Simers could be out at LAT

http://www.awfulannouncing.com/2013/july/tj-simers-future-with-la-times-likely-to-be-decided-this-week.html

Our friend Larry Brown reported on Simers' conspicuous absence on Friday, noting it's been six weeks since the paper's most well-known writer has appeared in the Times. LBS also notes that the paid suspension "vacation" came in the wake of a viral video featuring Simers, Dwight Howard, and Simers' daughter. That video was produced by Mandalay Sports Entertainment, who would subsequently announce their plans to base a sitcom around Simers, his job, and his daughter a week after the video was released

 

T.J. Simers sh*** bigger than Eddy Hartenstein.
So a newspaper publisher issues a newsroom-wide edict that all references to his pal, the Dodgers owner, be cleared by upper management?
That's chicken bleep to the max.
Suits come and go, and not without some shame and failure from those L.A. Times/Tribune Co. jobs.
Simers has served that paper well for a long, long time. He should have left a while ago.

 

If I'm Aaron Kushner right about now...

 

Ah, 'word on the street.' Where is that street, exactly? Everyone gets so much great information on that street. I should get a map.

I know zero about this story, but the fact that a columnist has been away for 6 weeks sometimes just means the columnist has been away for 6 weeks. Not unheard of. Also, what is a 'paid suspension "vacation"'? It's one or the other. If you don't know, just say so.

If Simers is in fact out or suspended, someone out there knows. Be a grownup and go find out.

 

That isn't an unusual amount of time for a writer to be off during the summer.

However ...

Simers' self-centered and at times abrasive writing style has troubled Davan Maharaj, the newpaper's editor. Simers' style has also not gone over well with publisher Eddy Hartenstein, a friend of former Dodger owner Frank McCourt.

Obviously the Times, like all other Tribune products and most other newspapers anywhere, is now made up of craven bastards in the executive ranks. And they probably don't like Simers being so mean to the titans of industry.

 

If Simers is ousted, I hope he writes long and hard about it.

 

The LA Times has four writers in its sports section that are "destinations". I want to know what those folks have to say about a sports issue that happens to be centered in LA.


The top tier of those four writers consists of TJ Simers and Chris Dufresne. They are like the old "EF Hutton ads"; when they talk, people listen.

In the second tier is Sam Farmer.

In the third tier - and important because he writes so well - is Bill Plaschke.


If the Times decides "to whack" Simers, that will be an act of self-immolation as far as I am concerned.

 

Figure Simers could land quite well at Fox Sports One playing the Skip Bayless role.

 

Always enjoy Simers' stuff when it moves on the wire.

 

Maybe he took the last 6 weeks off because he knows the next 6 weeks are what really count.