RIP: Ken Reich, who always stood up for the LAT

Ken Reich, one of the great former reporters of the Los Angeles Times -- and there are many -- died in his sleep this morning. He was 70.

Appropriately, but to the surprise of no one who knew him, his last act was yet another blog post targeted at the considerable damage being done, as he saw it, to his beloved former newspaper and its staff.

Ken worked at the Times for 39 years, during which he covered many hard-news stories, and, of more interest here, he was a lead writer on the LAT's terrific coverage of the 1984 Olympics.

For the past few years, he was a constant writer of his own personal blog/mission, titled "Take Back The Times." It was pretty widely read, and very much appreciated, by journalists everywhere, especially at the LAT.

Here is a link to an item on TellZell regarding his passing:

http://www.tellzell.com/2008/06/turn-rules.html

Thank you, Ken, for all your efforts.

And here, for easy access, is Ken's last blog item, posted this morning. It's a good one, very reflective of his message and efforts in recent years. Everyone should read it:

http://takebackthetimes.blogspot.com/2008/06/can-la-times-survive-zell-michaels_1244.html

 

I only met him once, during some pre-Olympic thing in 1984. Very astute guy.
I heard a story that he was at some council meeting where there was a public debate over usage of some park. A girl gets up and whines incessantly about what a wonderful park it is, how her parents always took her there when she was a kid ... on and on. Ken finally breaks in and says, "We get it, you were conceived at that park, thank you, let's move on."

 

Sad story, obviously, but the fact that he was blogging right to the end and ripping the increasingly odious management of Tribune and the Times was a nice touch.

An newspaper man's newspaperman.

 

Grew up reading Ken and this is the perfect epitaph.

RIP to an Old School print guy who did a hell of a job informing SoCal readers about what was going on and why it was going on.