LAT cutting 75 more

I've seen her byline on Clippers stuff, but nothing on hockey.
Most of the game coverage has been via columns by Elliott while Arritt was writing gameday capsules for both teams.

 

You might be being too hard on the people still there, Joe.

Part of the problem, I think, is that there really are few true newspaper people even left at the very top of Tribune and the Times -- from Sam Zell, to Lee Abrams, to Eddy Hartenstein, to Russ Stanton.

These are radio/television/electronic "innovation" people.

Not that that's entirely or necessarily a bad thing, in and of itself, in this day and age. But having them all there, all at the top, does mean that there isn't necessarily anyone to really stand up for the newspaper, and really traditional, great journalism.

The paper also has just recently lost one of its true leaders, and someone who meant a lot to the troops, in Leo Wolinsky. His departure, in essence, marked the start of this round of cuts.

Still, I'm not sure any department editors or other top people jumping ship right now would necessarily do any good. As bad as things are, it would seem that the paper needs all the good/best journalism people it can get, and keep.

And, I'm not sure a white flag has gone up.

It's just that those still left are realizing that times are changing, and that they must get on the digital-age, lines-blurred, non-traditional journalism bandwagon, both in order to keep their jobs, and to lead a media section or outlet these days. It's just a fact of life.

You'd never convince me that the top journalists and editors still at the Times -- and this would include Sports Editor Randy Harvey and all of his now-down-to-three-or-four assistant editors -- are just fine and dandy with all these cuts.

The paper, in all its various forms, are better for having them stay there, and do everything they can to help and bring about any changes needed in a way that would be as palatable, and hopefully, as successful a way as possible, than by having them just throw up their hands and leave in a huff, or a protest, or anything else.

Heck, we've already seen how effective that has been -- not! -- since John Carroll, Dean Baquet and James O'Shea each tried it.

 

I was going to write something similar, WT, but not as eloquent.

I'm not sure resignations-as-statements would mean anything anymore. If I'm on the staff and still trying to do the best I can and make a living, I want the most good people and bosses possible to hang around, starting with Randy Harvey. Resignations aren't going to change anything -- except for the families involved.

It's the old, "Yeah, I'll quit and collect unemployment. That'll show 'em."

Like I said, there are still good people doing good work, and maybe this thing will turn the other way if new ideas are embraced -- or at least the bleeding will be stemmed.

 

Nah, I know it would be a momentary stand and feel OK from afar, while having no real impact. I'm not eager to see people head into unemployment, at least not real principled newspeople. (The dirt-bag suits, well, they can all go eat dog food and die.)

I just sort of missed the ballsy leaders who (with solid options or fat retirement funds) said to the Zells of the world, "Nope. Not me. Not at this paper while I'm in charge." We so rarely see anything done for higher values in this business anymore, I just sort of missed those displays, however hollow.

 

I would think that, unfortunately, there were too few people like that and most if not all of them have already fallen on their swords.

 

This is where the difficulties of the multiple endeavors and formats in media outlets are arising most -- outside of finding a way to transfer ad sales from print to electronics, that is.

The Times is a sizable enough operation that it has a print newspaper sports writing staff, and a web/electronic operation, and the latter has not caught up to the former in terms of real journalistic skills or truly understanding the importance of issues like accuracy, fairness and analysis.

It is doubtful that any of the Times' print writers or sports department editors wrote that email, don't you think? They simply wouldn't have made the mistake of mis-naming a team's mascot, and probably not of pinpointing when the game was resumed, either. I'm not saying the print side never makes mistakes. I simply don't believe those people would have made these mistakes.

That means this email was most likely generated by some editor/employee of the web, or perhaps even someone in the circulation department.

I guess we have to do it now, because of the darned, and dangerous, blurring of lines that is going on these days. But I hardly consider that to be a mistake of the Times' true, and best, sports editorial department people.

Unfortunately, this is a distinction the average public will never be able to make, and probably would never think of. But that is what media outlets' leadership needs to realize and remember before and while trying to act quite so fast to get something out there.

This is part of what comes with breaking down walls, and with putting everything -- even the work of completely different departments/formats between which there probably should be some separation (like advertising/editorial, and now, print/electronics) -- and putting it all under the banner of "the LAT" or LAT sports, and saying "'Hey, we're all one big, happy family.'"

Without separation, or at least the realization of where/how such mistakes or problems are arising -- and why, journalistically, they shouldn't, and can't -- these types of things will continue to happen, probably more and more, as the web/electronic side gains, and is given, greater priority over more traditional ways.

 

It was an automated email blast.

 

Not sure I understand, FW. We have those too. But somebody has to write 'em and send 'em out, no? They aren't machine generated, at least not in any of my experience.

 

I'm sorry . . . . but this is the same line of bull that has always had we print geeks scream, regarding TV: "They wouldn't have anything to report if they didn't read the paper!!!!"

Or the classic: "They get it first! But WE get it RIGHT!!!!!!"

Basically, we have always assumed that because we deal with the written word, we're smarter. And now, because we deal with the word that ends up in ink, we're just SO much smarter than those who work online?

Yes, the L.A. Times made a mistake here. An honest mistake; it's not like they said "Red Sox" instead of "Rays." But to automatically beat our chests and say "HA! YOU suck! We do not! Traditional Ways rule!!!" is emblematic of why our wonderful "traditional way" is dying.

 

Nobody's beating their chests, Piotr. WriteThinking said, and I agree, that the reason mistakes like this are being made is because a lot of papers -- including the Times, I imagine -- do not have the same standards of journalistic quality among their Web staffs as they do their print staffs.

My last paper was the same way. The people handling the Web did NOT have traditional journalism backgrounds, so when they were in charge of making any type of editorial changes, the quality was much lower.

That's all he was saying.