Opinion: About The Times’ editorial board
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The Los Angeles Times is a citizen of the city of Los Angeles, the state of California, the American nation and the world. On the editorial page, the newspaper sets aside its objective news-gathering role to join its readers in a dialogue about important issues of the day - to exhort, explain, deplore, mourn, applaud or champion, as the case may be.
The editorial page strives to reflect the dynamism of Southern California. The region’s iconic status as global entertainment capital, its entrepreneurial spirit and its extraordinary cultural diversity are among its distinguishing strengths, and we believe that all Angelenos should have the opportunity to fulfill their dreams. We demand accountability from the people’s representatives in government, promote the rule of law and support policies that encourage commerce and growth and that raise living standards in the region.
Freedom is our core value. We feel a special obligation to defend civil liberties and human rights. Because newspapers and other news media, uniquely among businesses, enjoy and rely on a provision of the Bill of Rights that protects freedom of the press, we assume an obligation to defend the rights of all citizens.
We reject overreaching moves by public authorities to control the culture or private mores. Citizens’ right to privacy, to decide for themselves how best to lead their lives, is fundamental. It is in keeping with our Western roots to champion individual autonomy and the freedom of conscience.
The United States has developed into one nation whose citizens are engaged in a common enterprise and are entitled to live under the same basic framework of laws and enjoy their equal protection. And much as the bonds linking Americans have grown stronger over time, so too have the bonds among nations in the global economy. We believe that lowering barriers to trade and communication will lead to greater freedom and prosperity for all.
At home and abroad, we believe that free markets are the best engines of prosperity. We are deeply skeptical of government attempts to subvert markets to engineer economic outcomes, though we also believe that a private economy requires a robust public infrastructure and a social safety net to prevent some members of society from falling prey to unconscionable levels of poverty and privation that corrode our democracy.
An abiding commitment to preserve the nation’s natural treasures is also is in keeping with our Western roots. Californians understand that there is a need for society and government to protect wilderness, balancing the interests of growth and conservation, and to regulate human activity to preserve the quality of our air and water for generations to come. The market may be the best arbiter of economic activity, but in pursuit of environmental and public health goals, state regulation must often encroach on private behavior.
Engagement with the rest of the world is a requirement of good citizenship. The United States should be an unabashed promoter of freedom and democracy in the world, ready to work with others to help ease the burdens of less fortunate nations. We believe that the United States should have, and sometimes must use, the strongest military in the world. It is also important to shine a spotlight on global development challenges that don’t necessarily dominate daily news headlines, and that is part of our mission.
Intellectual honesty is the cornerstone of the editorial page. We strive to be sincere, coherent, consistent and skeptical - and, when called for, to have a sense of humor and a hint of mischief. And a sense of humility, too, in recognizing when we are wrong and when our positions shift in light of new developments or information.
The editorial board of the Los Angeles Times champions its principles without regard to partisanship, beholden to no individual or political organization.
What exactly is an editorial? The simple answer is: an unsigned article expressing the newspaper’s opinion on a matter of public interest. It’s the one place in the newspaper where The Times tells you what it thinks as an institution.
Speaking on the newspaper’s behalf is the editorial board, consisting of 11 members, with a variety of viewpoints and expertise. We meet three times a week for an hour or so, bat around ideas and arguments, examine them for flaws, push them in new directions, (sometimes) discard them entirely and (ideally) mold them into coherence. We often have visitors from the worlds of politics, governance, academia and business.
Board members interview sources much like our newsroom colleagues, though we aren’t as likely to use quotes. We go wherever our interests lead us - skid row, Sacramento, Shanghai - but we’re not entirely free to write whatever we want. The editorial board imposes a few institutional constraints, by design.
One is what is known in the law as stare decisis. Our past positions on any given topic help guide our present view. It would be intellectually inconsistent, not to say politically opportunistic, to favor term limits when one party is in office but oppose them when another governs. (For the record, we don’t like term limits for anyone.)
The writing of editorials is a team effort; they aren’t columns reflecting any one person’s viewpoint. A member of the board (editors included) can’t write an editorial endorsing a position in the absence of consensus among the group. That is not to say we are a full democracy. Editors have a bigger say, especially in wielding a veto, and report directly to the publisher, who has an even bigger say.
We are also spreading our voice outside the geographical constraints of the editorial page. Through the ongoing public-affairs lecture series Zocalo (www.zocalola.org), we have held several stimulating public discussions with board members, guest speakers and some of our regular Op-Ed columnists. We will increasingly be offering more online-only content, whether rebuttals to an editorial or virtual chats with a columnist. We also maintain a lively group weblog called Opinion L.A., where we sample the local conversation and invite readers to weigh in, even (or especially) if it’s to tell us to do a better job.
We don’t expect you to always agree with our opinion, but we do hope to earn your respect.
Nicholas Goldberg
Editor of the editorial pages
Nicholas Goldberg is editor of the editorial pages; he supervises the editorial board and oversees its work as well as the Op-Ed page, Sunday Opinion and letters to the editor.
Goldberg was deputy editor of the editorial pages from 2008-09, editor of The Times’ Op-Ed pages from 2002-08 and editor of the Sunday Opinion section from 2005-08. Before that, at Newsday in New York, he served as Middle East bureau chief from 1995-98, covered Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign and was statehouse bureau chief during the administrations of Governors Mario Cuomo and George Pataki.
A graduate of Harvard University, Goldberg’s writing has been published in the Los Angeles Times, the New Republic, the New York Times, Vanity Fair, the Nation, the Sunday Times of London, the Washington Monthly, American Lawyer and Conde Nast Traveler, among other places. He lives with his wife and children in Hancock Park.
Jim Newton (e-mail)
Editor-at-large
Jim Newton is editor-at-large of the Los Angeles Times. He serves as a member of The Times’ editorial board, advises on editorial matters and writes and edits for the editorial page and Op-Ed. Previously, he served as editor of the editorial pages, supervising the editorial board and overseeing its work as well as the Op-Ed page, Sunday Opinion and letters to the editor.
A 20-year veteran of the Los Angeles Times, he has worked as a reporter, editor and bureau chief and has covered, among other beats, the Los Angeles Police Department, the administration of Mayor Richard Riordan, federal law enforcement and state and local politics.
Newton came to the Los Angeles Times in 1989, having previously worked as a reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and as a clerk at the New York Times, where he served as columnist James Reston’s assistant in 1985-86. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the recipient of numerous local and national awards in journalism. He was part of the Los Angeles Times’ coverage of the Los Angeles riots in 1992 and the earthquake of 1994, both of which were awarded Pulitzer Prizes to the staff.
Also an author, Newton wrote ‘Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made,’ a critically acclaimed best-selling biography of the former chief justice and California governor. He is at work now on a presidential biography of Dwight Eisenhower, to be published by Doubleday (tentatively scheduled for release in 2011).
Newton is a Senior Fellow with UCLA’s School of Public Affairs. He formerly served as a John Jacobs Fellow at U.C. Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies from 2003-04. Newton is married to Karlene Goller, The Times’ newsroom counsel, and has one son, Jack.
Janet Duckworth
Assistant editorial page editor
Janet Duckworth edits the daily unsigned editorials.
She was formerly a deputy editor in the Calendar section and a senior editor of West magazine. Before coming to The Times she was a features editor at the L.A. Weekly and an assignment editor in The Washington Post’s Style section. A graduate of the now-defunct Immaculate Heart College, she is a lapsed art major.
Eryn Brown (e-mail)
Letters editor
Eryn Brown -- who occasionally writes editorials on economics, business and local water issues -- is editor of the letters to the editor page.
Formerly a senior writer at Fortune magazine, Brown has written for the New York Times, Wired, Money, and other publications. Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, she earned a bachelor’s in history and literature from Harvard. She lives in Sherman Oaks with her husband, two sons and cat.
Robert Greene (e-mail)
Editorial writer
Robert Greene is an editorial writer covering California and Los Angeles government, politics, policy and law.
Greene previously was a staff writer for the L.A. Weekly and a reporter and associate editor for the Metropolitan News-Enterprise. Prior to becoming a journalist, he was an attorney in Los Angeles. He is a resident of Highland Park and a graduate of USC and Georgetown University Law School.
Jon Healey (e-mail)
Editorial writer
Jon Healey is an editorial writer at The Times, mainly contributing pieces about technology, intellectual property, corporate governance and other business issues.
Prior to joining the board, he spent five years as a business reporter at The Times covering the convergence of entertainment, technology, and billion-dollar lawsuits. Other career stops include stints at the San Jose Mercury News, Congressional Quarterly and the Winston-Salem Journal. He has a B.A. in history from Princeton University and lives with his wife and two sons in South Pasadena, near the future I-710 tunnel.
Karin Klein (e-mail)
Editorial writer
Karin Klein is an editorial writer covering education, environment, religion and culture. She occasionally contributes columns to the op-ed page and Current. She is the 2006-07 winner of the Eugene C. Pulliam Fellowship for Editorial Writers, under which she spent a year studying and writing about the first wave of children diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, now that they have reached adulthood.
Klein was previously an assignment editor with The Times, and also has worked at the Orange County Register, San Jose Mercury News and Sacramento Bee. She attended Wellesley College, did her graduate work in journalism at UC Berkeley, and is currently an adjunct professor of journalism at Chapman University in Orange. She lives in Laguna Beach, where she is a volunteer naturalist.
Michael McGough
Senior editorial writer
Michael McGough is senior editorial writer for The Times, writing about law, national security, politics and religion.
Prior to joining The Times, McGough worked more than two decades for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, covering the Supreme Court and writing a weekly op-ed column (2003-06), editing the editorial and opinion pages (1985-2003), and working as associate editor, editorial writer, reporter and copy boy. He was part of a team of Post-Gazette writers that received first place in the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Schnader Media Awards for a series on a state Supreme Court justice who was subsequently impeached and removed from office.
He has written for Slate.com the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Republic, Commonweal and others. An honors graduate of Allegheny College, he also studied English literature, philosophy and religion at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England, and holds a Master of Studies in Law degree from Yale, which he attended as a Ford Foundation fellow.
Marjorie Miller (e-mail)
Editorial writer and Op-Ed special correspondent
Marjorie Miller is an editorial writer and Op-Ed special correspondent focusing primarily on international issues.
Previously, Miller was The Times’ foreign editor from 2002-08. Before that, she spent 17 years abroad for The Times as bureau chief in London, Jerusalem, Bonn, Mexico City and San Salvador. She is a member of board of the International Women’s Media Foundation and an advisor to the Occidental College Global Affairs Program. She lives with her family in Koreatown.
Lisa Richardson (e-mail)
Editorial writer
Lisa Richardson is an editorial writer at The Times, writing about crime, immigration, Latin America, urban affairs and other subjects.
Richardson has been a reporter at The Times since 1992, beginning in the South Bay bureau in Torrance, moving to the Orange County edition, then eventually joining the Metro staff to write about race, culture and class in Los Angeles. A native of Boston, Richardson has a B.A. in English from Dartmouth, and also studied Spanish politics, literature and art at the University of Granada and the University of Salamanca. She lives in the Miracle Mile neighborhood.
Dan Turner (e-mail)
Editorial writer
Dan Turner is an editorial writer who covers international news (with a particular focus on Africa and development), transportation (including ports and airports), law enforcement, corrections, energy, international trade and Hollywood.
Before joining the editorial board he was a copy editor for The Times’ California section, and before that he served as columnist and managing editor of the Los Angeles Business Journal and a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle and the now-defunct Peninsula Times Tribune in Palo Alto. He is a native of Santa Rosa, Calif., and lives with his wife and dog in the Hollywood Hills. He has a bachelor’s degree from Stanford and a master’s from San Jose State.