LAT kills off the local section. Yes, you read that right.

I don't understand what people from "radio/TV/"multimedia" could have done to save a paper that, like most papers, is seeing its ad revenue plummet.

It's so easy just to blame "Those bastards in non-print media!!!" I know thye semntiment is often that they're just not "real journalists," but that's complete bullcrap. Of course, that's another thread, and I don't get why you brought it up here.

This is more a situation of a new owner getting in over his head from the start. And an owner who doesn't care about the great city of Los Angeles, or its newspaper, as anything but an asset to be squeezed.

 

Trust, the people in the "non-print" media are going through the same thing. Its been bad ever since the Telecom Act of 96 that allows big companies to buy all types of radio stations, but now that bill is coming due and its the worker bees getting the ax. See Clear Channel, CBS Radio layoffs in past two weeks. Many good, longtime broadcasters out of work. Its sad.

And one could argue that the local section (at least in The Hartford Courant) died the day Tribune took over. They eviscerated (sp?) the staff and what is left behind is a shell of what it once was. That goes for sports, news, local, everything.

 

It's not that these other-business people -- who now, somehow, prevail over most of the top ranks of the LAT -- have done anything in particular, in and of themselves, to kill the paper.

But that's just the point. They supposedly were brought in because of their business acumen and experience in alternative media to help revitalize the Times. They haven't done that.

And, that being the case, I don't think they belong there. I see them as interlopers, probably costing the paper a fortune to keep, contributing nothing, and, worse, seemingly not caring about the paper/company, or its core audience, and being "vindictive" to their employees/colleagues, probably just because they can.

That being the case, I would prefer that journalists who were/are already within the company be the ones to try to right the ship and to stay in their jobs, in order to learn new jobs, if need be, rather than being the ones constantly being put out of work.

I really believe that traditional journalists who care about their medium, especially ones who are or will be trained in whatever is going on now, or next, are the ones who should be used to steer newspaper companies through this transition period.

In this instance, for example, I believe the publisher would have been better advised (oh, wait, he was, by all the senior editors) to enfold Business, rather than California/Metro, into another section (probably Sports).

 

I'm more a fan of the traditional reporters finding escape hatches and letting the business geniuses remain to sink with the Titanic.

 

I've been thinking that as well.

 

Well, I guess you might be right in that. Sadly.

Here's the second half of a double-whammy out of the LAT today, also via LAObserved.

http://www.laobserved.com/

 

Join the crowd, Mile.

I was fortunate enough to see my byline in the main section a few times when I worked for one of the community papers. One of the biggest rushes I ever had.

I heard this was coming, but another 300 positions? Christ privy, that's insane.

 

In the meantime, they should create latimeslocal.com as a way to draw readers away from latimes.com ... that way people know where to go for local info and they can bypass the original site that took readers away from the print product.

 

A bit off topic, perhaps, but the folks leaving comments to that post appear to be ... intelligent. I mean, they can spell, and they provide some serious insight. At my old shop, roughly 88 percent of all the article comments were impossible to read: every other word spelled wrong, unsubstantiated claims and just plan mularkey ("thiss wrter prolly didnt evene past gramer school LOL").

Back on topic: still a shitty day.

 

So the publisher says the A and California sections are the "most read" in the paper, and so why not combine them into one? And thus get rid of one full-page, back page ad slot?

Brilliant!

And putting the classifieds into the sports section, when it's already just 6 pages some days is any dumber.

 

I remember how much I loved being a prep football stringer for the Times. Going to exotic places like Ridgecrest to cover football next to a boron mine.
I don't know what else to say.