Turning the page on the Los Angeles Times

San Fernando Valley Business Journal, August 18, 2008 by Martin M. Cooper

OK, the fat lady has sung, the straw has broken the camel's back, the well has run dry, and it's all over but the shouting. I'm officially over the Los Angeles Times ...

We've had a mutually satisfying affair for more than 40 years: I've sent them money; they've dutifully delivered my morning paper.

I've laughed with Jim Murray, dug jazz with Leonard Feather. railed at City Hall with Bill Boyarsky, chuckled at Conrad's cartoons, followed motor racing with Shay Glick, and listened to pop sounds with Robert Hilburn.

In the dim past of my youth I drew a paycheck from the Old Lady of Spring Street, downed a couple of beers with columnist Art Ryon at the Red Log, and hung out in the pressroom. I remember a newsroom littered with crumpled up sheets of paper with hall-written stories on them that just weren't good enough, desks with manual typewriters, and pneumatic tubes rushing copy from one department to another.

I can still work a linotype machine; remember the California Job Case; and know how to set type in a stick.

But most of all, I remember that the people who put out the paper knew they were doing something important. They were aware they weren't just working for a business; they were the public's watchdog, the purveyor of what was happening around the world, the translator of the complexities and excesses of government.

First published as the Los Angeles Daily Times on December 4, 1881, The Times became a dominant figure in not only the history of Los Angeles, but also of the state. After 119 years of bombings, strikes, water wars, world wars, and a century of reporting news, the Times-Mirror Company was purchased by the Tribune Company of Chicago in 2000; that, as they say, was the beginning of the end.

Then came new technologies, diminished circulation and advertising revenues, and a parade of publishers and editors trying to plug holes in the sinking ship. And then Sam Zell arrived on the scene, an out-of-towner who bought the paper on April 2, 2007 ... just one day after April Fool's Day.

The following week, the Times Book Review became part of the Opinion section.

I've remained loyal through the axing of the Garfield cartoon strip, the shifting and eliminating of sections, the mass layoffs of first-rate journalists, and the basic emasculation of what once was a newspaper of which we could be proud. I reluctantly acquiesced when they combined the Opinion and Book Review sections back-to-back.

But now they've gone too far.

They're doing away with the separate Book Review Section.

The July 21 edition of Publisher's Weekly reported: "the Los Angeles Times is folding its standalone Sunday book review section, [and] laying off two dedicated book editors."

The July 27 Book Review was the last one. From now on, it will be another subsection in the Calendar section. Art Seidenbaum, Robert Kirsch and the many others who made the section what it was must be turning in their respective graves.

Steve Wasserman, a former editor of the Times' book review section, recently interviewed on WNYC, New York's flagship public radio station, said: "One thing the Internet has demonstrated is that there is a considerable hunger and avidity for cultural news of all kinds, not least of which is news of books. And books, I must say, have yet to be bested as the single most accessible instrument for the conveyance of deep knowledge and lasting entertainment. And the news of those books should be promoted, in my judgment, by the newspapers whose purpose it is to provide the news of the day."

Crime writer and former Times reporter, Michael Connolly, who has authored 17 books, wrote: "In the past, newspaper executives understood the symbiotic relationship between their product and books. People who read books also read newspapers. From that basic tenet came a philosophy: If you foster books, you foster reading. If you foster reading, you foster newspapers ... What I tear is that ... efforts to cut costs now will damage both books and newspapers in the future. Short-term gains will become long-term losses."

On July 27, the last day of the Times book review section, there were eight pages of the comics section.

For years I've collected historic newspapers, a collection now numbering in excess of 150. The oldest is the Gloucester Journal of August 1, 1738.

There's a quasi-macabre subset in the collection: the last edition of newspapers. I have the final efforts of the Minneapolis Star, the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, the Hollywood Citizen-News, the Washington Star, the Philadelphia Bulletin, and several more. Now I'll have to add the Times book review section to the collection.

I may continue to read you, Los Angeles Times, but I don't love you any more.

"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government

without newspapers, or newspapers without a government,

I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

- Thomas Jefferson

Martin Cooper is president of Cooper Communications, Inc. He is also president of the Los Angeles Quality and Productivity Commission, founding president of The Executives, and vice chairman-marketing of the Boys & Girls Club of the West Valley. He has previously been chairman of VICA, president of the Public Relations Society of America-L.A. Chapter, and president of the Encino Chamber of Commerce. He can be reached at mcooper@coopercomm.net.