The story in question was sent back to the department from which it emanated for additional reporting and because of concerns by Doug that the story, as written, might be in violation of the ethics policy of the Los Angeles Times. This was not because of the ethnicity of the reporter but because the policy prohibits reporters from covering stories if they have taken a position or some action that could appear to compromise their objectivity. There is no implication here that Armenians can't cover the Armenian community or that other ethnic groups can't do likewise.

Excerpt from letter rebutting Hernandez' piece, from Times Asst. Managing Editor Simon K.C. Li:

Daniel: May I please set the record straight on one portion of your article about The Times, the repetition of a nasty innuendo from Harut Sassounian's piece urging that Managing Editor Doug Frantz be fired over Mark Arax's accusations.

I refer to this passage: "As Sassounian noted, Frantz is scheduled to be back in Istanbul next month to moderate a panel for the International Press Institute's World Congress that is titled, "Turkey: Sharing the Democratic Experience." Among the panelists is Andrew Mango, who Sassounian describes as a "notorious genocide denialist."
...
The facts are these: As one of three vice chairmen of the International Press Institute, I put Doug's name forward last spring as a journalist who might help us by taking part in the program of the organization's annual world congress, precisely because of his knowledge of Turkey. I specifically suggested that we invite novelist Orhan Pamuk, who was later awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and ask Doug to interview him one-on-one.

The IPI host committee in Turkey, at the strong urging of the IPI Secretariat in Vienna, accepted the basic idea, adding another Turkish writer Elif Shafak for the congress' opening session. Doug duly received an invitation to act as interviewer of these two writers. Both of them, it's relevant to note, have been subject to legal action and personal threats precisely because they have written or spoken urging their countrymen to change the majority view about the Armenian genocide. Doug graciously agreed.

But then that panel failed to materialize, for what reasons I don't know. Doug agreed to moderate the opening session with a different panel, consisting of Shafak, a Lebanese broadcaster and Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian lawyer who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003. Then that idea fell apart, too. I was later told that after the murder of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in January, both Pamuk and Shafak had safety concerns about returning to Turkey from their temporary domiciles abroad.

IPI then asked Doug, somewhat apologetically, whether he was still game to moderate a panel. I believe they offered him the title of the session in question and a description of it, without specifying the participants. The description, incidentally, does not mention the Armenian question.

Complete memos are posted at LAObserved.