Los Angeles Times: Upheaval or Innovation on Editorial Pages

L.A. Times Editorial Page Editor Andrés Martinez authored a To Our Readers yesterday outlining some of the changes coming to his page:

The editorial page, which runs in this section on Sundays and in the California section on other days, is the one place in the newspaper where the Los Angeles Times as an institution expresses its own point of view, as formulated by its editorial board. The board, made up of about a dozen people, operates independently of the newsroom. (And, perhaps more important, the newsroom operates independently of the editorial board.)

This page is also where readers offer their own views as letters to the editor. On the opposite page (hence the name Op-Ed), we publish the views of regular columnists and outside contributors.

In the coming weeks and months, these pages will change, though our basic mission will not.

• There will be a modest cosmetic redesign.

• On occasion, board members will write, under their byline, “A SoCal Life,” articles that reflect on life in this region.

• A box on this page, in the letters space, will appear some days, critiquing editorials in other newspapers.

• Analytical editorials that grapple with fundamental principles underlying a policy debate will be labeled “Framework.” These will be archived on our website (latimes.com/opinion) and also in a separate outline by subject matter that we hope, over the years, will evolve into a coherent and consistent political philosophy.

• On Saturdays, you may have noticed, this page usually has a unifying theme — say, three editorials on aspects of the weather, or France.

• “Thinking Out Loud” is an experiment in making up our minds in public. Starting with two national issues, immigration and traffic, that are especially important to us in Southern California, we will devote space in all of our precincts — editorials, Op-Eds, the Sunday Opinion section (and watch out for a redesign and name change there!) and our website — to exploring aspects and alternate views of these subjects. We don’t have a solution, and there may not be a good one. But that is no excuse for failing to come up with the best one. We hope this process will help us do it.

• We will allow board members to dissent from editorials they disagree with — though only once a year each. Judy Dugan has already used up her 2005 allotment with a strong rebuttal to our editorials endorsing the Republican Senate leadership’s efforts to kill the filibuster

• Watch next week for the introduction of “wikitorials” — an online feature that will empower you to rewrite Los Angeles Times editorials.

• You may see more editor’s notes like this one, where we step out from behind the curtain to update you on what we are doing, or comment on some of our past editorials.

Of course, leave it to the New York Times to publish a story regarding an upheaval at the editorial/opinion beat at the Los Angeles Times.

Jacob Heilbrunn, an editorial writer who will be leaving the newspaper in July, said that “there’s a good deal of disgruntlement and smashed crockery” over the changes and how they have been handled.

“Mike’s coming in and selling a new model,” Mr. Heilbrunn said. “He’s an innovative free market guy who’s basically saying, ‘You may have won all these prizes but you’re the General Motors of journalism, trying to sell outdated gas-guzzlers while everyone else is moving on to hybrids. Let’s slash the workforce, get creative, and start outsourcing.’ ”

Mr. Heilbrunn said conflicts were inevitable. “This is what happens when an outsider tries to shake up an ossified institution,” he said. “But is the paper sacrificing its franchise, its authority with moves like having readers participate in what’s been the institutional voice of the paper? The ultimate extension of this vision would be to have readers vote every day on what editorials they want the next morning. It’s either inspired genius or a very costly experiment.”

The Los Angeles Times for many years has been a blah, stale, liberal old school newspaper. Their circulation is declining and advertising revenues decreasing.

Why not try something new and with a new medium.

Michael Kinsley and John Carroll have nothing to lose.

As for the N.Y Times who was the brain donor there who will start charging their readers for complete on-line access?

Update #1

The New Los Angeles Times is Critiqued:

You can’t say that Michael Kinsley hasn’t gotten people talking about the L.A. Times editorial and opinion pages, though Kinsley and his colleagues might wish that more of the chatter was about the substance of their positions and ideas. Today, former L.A. Times editorial writer Stephen D. Burgard, now director of the Northeastern University School of Journalism, reacts strongly and in depth to Kinsley’s changes in a letter posted at Romenesko’s Media News. Burgard argues not just that Kinsley has little respect for the conventions of newspaper opinion, but that the Times’ pursuit of online interaction is sacrificing an editorial page’s advantage over blogs. Burgard takes off from today’s New York Times story (reported lower on this page), but he seems to have been biting his tongue for awhile now.

Outside the Beltway