The Times that Try Men's Souls

The vivisection of the once mighty Los Angeles Times is sad to watch. Aside from the writing and editing talent bought out, sold out and now betrayed, there is a cost to our city--and even our nation.

Sam Zell characterized himself as a "grave dancer," buying up sick companies and selling off their assets. He had no interest in news and the media, he admitted privately, before his highly leveraged and highly questionable purchase of the Times and Tribune. His careless care-taking proves him truthful in this regard.

How he was allowed to leverage the pension funds, I cannot understand, and some pretty smart people have tried explaining it to me. What happens to the employees I do understand. Those who took buy outs have had their payments stopped by the Chapter 11 filing. Those with deferred compensation, are seeing nothing. And freelancers are not, as of this moment, being paid. The pensions, already devalued like virtually every pension, are now part of the bankruptcy and a vulnerable asset that may be used to pay off creditors.

Meanwhile, old talent was shown the door. They were too expensive. Some were moved to free lance (or Special to) and others just canned. Some were squeezed and cut back to nearly nothing. New talent too was sent packing. Bureaus were closed. The Times has entered the death spiral. As profits go down, content and quality are compromised and both readership and advertising abandon the sinking ship.

Not all of this is Zell's fault--just the wanton disregard of both the people and the news. He did hit the trifecta of disasters. The real estate market tanked and so selling off the Tribune Tower in Chicago, Times-Mirror Square in LA and Wrigley Field were not viable options and could not supply the money to keep the ship afloat. Then Mark Cuban getting investigated for insider trading messed up the sale of the Cubs. All of this as advertising moved to the web and finances crashed and credit disappeared. Yes, there was bad luck and bad timing involved.

But this is more than the sad story of unemployed journalists. Times are tough all over. This is also a national issue. Our democracy depends on an informed electorate. As papers and other media outlets consolidate, their debt services grow and their ability to pay people to gather, write, edit and produce news is compromised. The health of our body politic is also compromised. The Los Angeles Times, an institution not always beloved but certainly important, is not simply dying in plain sight. It is being vivisected, cut up while still living.