When the employees of the Los Angeles Times go home at night, I wonder if they ever think about the travesty that they are contributing to on a daily basis.  After all, when writers like David Lazarus and Michael Hiltzik first joined the paper, did they consider themselves real journalists?  Did they feel that they were reporters in the truest sense of the word?

Because there’s no way they are now, and I have trouble finding other employees of the Times that I would call true journalists.

These days, real journalism is happening at the LA Weekly.  This free, alternative newspaper has out-reported the propaganda machine at the LA Times over and over again.  Reporters at the Weekly have repeatedly, and properly, hammered Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for gross incompetence.  The most recent example was the Weekly’s outstanding exposé on the Mayor’s failure to report over $100,000 in free tickets to various sporting and entertainment events.  As the intrepid reporters at the Weekly have shown, there is simply no excuse for what the Mayor has done to Los Angeles.   This came on top of the paper’s report that the Mayor spends only 11% of his time actually handling the business of Los Angeles.  The Weekly also remains one of the last bastions of true film criticism left in the country, this despite the departure of true film critic extraordinaire Manhola Dargis.

In contrast, we have the “reporters” at the Los Angeles Times.

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Yes, that is really the title of his post. You’d think one glance at one of my year-end reviews of the L.A. Times would somewhat dispel that notion. And it would . . . for honest people.

But such a label does not easily fit Eric Boehlert, Senior Lotion Fellow at Media Matters, who asks how the L.A. Times can possibly allow one of its bloggers, Andrew Malcolm, to display something less than complete respect for the legend known as Barack Obama:

So my question is a simple one: Why does one of the largest newspapers in the country allow its political writer to routinely disrespect the president in a casually insulting way? To portray the president as some kind of punk. . . . [W]hy does the Times allows one of its high-profile political writers to continually adopt a hateful Rush Limbaugh and Fox News-like tone and personally degrade the presidency?

Indeed. Don’t they know that opinion people at major newspapers need to be kept in line? At least when they’re criticizing liberals.

Boehlert is upset because Malcolm has been allowed to call Barack Obama things like this:

* ”the United States’ Democratic Smoker-in-Chief”
* “the Real Good Talker”
* “Smoker-in-Chief”
* “the community organizer”
* “ex-state senator”
* “The Smoker”
* “the nation’s top talker”
* “what’s-his-name in the White House”
* “Duffer-in-Chief”
* “the ex-senator from Illinois”

Those are all pretty good, I’d say . . . and accurate. (more…)

If you’re like me, you’re tired of being lied to.

That’s what got me started in media criticism.  I would read the Los Angeles Times every day and shout at the newspaper’s reporters and editors over my cornflakes.  “This isn’t true and you know it!” I’d yell.

Of course, nobody over there was listening.  But they listen to me now… sometimes.

Back in February 2003, I started writing my blog, primarily as an outlet for my frustration at the bias, omissions, and distortions I found in the L.A. Times on an almost daily basis.

Since then, I’ve managed to get the editors’ attention a few times.

During the Iraq war, I questioned an L.A. Times report that a U.S. airstrike in Ramadi had “pulverized” 15 homes and killed 30 civilians.  My military and other local sources denied the report.  Based on my post, the editors backed off their initial claims.

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