who has tried, is trying or might someday try to influence news coverage or opinion. Fire them. Then try to put out the next day's newspaper.

The LA Times has embarrassed themselves, Brian Grazer and their readers. Wonderful.

Having "guest editors" on an occasional basis is not in and of itself a bad idea, because it recognizes that professional newspaper journalists and editors are not infallible and have no particular claim [except in their own minds] to a monopoly on ideas. Successful, creative people in other fields can have worthwhile viewpoints just as worthy, and not being newspaper people themselves, fresh perspectives.

Grazer is one of the most successful producers in the film industry, which is one of the economic powerhouses in Los Angeles. What he thinks is important, is as worth learning as any editor's opinion, except to those who in the news business who are protective of their own significance.

The issue of possible favoritism in choosing Grazer to edit seems to me a red herring. How do editors get promoted into their positions in the first place? By recommendation... and having the right contacts with the right people on the inside. Some would argue they get their jobs by being talented and capable... and I'd suggest that Brian Grazer meets that criteria as well.

people, time to move on. LAT is following the NYT into obscurity as they scramble to keep up with the shift away from the liberal print media that has held sway for 50 years....and first challenged by AM radio, followed by Murdock, and finally the internet with both the left and right more evenly represented.

time to move on.....

You have NO idea how many people could care less about this "scandal". I only clicked through because Drudge linked to it. This type of media has become so out of touch with the community. The majority of us just want unbiased news reports,,,, who cares about Opinion sections. Trust me, it's not hard for us to find opinions on any topic. 99% of the people I know could care less and I am a 38yr old with a good income and a large social network. The major newspapers have such a self inflated opinion of their relevancy in the community!

Do the commenters here really believe that a person has to be a trained editor/journalist to put together an interesting or thought-provoking Opinion page one time? I think that these same people would allow for the possibility that a painter might have a chance at expressing a worthwhile opinion about an issue without any formal journalism training? Is it really so terrible to let a guy with a lot of contacts in an unquestionably interesting profession take a shot at developing a compelling Opinion page? Where is the harm except to those lining up for a job as the Opinion page editor?

It is just mind-boggling how many people here complain that the Times is a "liberal" paper. Haven't they been paying attention?

In the past few years the paper has sacked progressives like Pulitzer winners Robert Scheer and Paul Conrad. They were replaced by right-wing hacks like Jonah Goldberg and Michael Gonzales. This was followed by a succession of publishers and editors that were imported from the headquarters in Chicago.

Do these people really believe that the corporate masters, who are best known for kissing the rings of the shareholders, sent liberals to see after their biggest publishing asset?

Visit News Corpse, the Internet's Chronicle of Media Decay.

I canceled my La Times subscription more than two years ago. I didn't realize they were still in business.

Dear News Corpse (this is the final nail in the coffin).
No, I haven't been paying attention; I haven't purchased
The Los Angeles Times in a decade; I would not have
known about this More Important Than Thou tug of intellectual
self grand standing if it had not been mentioned on one of the
local morning television programs (oh, I forgot; that local morning
television program was on a station also owned by The Tribune Co.
(never mind).

Gag me with a spoon of arsenic

David T., while I might sympathize with your situation, must journalists' always affix the suffix "-gate" to every real or imagined scandal, big or small? This really annoying habit cheapens the reporting or the opining, and denotes on the part of the writer either a lack of imagination, a stunted political background, or a truncated vocabulary.

The Watergate Scandal was by all accounts a political disaster of epic proportions and a national disgrace; it deserves to stand alone in its infamy. Your editor's resignation, while no doubt regretable, is but a tempest in a "Teapot Dome" in comparison.

Sorry for the cheap pun -- I couldn't resist. But I trust you get my point.

Elevate your own standards, and see if the paper itself will follow your example. If it doesn't, it will whither away, and I trust you'll find something else to do.

David Marcus: "Do the critics of the Times who call the news coverage biased have a point? "

You can either:
(a) Read today's catty article on Al Gore, "Returning as the 'Goracle' ", or
(b) Go all the way to page 13 before you find an article on the U.S. attorney purge.

Either way, you will have thus answered your own rhetorical question.

The LA Times in general, and the Opinion section in particular, have been in a downward spiral ever since they were purchased by the Chicago Tribune. The Chicago Tribune seems determined to turn the LA Times, one of the four best newpapers in the US, into some second-class edition of local news and puts too much focus on the entertainment industry . It's a shame. All they're going to do is lose more readers. And it certainly appears that they're losing many of their best editors and reporters. Why the Chicago Tribune won't sell the paper to a local bidder who would, hopefully, restore this paper to it's past glory is beyond my comprehension. It's as if the LA Times is being held hostage by a greedy, ignorant, immoral outsider.

This is such a big "who cares" with so many losers. Martinez was out of line courting a celebrity editor (gosh, with Brian G out of the picture, what's Paris Hilton doing). Hiller doesn't win any points for not paying attention until the 11th hour and then reinforcing the TribCo stereotype by micro-managing. But perhaps the biggest losers of all are us readers/subscribers who have no other news source worth our time or attention. How tragic for L.A.

Anyone with an I>Q> above room temperature knows the orientation of the Times. Perhaps Glazer's slant would not have been Left enough to keep the loyal subscribers from going bonkers. This was a moral transgression? Hilary would have barely broken a sheen.

Los Angeles Times "one of the four best newspapers in the US?"
What are the other three? Oh Jane Schmitt, please tell me.

Mr. Martinez,

"Guest editor" is a stupid idea, and you are a sorry journalist for pandering to your girlfriend's boss.

APPEARANCE of a conflict?

Go back to Journalism 101 and you'll find out that this is the epitome of a conflict, unless you think a) your girlfriend's boss wasn't pleased to be named guest editor; and b) you don't enjoy your girlfriend's -- ahem -- company. After what Hiller did to you, you probably won't anymore, and you deserve it.

1. NY Times
2. Washington Post
3. Wall Street Journal
4. LA Times

Columbia Journalism Review - 1999
http://archives.cjr.org/year/99/6/best.asp

Although, I believe that 1999 was before the Chicago Tribune got their greedy hands on the LA Times.

All I can say is, See what happens when Corporations buy Family operations. It's no longer the same. Corporations impose their will. Free thinking is no longer tolerated. It's their way or the highway.

When the Times finally collapses under its own dead weight, no one will notice, mainly because no one is alive now who can remember the Times when it was a good newspaper....

"...Hiller's decision amounts to a vote of no confidence in my continued leadership" states Former Editorial Page Editor Adres Martinez with respect to his resignation from the LA Times. I could not have been more deserved..

The Times editorial page rails constantly over not only actual conflicts of interest in politics but also excoriates businesspersons and politicians for the "appearance" of conflicts of interest - try the Getty and Eli Broad's Brentwood property purchase, or Harry Reid's dealings in Nevada real estate, for example - or maybe the innuendo with regard to just about every Republican politician in the country.

That Martinez would even consider the undertaking makes him unqualified for the job.

More alarming is the implied double standard of his cdleagues that take umbrege to the criticisms of Martinez's conduct. They should find another line of work and, if they remain, the Times should take special care to ensure that they have adult supervision.

If the LA Times is a "Liberal" newspaper then the Nazi Times must be a centrist paper...

If Nixon were alive today and he had persued the policies he did (talking with communist China, creating the EPA, calling for ending the war in Vietnam, etc.) he'd be called a flaming liberal...it just goes to show you how far the conservatives have pushed the public perception of the center.

Why all the hate against Liberals...Jesus was a liberal...prove me wrong all you conservatives...Washington, Jefferson, Franklin etc., were all considered liberals in their day, if they were conservatives we wouldn't have this country...so while all you Liberal bashers out there spout off with your hate, bile and misinformation please take a moment to thank your liberal predecessors for giving you the chance to be so uniformed yet still have the right to voice your opinion, because if it wasn't for all the liberals from the past who fought for your rights against the conservatives of their day, you wouldn't have all the things you take for granted now...

I'm confused, Mr. Martinez. You say you're resigning because David Hiller's decision amounted to a vote of no confidence, but then you complain about cutbacks in the opinion section which you feel go too far and are short-sighted. Apparently those cutbacks were not enough to prompt you to resign in protest. What's the point of mentioning them as part of the explanation of your resignation?

I'm still laughing over "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,..."

Dude, if you can't recognize how mind-bogglingly asinine that graf reads, it's a good thing you quit.

Columbia Journalism Review? Columbia? Isn't that like, say, getting your information by reading, say, the Los Angeles Times? Columbia? Wasn't
that the place where Al Gore was a guest lecturer? That is so, say, heart
...er Global Warming.

The suggestion that those who might have some kind of professional interest in what the Times prints, that they shouldn't be permitted to edit the opinion page, it seems to me that there's an insult underlying that suggestion and that it's directed at every thinking person who might read the Times.

If you're suggesting that everyday people like me, that we're too dumb, that we believe everything the LA Times prints in its opinion page--that we're incapable of independent thought. ...that, with our tiny little minds, that we can't be expected to think for ourselves--not after we've read something edited by someone who may have an interest in what we read. If that's what's being suggested, then I don't know how to interpret it as anything other than an insult.

The LA Times should be free to take whatever steps it thinks are necessary to assuage those who can only tolerate opinions edited by certain people. I ask interested parties to note, however, that people like me will continue to find the opinion page interesting and persuasive or not regardless of who the editors are and the nature of their motivation.

So there wont be a current section anymore? Ok name it something else and put in on Mondays.

Just this morning, as I slipped the Times out of its plastic sheath, my wife and I discussed our growing disappointment in the paper we've subscribed to for thirty-some years. It was a close call, but we decided not to give up on the paper, despite its atavistic A-section redesign, despite the scarcity of hard news on page 1, despite the utterly useless innovation of an Image section, and despite the puerile concept of a "guest editor of the week" for Current. But then we hadn't gotten to the Business section and read about Grazergate yet.

As so many other commenters have asserted, the problem here is NOT any unethical relationship between editor and opinion-maker--nor even the appearance of such. (And most assuredly the issue is not any ultra-liberal political bias of the paper in general! That one doesn't even merit a serious denial.) Mr. Martinez let readers down when he cooked up the guest editor plan and didn't understand how bush league it is or how much this first try seems to pander to a particular industry in town, when the paper would very much like to avoid both impressions.

Whatever the excuses about timing, it is obvious that Martinez and Ms. Mullens were dating, that Mr. Grazer was playing Journalist for a Day at the Times on Martinez's sound stage, and that Mullens was promoting Grazer's featured role to the hilt--all at the same time. And no one told the studio chief until the middle of this week. Does that indicate the kind of judgment the position of Editorial Page Editor requires?

And while I'm here, let's look at Martinez's malicious accusation that he is being "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..." As a resident of Santa Barbara, where in the past nine months we've had our daily newspaper of record stolen from us by a nut-case billionaire making these very same phony accusations about her own newsroom employees, I have to wonder if perhaps the Times wouldn't like to borrow Wendy McCaw for a year or two and sort those issues out in a decisive way.

Regardless of the conflict of interest, having Brian Gazer, the George Bush of Hollywood (i.e. the Stupidest Man in the Room), do anything, is beyond insane.

I wish I could cancel my subscription AGAIN.

"Current" section will live on if their sales people can generate enough column inch revenue; it will continue to be in a coma, otherwise. Nothing happens until someone sells something. Pull the plug. Put the Los Angeles Times out of our misery. They shoot horses, don't they?

This comment was right:

"The Times editorial page rails constantly over not only actual conflicts of interest in politics but also excoriates businesspersons and politicians for the "appearance" of conflicts of interest - try the Getty and Eli Broad's Brentwood property purchase, or Harry Reid's dealings in Nevada real estate, for example - or maybe the innuendo with regard to just about every Republican politician in the country."

Karma is a bitch. Why do I think the cardinal will not be lighting a candle for your hypocritical souls tonight.

I'm struck by the anger in so many of these posts. For all its foibles and failings, the Times is indisputably a great newspaper, with the resources necessary to find out the truth about important questions. Should the Times fail, those who imagine LA would be a better place without it would find themselves bitterly sorry.

What we are talking about here is nothing more than greed, money and sex.

Exploitation of all is nothing new.

But what is, is the Internet.

Lets welcome the LA Times showing the courage to post up this post that simply asks its readers, opinionators - a word I had never heard before - the board of directors of the LA Times, its suppliers, employees and independent contractors to start the road to becoming “independent thinkers” by simply reading and then commenting on Hollywood blockbuster author Edward Jay Epstein's, THE DIAMOND INVENTION that talks to the most devious mafia of mafia, price fixing of price fixing organizations able, the result of the U.S. Justice Department as well as the United States Congress “turning a blind eye” to our sacrosanct Anti-Trust-Anti-Monopolies-Anti-Price Fixing laws, to price their own currency, that I refer to by its accurate name, Diamond Currency, at more than a barrel of oil, resulting in the DeBeers-Anglo American Cartel, the cartel of cartels, the special interest of special interest group to be in "command and control" of not simply the diamond drilling bit market but each and every market including the stock market, real estate market, insurance market etc etc and of course all the currency and commodity markets.

I would know.

I was destined to take over from my father’s first cousin, David Moshal-Gevisser Englehard Oppenheimer, the American head of the DAAC but I chose “wisely”, relying on my “conscience”.

“Gewissen” is “conscience” in Germany.

In German, “Gevisser” is “certain”.

Assessing risk in “rigged markets” is my business.

Gary S. Gevisser

[Word count 263]

Funny, Andres Martinez doesn't look the least bit Mexican.

Not even Mulatto, not even Half-breed.

I love how Caucasians tack on a "z" to their last name to move up the career ladder!

Love, Maxine

Friends:

Let's face it: the LA times is a very terrible, boring and predictable newspaper. And that's what it was long before what somebody called the "hog butchers" in Chicago came to own it.

Compapre the LA Times, leaving out its "Metro" or entertainment sections, with similarly-pared sections of the NY Times, Boston Globe, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Hartford Courant, Portland Press Herald (ME), The Oregonian (Portland, OR), The Philadelphia Enquier - or a zillion other clones.

They're all the same. And, editorially - at least with regard to national issues - they're still the same. Read one, and you've read them all. They're all either "outraged" or "disappointed" about the same thing - or they're all demanding investigations into the same thing - or they're all endorsing the same national candidates who say the same thing.

Yet, the santimony drips and drips. News writers, editors, and opinion columnists are so blinded by their self-love and regard that any larger financial stumbling on their paper's part has to be - just has to be - due to the "suits" in Chicago or wherever - meddling or cost-cutting - or otherwise compromising journalistic "integrity" for the almighty advertising dollar.

Note to LA Time folks: Get over yourselves. You are not the voice of anybody but, well, yourselves. You write sometimes-catchy things that often aspire to what I saw in high school writing when it comes to government, science, foreign affairs, etc.

It's perhaps time to recognize that you and your bretheren are reaching irrelevancy. The web has brought just too many competing stories and views for you to stand above it all - as keepers of some kind of great reporting or analytical traditon.

No, it's not over yet for you. But the end is coming.

You sense it, too. Why else invite a Hollywood producer (a surely rare and never-heard voice in LA's "diverse community"), whose employee is allegedly banging one of your employees, to be a featured editor?

You did it because it was a cute gimmick. And, lacking any other approach to clone journalism, that's all you have.

Get some real jobs. It might help you to see some real diversity.

Sincerely,

Rick Bornemann

Maxine,
He doesn't even look Mexican? Should Mr. Martinez be wearing a shorn wifebeater and khakis by Dickies to appease your concept of what a Mexican should look like? Maybe even keep a couple of roosters by his desk?
Believe me, as a longtime journalist, having a "z" at the end of your name DOES NOT help you climb the career ladder. That only works if you're a D-cup blonde or if your last name ends in "-ski," "-itz" or "-enthal."
Cheers,
Rick Gomez

PS: I understand the word "bi-racial" is preferred to mulatto. Please mention this at your Klan meeting.

Isn't it time we move the White House to Hollywood?

There a few great actors with "presidential experience" ~ Martin Sheen to name one. Every time I watch "American President" I want Michael Douglas in the white house! All the good guy and bad guys are ready to serve.

I would love to see Hollywood in charge of our country & national security because the news would be good news & no one can sell a story like Hollywood ~ it would seem like heaven.

These people have "scripts" - the "playbooks to whip this country in shape.

Best of all, they would says nice nice things about the good old U.S.A. because they would be in charge.

Too bad... I remember the fiasco with Staples... why is it that the hard working grubby reporters and writers are always the ones with the 'high standards' of their profession? Why is it that the 'Management' is ALWAYS messing up?

This was a great paper. Once.

I remember Otis Chandler. You are NO Otis Chandler.

I knew Otis Chandler. I worked for Otis Chandler.

I loved the Los Angeles Times.

This is like "Katherine Graham. and Captian Crunch... Honor and excellence is a thing of the past... there is no heroism here... We can't even trust you now. The job you did on 'Arnold' stopped my 27 years of subscriptions. For shame... what lies. what bias. How nasty.

Now, with this, and your sagging profits and the Trib screwing around cutting things, and people..., *No more Ramirez - what a talent!) and printing only bias half-truth liberal garbage. I'm so sick of looking at dead soldiers... you don;t even mention any valor or heroism...maybe you don't know the meaning of the word. Now, the Hollywood factor of influence...(wait til Geffin gets hold of you or Eli or some other ego-infested billionaire) . . . your credibility is gone... and now, no one wiil even notice, or care, and it's not coming back.

Only those who there when it was great will care. We made it great.

You are not even trying.

I hope The Chandlers succeed in buying out Tribune. It's the only way to restore sanity to the L.A. Times. After all, it was The Chandlers that created the L.A. Times and Tribune is an unprofessionally run company owned by ignorant midwesterners who don't know jack about running a newspaper or Los Angeles in that regard.

My E-mail address is andycyber@aim.com if you want to comment on what I just said.

Gee, a Lib newspaper losing people and imploding? What does that tell you?

So the guy who linked to the L.A. Times story from Drudge wants only objective news? Hmmm.
I used to be a faithful reader of the L.A. Times editorial and op-ed pages, and I still turn to them daily. But now it's only out of habit. I give the pages a quick look and turn elsewhere. Why? Where those pages used to be the liveliest and most interesting in the paper, now they're simply the most boring, virtually moribund. My suspicion is that Robert Scheer and the cartoonist Ramirez were canned simply because they were the highest-paid guys on the page. The present collection of bland, inoffensive, ineffectual columnists and commentators were chosen primarily, I suspect, because they work cheap. They certainly weren't chosen because they're lively, interesting writers or provocative, outspoken thinkers.

Mr. Martinez had his girlfriend's friend contibute to whatever section he heads. Big deal! The real world mirrors this scenario. Friends help friends get jobs all the time. It's called "networking"-- hailed as a good thing, by some, and clearly, as a bad thing by others. Maybe someone else wanted to job! The LA Times has just entered the world of reality television. I can't believe it!

It's a wonder this man became a newspaper editor, since he cannot craft a coherent sentence.

The Times of old are gone and surely will be dead soon. I use to enjoy the Times when I grew up in LA (60's and 70's). Since then it has looked like a NASCAR race: go fast and keep turning left. When they dumped Rameriz from the oped page, and put Brownstiens commentary pieces in section A, then I was done even buying the paper once in awhile at the rack. Maybe some of the secularist oped writers can say an extra prayer for the Times tonight.

Put the Whale out of its misery.

LA is a hard metropolitan area to do a newspaper in. I despise the Times's politics, but my main problem is that it is so BOOOORING!

I don't care if the OpEd Editor is poking a PR-person. Seems like a tempest in a teapot to me. I just wish there was something vaguely interesting in the paper.

So in the same week I find out I am going to get to read Brian Grazer's (WHO?) insightful comments this coming Sunday, and those of his friends including the ever-inquisitive Ron Howard, we find out the section is cancelled, Tribune cancels the Hollywood Christmas Parade (through their KTLA outlet; KTLA said they couldn't "devote the right amount of lights, cameras, etc" to the event, thus essentially killing it, and probably killing Johnny Grant, too --- There may be a penthouse suite at the Hollywood Roosevelt available, and soon), we also find out from Andres Martinez: 1) It's okay for a paper to have an APPEARANCE of a conflict of interest, and, 2) The newsroom has an "agenda". As someone tangentially involved in the "Staples Debacle" in 1999 (and before), it is frightening to witness just how low a once-great newspaper can fall. The days of Jack Smith, Jim Murray and great world and national coverage are long over; some of the local columnists still appear to have some balls (including Patt The Hatt) --- And solid local coverage has been in the past ever since the buy-outs of the '90s got rid of most of the paper's best writers and photogs. So, here's MY idea: Let Big Willy Robinson, who spoke so eloquently at Otis' funeral (and suddenly, scaring the hell out of the security agents and the other uptights in that Pasadena church), take over the paper for a few weeks. Yeah, he isn't from west of the 405, so practically no one in the executive suites will know who he is (hell, the new guys wouldn't know anyone from LOS ANGELES, much less West LA), but Big Willy could crack the whip and have the paper cover the REAL Los Angeles ... You know, the one the Times' execs drive through in their 7-series Beemers on the way to work ... or whatever it is they think they're doing ... I've been reading the paper for over 35 years, essentially raised on it, got into journalism because of it (and their Watergate coverage) and even worked for it for a time ... This is all very, very sad ... Worked for a decade at KTLA, too, and am also witnessing the end of that LA institution, under the same ownership in Chi-town ... Very sad and strange.

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

The LA Times got rid of one of the best oped cartoonists in the industry, conservative Ramirez. It's been downhill since.

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.

I wonder if was really about him hanging around talk show host conservative John Ziggler from KFI way to much....

Who?

Andres,

Bwa-ha-ha. I hear Air America is hiring, dude. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha...

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.

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...

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

Martinez out to take his coterie of anti-God, pro deviant behavior columnists with him.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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."

"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.

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.

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.