Fall of the Times

The going away party last night for LA Times Editorial Page Editor Jim Newton overflowed with restrained, though passionate, anger. Anger at Sam Zell. Anger at past owners. Anger at the continuous reminders of the loss of great journalists.

Newton, a class act to the end, invited all those reporters, editors and copy editors laid off in the recent firings and buyouts. Scores were in attendance. Local big wigs also showed up: the mayor, the sheriff, a bunch of Bratton's guys. Developer and hoped-for-white-knight Eli Broad was also in attendance. His wife was overheard to say, "This is so sad." Indeed.

Newton was introduced by Henry Weinstein, former legal affairs reporters and longtime voice of the newsroom on many, many issues. Weinstein did not shy away from shots at Zell. He praised several departing reporters, and then criticized Zell and his "apparatchiks who made the collective decision that this workforce had to be slashed." He then offered a warning of the cuts to come, quoting an email from a friend. "anyone who thinks Sam Zell will be satisfied with the Sudetenland…I mean 150 jobs cut…is mistaken.''

Complete text of Weinstein's remarks are below.


HENRY WEINSTEIN REMARKS AT JIM NEWTON FAREWELL JULY 22, 2008

Good Evening. This marks the third time in the past 20 months ago that I have spoken at farewell events in this room, the first time when Dean Baquet was fired as Editor, next when Janet Clayton stepped down as California editor. I was honored to speak on their behalf, though I was not happy that they were leaving the paper.

Tonight, it is an even greater honor, though under even less pleasant circumstances, to say a few words in tribute to my long-time valued colleague and cherished friend Jim Newton.

I want to take note of some individuals here tonight who are outside the immediate Times family. We have our current Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former Mayor Richard Riordan. We have Sheriff Lee Baca and several asssitants to Police Chief Bill Bratton. And we have a man who plays a leading role in the cultural life of the city and has talked about newspapers being ``a public trust''--Eli Broad. Their presence here tonight is a tribute to Jim and a recognition of the important role that The Times plays in the life of the city.

Jim has been a star in every respect since he came to the LA Times from the Atlanta Constitution 19 years ago. He was the lead writer on two of the 20th Century's biggest trial--the second Rodney King trial and the O.J. Simpson criminal trial, an astute reporter on mayors and police chiefs, the leader of the City County Bureau, the Editor of the Editorial Pages, the co-author of an Ethics Code rewritten in the wake of the Staples Scandal.

When Jim leaves the paper, it will be a grievous loss for the Los Angeles Times. But as important as he has been to the paper, we all know that Jim's departure is hardly the only one we are concerned about today.

When this celebration for Jim was scheduled, his able assistant Linda Hall did not know it would occur in the midst of massive layoffs. So, we gather here today to celebrate the accomplishments of many individuals in addition to Jim.

I am not sure that I have a complete list, but I would like to thank the publisher of TellZell.com for providing what information we do have. If you are not a regular reader of TellZell I suggest that you change your reading habits. It has a lot of valuable information and I salute the courageous individual or individuals who are publishing it.

I regret that I am unable to cite each of the people who is leaving by name. Actually, I might be able to, but then I would be up there a lot longer than would be advisable. Even though the list I have is probably incomplete, it is still disgustingly and depressingly long.

I will mention just a dozen names or so as a way of honoring all of you—Josh Getlin, whose marvelous prose on everything from politics to culture graced the pages of The Times for a quarter century, Steve Harvey who drew our attention to some of the humorous and bizarre vagaries of LA life for more than three decades, Donna Deane, the queen of the test kitchen, Kathy Kristof, the ACE of personal finance a subject that grows in importance by the day, Bob Durrell, who shot upwards of 500 photos a year that were published in the Times, Tom Trapnell whose skill as a designer was so strong that colleagues in the design community have set up a website to praise his work, environmental writers Marla Cone and Janet Wilson, Richard Cromelin, an always illuminating music writer, Kris Lindgren and Sara Lippincott who helped put together a terrific weekly book review that is about to be blown to smithereens, Larry Stewart, a valued scribe in the sports section, Michael Edwards, for years the paper's Mr. Fixit on many fronts, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter Chuck Phillips, Matt Randall, who kept our blackberries running, Joan Springhetti, who patiently manicured many of my complicated death penalty stories into the paper, Stu Silverstein, my fellow labor writer, Charlie Ornstein and Tracy Weber, who made local officials finally come to grips with the problems at Martin Luther King Hospital and Gary Metzker who has done so many things so well it's hard to imagine how the paper will be put out in his absence. That is just a fraction of you. To the more than 100 others, please forgive me for not mentioning your names.

The one thing I can say for sure about this group of departees, part of what my wife Laurie Becklund calls the growing Los Angeles Times diaspora, is that each and every one of you has done more, much more for this company than Sam Zell or any of his apparatchiks who made the collective decision that this workforce had to be slashed. Take a moment and celebrate yourselves. PAUSE AND CLAP.

Just as regrettably, you soon may have more company. As one of you put it so trenchantly in an email responding to a condolence message I sent, and I quote ``anyone who thinks Sam Zell will be satisfied with the Sudetenland…I mean 150 jobs cut…is mistaken.''

For those of you are staying, never have any doubt that what you are doing is very important. At your best, you are the watchdogs of democracy. That was a vital role when John Peter Zenger did it in a young nation and it is still a vital role. I know you all face some rough days ahead but try to take at least some solace in the importance of what you do for this city and, because of how widely you are read on the internet, the nation and the world as well.

As some of you may know, one of the reasons that Jim Newton decided to leave the paper before the presidential election in November was that he told publisher, I guess I should say former publisher, David Hiller, that he would not make cuts he thought were unwise and unwarranted. It was the second time Jim had done that.

And as you know, the reason Dean Baquet was shown the door in November, 2006 was because he declined to make cuts that he considered unwise and unwarranted. So there is a real connection between these two events.

As I said earlier, Jim has been a star ever since he came to the paper. I am not going to reprise his entire career here bu tonight. However, I do want to say a few words about Jim's work for the two years starting on June 12, 1994.

On that night, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald L. Goldman were brutally murdered outside of her Brentwood condominium. Nicole's ex, former football star O.J. Simpson, soon became the leading suspect and within days he was arrested and charged with both murders.

The Simpson case had a profound impact on life in Los Angeles and around the country, bringing into bold relief the nation's deep racial cleavages. The preliminary hearing was covered live on television as was the 9-month trial. The competition for scoops—from the moment the dead bodies were discovered until well after the verdict was pronounced--was way beyond intense. Reporters from mainstream news outlets, like The Times, found themselves in the strange position of being in competition with tabloids like the National Enquirer and not quite sure how to handle it. Some reporters lost their way during this period.

But not Jim.

Over 16 months, and writing hundreds of thousands of words, Jim never made one mistake on the evidence. During the trial, week-after-week, month-after-month, he churned out authoritative, stories of 2,500-3,000 words a day. David Margolick, the lead reporter covering the trial for the New York Times, said he was blown away by the quality and quantity of Jim's work. The sheer amount of copy he produces every day ``is just awesome to me,'' Margolick said, adding: ``For Jim Newton to be doing what he's done, day in and day out for months, is really staggering, it's just an incredible feat.''

Jim did all this spectacular work while having to share an office with a loud, messy, highly opinionated reporter who continually grilled him about how the prosecutors could be doing such a terrible job given the ``mountain of evidence'' they had. The colleague also peremptorily switched the Channel from Court TV to ESPN for something he deemed more important--watching Cal Ripken break Lou Gehrig's record of playing in 2,130 consecutive games. Newton never complained about this or how his colleague had trashed their office; he just persevered and kept on writing.

Jim went on to become the city-county bureau brief, the Editor of the Editorial Pages and wrote a marvelous biography of Earl Warren in between. While off on book leave, at the urging of editor John Carroll, Jim returned to the paper to play a major role in rewriting the Times ethics code.

Jim is now heading off to write a book about the Eisenhower presidency. I can hardly wait to read it.

I must concede that I am still living with something of a fantasy—a fantasy that at some point in the future some wise individuals will buy the paper and that as an old man I will walk out my front door one morning and read that Jim Newton has been named the editor of the L.A. Times. Whether that happens or not, I wish you, Karlene and Jack nothing but the best.