When News Dies

Is anyone listening, reading or watching how newsprint in this country has been taken over by the boardroom?  The recent changes which are in the process of being implemented in the Los Angeles Times Magazine should be seen as a seriously loud wake-up call about the future of news and reporting in this country.

The plan for the magazine was set in motion months ago. A new editor and others were hired, future issues were planned, and mock-up covers were made — all without the knowledge of anyone in the newsroom, including the top editor, Russ Stanton, the executives said. Mr. Stanton and other high-ranking editors learned of the plan last week, they said.

But the executives who described the plan cautioned that it might have changed since last week, after editors raised objections.

They said that Mr. Stanton, after hearing about the move, asked the publisher of The Times, David D. Hiller, and the president of the newspaper, Jack D. Klunder, to change the name of the publication, which is now called Los Angeles Times Magazine. He argued that to keep the name would lend the newsroom’s credibility to a product it did not control.

And it is only going to get worse:

The Los Angeles Times is one of the large metropolitan dailies owned by the Tribune Company, which was bought in December by the real estate developer Samuel Zell. He has articulated an unconventional view of the newspaper business and its future, and recently announced plans to cut back news pages at the papers he owned to create parity with the space allotted for advertisements. (my emphasis)

Forget objective journalism in any form (if it ever really existed in the first place, but at least in the past writers, reporters, and editors were honest about their biases not pretending to be value neutral).  If this business-only model continues to proliferate all our news will be the result of approved ideas that favor business not reporting the truth.  And yes, I know that we have already been traveling this path... it is only going to get worse, much much worse. 

How long before this process is applied to the Internet?  Enjoy those ads folks, they can come with a price.  Haven't large conglomerates already started buying up formerly independent Internet news and opinion sites?