Another joke about office porn may be stale and in bad taste, but we don’t care: L.A. Times reporters may have access to all the NSFW content they want, but the rest of their job leaves something to be desired.
Since David Hiller took over as publisher of the Los Angeles paper 16 months ago, things have been rough out there.
There was the very public departure of Jim O’Shea.
The announcement that the paper will be cutting 50 jobs.
Ad revenue fell 8.5%, lower than the industry average, and the paper has lost major money in classified ads.
No one has any confidence in the new editor, Russ Stanton.
Sam Zell, the newish owner of the Times, pretends to care about great journalism, but is ultimately concerned with the bottom line.
Yesterday, John Montorio, one of two managing editors, announced that he was leaving at the end of the month. Most Times employees see Hiller as “star-struck outsider, a meddler in the newsroom who does not understand journalism or Los Angeles.”
Editorial Director
For what it's worth, from someone who reads the Times on line, it's got an identity problem. See, it wants to be a nationally important paper, but it caters to a city driven by it's most important export. The Entertainment Industry, which is, at it's most important a boring dollars and cents business, and at it's worst, just titillating petty stupid gossip. So, how can it talk about international news, politics, nationally relevant stuff and be taken seriously, when it's also discussing in equal time and copy, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, The Terminator Number 40, Steven Spielberg, and Britney Spears? No way. It should just turn itself into a Murdock Tabloid and be done with it. Then, maybe the tide will turn and it'll make some money again. Move over the Boston Herald, the Daily News and the NY Post.
Good riddance to bad rubbish