The NY Times obituary on Otis Chandler talks about handler's legacy in transforming the LA Times from a partisan Republican rag into a partisan Democrat rag proper newspaper in the 1960's and 70's:
[T]he young publisher was taking over what was considered one of the worst major dailies in the country. S. J. Perelman, the New Yorker humorist, wrote that during a train trip to the West he asked the porter for a newspaper, "and unfortunately the poor man, hard of hearing, brought me The Los Angeles Times." The NBC News anchor Chet Huntley claimed to read the newspaper in order to "know that I can be reasonably accurate by going 180 degrees in the other direction."What they neglect to mention is that, by the post-Watergate era, the LA Times was as rabidly liberal as the "old" Times had been Republican. Probably not unexpected; the NY Times is, if anything, further to the left in its cant and neither paper seems to be able to return to the middle as their readers (and former readers) move to the right.In its political coverage, The Times made no pretense of fairness. In 1950, the political editor, Kyle Palmer, wrote that The Los Angeles Times intended to back Richard M. Nixon for the Senate while covering his liberal Democratic rival, Helen Gahagan Douglas, "from time to time, as space allows."
Soon after taking over as publisher, Otis Chandler vowed to raise the stature of the paper.
The daily's new course was evident in the 1960 presidential election. While the editorial page, as expected, backed Mr. Nixon, who was then vice president, news articles gave balanced coverage to his opponent, Senator John F. Kennedy. Two years later, the paper again demonstrated impartiality while covering Mr. Nixon's losing gubernatorial campaign against Pat Brown. It was a reporter from The Los Angeles Times who was the chief target of Mr. Nixon's sour post-election statement in which he declared: "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference." Under the next two decades of Mr. Chandler's stewardship, the Times Mirror Company and its flagship newspaper scored one success after another. Reversing decades of indifference to Los Angeles's African-American community, The Times won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the Watts riots in 1965.
In the 1964 presidential election, Mr. Chandler's parents insisted that their newspaper endorse Senator Barry Goldwater, the Republican candidate, and not President Lyndon B. Johnson. But by 1970, Otis Chandler's more liberal views were reflected in editorials that urged an American withdrawal from the Vietnam War.
The irony in reading in the NY Times about how open and rabid bias prevented the LA Times from becoming a great newspaper is overwhelming. Their readership declines, they are attacked on all sides (to the point of retreating behind a subscription wall), and their editorial slant left the mainstream of America long ago. Ah, but the glory days! Too bad they don't have Dick Nixon to kick around any more.
Posted by Kevin Murphy at February 28, 2006 08:14 AMWhoa, no offense, but do you even know where the mainstream is at these days? The LA Times is left, but if you haven't noticed the bumbling of, well, everything, has pushed the country hard-left in the last few months.
Posted by: brayker at March 1, 2006 03:15 PMJust so I sound a little less like a shit spewing, liberal-talking head, here's some quotes:
"Gallup noted that it had asked this question about other wars involving the United States, "and only the Vietnam War engendered more public opposition than the current Iraq War."" - http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002035997
(blah blah blah, you know what the period during and after Vietnam was like sociopolitically).
It certainly isn't an exact measure of left/right divisions but recent polls show a majority of Americans want to impeach Bush http://www.zogby.com/Soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID=12528 for his position on wiretapping. The arguments on executive power may escape the average joe, but still.
Even Dick Morris, asshat though he is, recognizes it: http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Comment/DickMorris/011106.html
Posted by: brayker at March 1, 2006 03:45 PMSo, everyone wants massive government intervention in their lives all of a sudden? Clamoring for higher taxes? Demanding the return of welfare? Wants the Army disbanded?
That would be hard left.
What they want is some simple competence, otherwise they are as left or right as they ever were.
The LA Times, however, is a left as it used to be right, reporting what it wants, when it wants, to serve it's political preferences. The last two elections were as slanted towards Kerry and Gore as they used to be for Nixon and Eisenhower. Irony isn't left or right, it just is.
Posted by: Kevin Murphy at March 1, 2006 04:20 PMHeh, I think it could be argued the left are the ones who want the government to stop dicking around in their lives so much. (Terry Schiavo? NSA Wiretaps(or informational awareness if you want a little less hotbutton)? Drug war?)
Maybe you just mean smaller government, which is unlikely given the security, foreign, economic and medical situations.
And I think having the army disbanded is an overstatement of the lefts position, no one argues that defense is unnecessary, everyone still remembers WW2, but the want to fight has been tempered by every conflict since then.
As for the LA Times, I'll take your word for it.
Posted by: brayker at March 3, 2006 10:46 AMI have no dog in the left-wing-control-freak vs right-wing-control-freak fight. I'm pretty much non-statist. If you'd read my blog, you'll find I differ from many Republicans, and especially from the Religious Right on a number of issues. I find the Drug War to be foolhardy, like all other prohibitions (e.g. gun control), some of which you may favor. I also believe that anyone who uses hard drugs is a fool, but that's another matter.
I view the Iraq/al-Qaeda/Islamist battle to be both "all one war" and a necessary one. I have quibbles about how it's being fought, particularly on the competence issue, and Bush's half-way measures with the insurgency. I would've preferred Patton's approach in Germany.
I don't buy the argument we didn't have enough troops: that's an argument that should have died with General McClellan.
I'm old enough to remember MUCH smaller government and don't really see the benefit of most of its increase since. Certainly don't want single-payer (which means I pay for what they get and they limit what I get). I have a friend in Canada who had to wait in line for cancer surgery, and now has to wait in line for chemo since the cancer spread while he was waiting for surgery. I have another Canadian friend who is being medicated with narcotics because they have a queue for removing his bladder stone. And it's illegal for either of them to seek alternative treatment.
I guess that's the kind of "government dicking around" I really don't like.
Posted by: Kevin Murphy at March 3, 2006 11:07 AM"I am not an alien!"
Sorry, hadn't stopped by in a long while. Interesting stuff on the LAT. All the best with your blog. -- Steve Barton
Posted by: Steve Barton at March 25, 2006 08:52 AM