L.A. Times vs. Der Gropenfuehrer
Stories on Schwarzenegger's 'rowdy' behavior came suspiciously late, but the paper's agenda is not
I practically had martinis dumped on my head the other night when I suggested that maybe those Los Angeles Times stories about Arnold Schwarzenegger's groping history - which ran a scant few days before the election, thus giving his team little time to respond - weren't a complete disgrace. And I should note that, although famous Times-bashers like Mickey Kaus and Jill Stewart were at the table (and, as usual, leading the discussion), so were at least a couple of anti-recall liberals.
Now, I've spent time in the Times-bashing trenches myself, and I know what fun it can be. I also know what Times-defenders like former Timesman Kevin Roderick of the local media blog L.A. Observed think - a nine-week campaign gave reporters little time to dig up witnesses about Arnold's admittedly "rowdy" behavior, the paper didn't care whether the stories would help or hurt his campaign, etc. - and I don't quite buy it.
But I don't quite dismiss it, either. I suspect that traditionally poky L.A. Times time (Not First, But a Close Second, as frustrated Calendar writers used to quote as the paper's motto about its Hollywood coverage) may explain editor-in-chief John Carroll's decision to hold the stories as much as any anti-Arnold nefariousness. Also, the loudest critics of Times coverage - syndicated political columnist Jill Stewart, Slate's Mickey Kaus, the L.A. Weekly's Bill Bradley, among others - are writers, not editors, and writers constantly complain about editors holding stories, which doesn't mean editors are always wrong to do so.
Still, my favorite paper's distaste for the recall - and head-scratching puzzlement about the popularity of its prime candidate - wasn't exactly invisible.
A few days after the election, a well-placed Times source involved in the Arnold investigation called Jill Stewart to complain off-record that, with this story, the paper had become a dirt-digging tabloid. (Stewart didn't use that conversation for her regular column, but it did run in the Ventura County Reporter, and she talked about it on Fox News.) Actually, L.A. could have used a real tabloid like the honestly biased New York Post in this case; the stories would have run sooner, and with snappier headlines. Times recall headlines often managed to be both typically dull and remarkably condescending, what with their habit of regularly referring to Schwarzenegger as "Actor" - "Actor Names Economic Team," "Actor's Team Sprints..." and (my favorite) "Davis, Actor Go Head to Head."
Last week the pseudonymous blogger Armed Liberal - a business consultant who fears pissing off Spring Street - compiled a useful rundown of eight Times staff columnists and 42 columns they wrote about the recall. Final score: 30 anti-Arnold or anti-recall columns; 11 that considered both sides; a single anti-Bustamante one; and zero pro-Arnold or pro-recall columns. "The clear tilt of the paper couldn't be more transparent," Armed Liberal (who, remember, is a liberal) noted on his group blog WindsofChange.net. "The columnists are the human face the newspaper presents to us, its readers. And in this case, that face was largely speaking with one voice."
The day after the election, conservative radio host and pundit Hugh Hewitt wrote (on WorldNetDaily.com) an open letter to John Carroll suggesting that, among other things, the Times editor hire "a general columnist who isn't as predictable as your current line-up." Now, you might dismiss Hewitt as a right-wing partisan, but, unlike the Times, he doesn't pretend he has no agenda.
For the record, I don't pretend I'm objective. I'm naturally sympathetic to Jill's point of view - she's a friend whose work I respect - but I'm less outraged than she is about the Times's Arnold coverage, probably because I like Arnold less than she does, although I'm glad he won. But I'm also not really unhappy with the Times's groping stories. If 2,000 readers canceled their subscriptions, so be it. The coverage was certainly entertaining, always a plus at a newspaper and a rare treat at the Times. Steve Lopez actually worked himself up into some clever columns - even Arnold fans have to admit those "Der Gropenfuehrer" spitballs hit the mark - although anyone as overpaid as this faux man-of-the-people should retire the shtick about driving a Nissan Sentra.
Hewitt made a good suggestion about solving an obvious problem. Also good was his advice that Carroll hire back Sacramento Bee political reporter Dan Weintraub, who was forced to leave the Times in 1994 when then-senior editor Carol "Big Nurse" Stogsdill abruptly ordered him to San Francisco - a family upheaval made worse by Weintraub's wife's job in Sacramento. Stogsdill, who is thankfully long gone, was at the time heard muttering in the newsroom that she didn't understand why she got grief about transferring Weintraub "just because his wife runs some muffin shop."
John Carroll arrived at the Times from the Baltimore Sun in 2000, after the Chandler family sold the Times to the Tribune Co. of Chicago. He is not free of condescension - Carroll's October 12 commentary on the Times's op-ed page explaining the groping stories loftily refused to name the paper's prime critics - but he is generally respected and considered a big improvement over his predecessors; Michael Parks allowed the infamous Staples Center fiasco to happen on his watch in 1999, and Shelby Coffey III, a legendary waffler who left in 1997, not only allowed petty tyrants like Stogsdill to drive away talent but was infamous for delaying stories long past the point of absurdity.
But, as Jill Stewart (who used to be a Times staff reporter) told me, "Shelby never, to my knowledge, took over a political story, became obsessed with a story, left his executive office to act as the project editor," as her Times source says Carroll did with the Schwarzenegger coverage. "No reporter is going to tell the person who can make or break his or her career that his judgment is bad," she added. "Carroll stepped over the line. If Shelby had done that, we all would have freaked."
Unlike bloggers, talk radio hosts, and other media gadflys, news executives like John Carroll feel responsible, as they should, to try to be objective. They never really can be, of course, but they might at least consider how their own points of view affect their decisions.
Last year, for a story on blogging, I interviewed Washington Post associate editor and senior correspondent Robert Kaiser, co-author of a ponderous book about the media called The News About the News. "I read things I think I should know, not other people's opinions about what I should know," he said, explaining why he doesn't read blogs. But every single thing we read in the paper, including hard news, is the product of other people's opinions about what we should know. Problems happen when those in charge believe in their own objectivity so much they no longer know that one simple fact.Published: 10/23/2003
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