The LA Times Can Suck It
As I reached for the paper this morning, I noticed how light it seemed compared to previous weeks. No wonder, as the Opinion & Book Review section was missing. The one thing I looked most towards at the end of the week is now condensed and tacked onto the back of the paper. I sputtered vile invectives against the owners of the paper and vowed to finally jump ship and subscribe to the New York Times.
Fuck hometown pride. Like the Lakers/Dodgers/LA transit system, the LA Times is an embarrassment. Yep, I went there.
Right, I'm off to write a strongly-worded message to the paper and tell them off. If it's published in next week's opinion page, well, I probably won't read it will I?
ETA: Exactly why they suck...
LA Times SHOULD be one of the premier papers in the country given its history. Indeed, despite the cutbacks the journalists have managed to bring home a few Pulitzers each year. But instead of building up the staff and capitalising on the talent, and spending money to make the paper a must-read like the NY Times, the owners do the opposite and cut wherever they can. That depletes morale, scares staff into jumping ship, and reduces exclusive content. Then came the recent news of more layoffs. The paper is a joke now, with slipshod local reporting and printing articles from other news sources. True, every paper is facing huge problems in subscription numbers. But the LA Times is circling down the drain faster than its rivals, which could have been slowed down by the owners and thus allow for the time to find out other streams of revenue for the paper.
Call me a nostalgic fool, but I wish for the days when the hometown paper was the pride of the city. People may turn to the Internet to get their news, but they read the paper to get the truth. Now we have a reporter who called a press conference to announce an article in the LA Times accusing P Diddy of being involved in the shooting of Tupac Shakur, and then apologised when his sources turns out to be fraudulent. Someone put the LA Times out of its misery already.
Fuck hometown pride. Like the Lakers/Dodgers/LA transit system, the LA Times is an embarrassment. Yep, I went there.
Right, I'm off to write a strongly-worded message to the paper and tell them off. If it's published in next week's opinion page, well, I probably won't read it will I?
ETA: Exactly why they suck...
LA Times SHOULD be one of the premier papers in the country given its history. Indeed, despite the cutbacks the journalists have managed to bring home a few Pulitzers each year. But instead of building up the staff and capitalising on the talent, and spending money to make the paper a must-read like the NY Times, the owners do the opposite and cut wherever they can. That depletes morale, scares staff into jumping ship, and reduces exclusive content. Then came the recent news of more layoffs. The paper is a joke now, with slipshod local reporting and printing articles from other news sources. True, every paper is facing huge problems in subscription numbers. But the LA Times is circling down the drain faster than its rivals, which could have been slowed down by the owners and thus allow for the time to find out other streams of revenue for the paper.
Call me a nostalgic fool, but I wish for the days when the hometown paper was the pride of the city. People may turn to the Internet to get their news, but they read the paper to get the truth. Now we have a reporter who called a press conference to announce an article in the LA Times accusing P Diddy of being involved in the shooting of Tupac Shakur, and then apologised when his sources turns out to be fraudulent. Someone put the LA Times out of its misery already.