My editor, Harold Meyerson, is not exactly pleased with Sam Zell, owner of The LA Times. "In Zell, what Los Angeles has is a visiting Visigoth, whose civic influence is about as positive as that of the Crips, the Bloods and the Mexican mafia. Life in San Quentin sounds about right." Yikes. Growing up, the LA Times was my paper. And I loved it. I thought Ron Brownstein was (and probably still is) the best political reporter in the country. I thought the Times was better written than its competitors -- more straightforward, more diligent about providing context, more interest in situating events. And it's been a thrill to write for their op-ed page and debate section. I don't get the paper anymore, so it's a bit harder for me to track its quality, but there certainly have been a lot of cuts and a lot of angry staff changes. Which is a pity. The Washington Post and The New York Times are too deeply invested in the roles their papers have traditionally played in the political debate to change. The LA Times, I'd always thought, had a sort of institutional, psychological freedom they didn't. For one thing, it's located outside the Eastern Corridor's elite feedback loop, which is a huge advantage in and of itself. But the paper's not going to get anywhere cutting itself to bits.
