I collected some of the best of the emails below. Compare any of them to one of Lee Abrams' psychotic, bloated diatribes. No grammar or spelling errors. Short, evocative and to the point. Colorful, smart, rich in details.
Why would this be? Because despite all the crap about MSM, the truth is that journalists care deeply about what they do. We wouldn't be in this job if we didn't. There's no money in it, no real fame. Just the bright feeling that we are doing something good and useful. That words matter. That writing is a way of warring for better days. Maybe we don't always get it right. But most of us, I promise, try damn hard.
Emails follow. Anybody who doesn't want them out there, tell me and I'll remove. And if, by any chance, you want me to post your post-LA Times contact info, I'll do that as well (but don't blame me for spambots!) inkstainedretch at gmail.com
From Todd Leibensperger, Photo:
Since I can, I am going to put my two cents in for the record.From Martin Henderson, Sports
When I arrived here this paper was something very special, we were going toe-to-toe with the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post to see who would be the best paper in most powerful country in the world. While we didn't always succeed at dominating the number one spot, we came close enough, often enough, to make the other guys nervous. We had upper brass making moves to push the paper as a more local entity, while the editors on the ground were looking nationally or globally and that conflict along with the sense of entitlement that behooves a champion allowed the Internet to sneak up beneath our notice as it changed the landscape.
Its going to take a strong leader with the right vision, with unified and convinced troops to fix this problem. How will news work in the future, and how can we make enough profit from the process to keep going and not be beholden to outside interests? We are the Fourth Estate, and without us who keeps our "protectors" in check? There is a moral obligation to be true to such principals.
These are the most important questions to be asking. More important than "How will I pay off the note on my loan this year"? I mean, I need to figure out how to pay my rent now as well, but the first step is figuring out what I want to do with my life and what my life should mean.
I know this may be an antiquated position to have in a dangerous time when work is scarce everywhere, and our ranks are filled with parents who are pulled by duty to keep their families fed above all other concerns or college graduates too young to have visions of Woodward and Bernstein in their mind.
I also know that it is easy for me to talk such talk as I am out the door and have nothing to lose now. Perhaps I hid behind the smallness of my cog's place in the big machine here, or the fact that I worked in what is perhaps the best photo journalism department in the nation kept me from feeling too worried, but with the loss of talent over the last year or two and the seeming lack of any vision in regard to the future of true journalism (other then to hold to the cliff's edge for as long as possible), I feel that I need to say something, however insignificant it may be.
I feel that my fallen colleagues (even those of us not exposing King / Drew) very presence in the building was a reminder to do the right thing by the readers, our country, and the world. With so many voices gone, those of you still fighting need to use this time now, not to be scared, but to feel obliged to speak up even louder, in our memory, to make sure the principles we stood for continue in equal volume as before. I know you all can do it. There is still an amazing amount of talented individuals working for this paper.
As for management, well, all I can say is that cutting wont bring readers in, it will only make readers leave. Some trimming can be done, but you can't cut your way into significance. I do feel that to be important in this new age you must offer your readers something they cannot get anywhere else. Anyone can do lowbrow, that's why its lowbrow. Anyone can do small and cheap. And this newly leveled online playing field offers unlimited choices for that.
But not just anyone can send the brightest minds, backed by formidable resources, out to investigate the major issues of the day or keep a trained eye on our local, state, and national leaders. Not just anyone can really look with deep intellect at the workings of this states business economy or question the kind of arts and entertainment that is being presented to us and what is being sold to us in these myths and why we crave them. Thoughtful and critical analysis, that is what newspapers do best.
Adults buy papers, and while kids may seem to have all the buying power, but that's just because their parents are purchasing things for them. In these hard times those parents will need a voice without manipulation or hyperbole to help frame the changes this country is going through. The kids won't even have good jobs to afford the things advertisers want. Look at me, I am in that demographic and I am out of work.
So even from a crass point of view, the money follows the unique product and our product is thoughtful and critical analysis. You keep giving the child candy because he cries for it, and eventually you send up with a stupid, rotting, and sickly baby. Thought provoking, critical, and reasoned work is your (our?) only hope for survival, and the fight for such is an ethical imperative anyway.
It is who we should be. Even if the initial cries are for sugar and sweets. You all know this anyway, but in these times I think it bares repeating. In any event, I love you all and am I am quite proud of our work together. To all of you (but especially to my friends in the Photography Dept and the Business Section), I wish you all the luck in the world with your battles to come. I'm rooting for you,
Todd
This week I'm disappointed. For me, for you, for the icon that is The Los Angeles Times.From Kevin Bronson, Calendar
When I got out of college, this was a great paper, the one I aspired to work for when I arrived in San Diego in 1984 as the Padres were headed to the World Series. Bill Plaschke was the man, even then, and I wanted to be part of this team. He is the last link in Sports to the San Diego bureau, which offered a darn fine paper that was profitable but was closed because it didn't make enough money. I still don't understand the sense of that. Maybe that's why no one asked me to make a corporate decision. But I became part of the team in 1990, forged relationships with some really fine people, and had the privilege of being mentored by the late Shav Glick, which was more than any journalist could honestly hope to expect.
I have always taken pride in representing The Times and giving the same effort at a high school football game as was being given the same night in the press box at Staples Center. I was not perfect, and so I hope at the time that I thanked those who saved me certain embarrassment in the course of doing their jobs. Believe me, I knew every time my copy was made better, every time my bacon was saved. And, if I didn't thank you then, I do so now.
Thanks to all who said Hi in the hallway, who made me smile, made me feel appreciated or made me grow professionally. I hope I was able to add something to your time here, too. If I didn't, I'm sorry.
Good luck. God bless. And thank you.
For my money, Jimmy Breslin wrote the best newspaper story ever, a November 1963 piece about a gravedigger named Clifton Pollard who got called into work the day John F. Kennedy was buried. You should find it on the Internet if you're not familiar.From Veronica Garcia, Copy Desk
What Pollard told Breslin that day embodies the way I feel about the 18 years I have spent working with you (and the you who have already departed): "It's an honor."
Best
Bronson
I'll add to the chorus of goodbyes with an adios y un dicho de mi abuelita: "No hay un mal que por un bien no viene."From Casey Dolan, Calendar
Ave Atque ValeFrom Lynne Heffley, Calendar
No poetry (the Calendar staff will know what I mean) this time. I simply want to say that I loved working here. That may sound like an exaggeration but it is the truth. I enjoyed the daily enterprise of putting out a newspaper with so many brilliant, eccentric, creative and likeable, yes likeable, people. Maybe my situation was different from others (it certainly is different from most people I know outside the Times), but I felt a genuine closeness to a very great number of people here.
The Times literally changed my life. I came here as a musician who occasionally wrote and I'm leaving as a guy looking for work as a writer (not that I, the son of a composer, could ever stop being a musician). I'm proud of having contributed to this paper.
Dear friends and colleagues,From Janet Cromley, Health
Friday is my last day. Looks like it's time to start a new chapter. And, I find that despite sadness at leaving, I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next.
For someone who first entered the doors as a one-day-a-week freelancer doing theater listings, lo those many years ago--I feel as if I grew up here--it's been quite a ride, with so many rewards: The children's arts and entertainment beat that I carved out and nourished for many years. The work of exceptional artists, dancers, musicians, playwrights and performers that I've had the opportunity to explore as an arts writer.
Not least among the rewards, though, are the people, past and present, who became part of the fabric of my life here, even if we had time for no more than a quick hello or a smile (or a word of commiseration) as we passed in the hall.
I wish better days for you (and this sadly beleaguered newspaper) in the days and years to come.
Lynne
From: Cromley, Janet
Sent: Fri 7/18/2008 12:21 PM
To: yyeditlocal
Subject: THINK PIECE!!!
Idea for saving (news)paper: What if every other word were RED? Then you could fit two stories in the space of one!
OR what if we printed the paper with DISAPPEARING INK? Green readers could tote the empty paper to Kinkos and get a refill. Whoa!! And what if we dispatched some, whatchacallit.writers, to FOREIGN-SOUNDING countries like PARIS or PEKING .and had them talk to people.and blackberry the news from there? Think about it.
And finally, if a reporter innovates a fond farewell in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it still sound like ... SO LONG, SUCKERS!!!???
Adios my dear friends,
Janet Cromley -- Sept 9, 1992 - July 18, 2008
From Dean Hill, Help Desk (NB: The Retch made a special request for this one, which Dean filed after his departure in the 2007 buyout. It was just so heartfelt and kind, I wanted to publish.
Subject: After 40 years in this business..."So long and thanks for all the fish"
Friends and colleagues,
Friday will be my last day at the Times after 24 wonderful years, and as I head toward Union Station on foot in the afternoon, I will also be ending nearly 40 years in local journalism (nothing spectacular, but I hope at least workmanlike and professional).
I won't be retiring. My job was eliminated, but that's OK. The timing is perfect, and now I am looking forward with great anticipation to the adventures God has in store for the next phase of my life.
Please forgive my conceit at sending this message but before I left I wanted say thanks to all of you who I have known, worked with and helped in some measure along the way.
(NOTE: I also apologize to anyone who gets this message and wonders who I am and if this is spam or a cleverly disguised scam to access your bank account. Feel free to delete it.)
Interestingly, I don't seem to have gone far in these past 40 years.
In the Fall of 1967, I took a reporting job at the LA Bureau of United Press International, which was across the street at 205 S. Broadway on the 6th floor. During my three years at UPI, I helped cover some exciting stories, but I also got to watch the State of California build a parking garage at the corner of 2nd and Broadway.
I mention the garage only because after I made stops at the Riverside Press-Enterprise, the Daily Breeze in Torrance and The Register, I joined the Times in Orange County in July of 1983 and when I finally got back to downtown, I got to watch that same garage being torn down because of quake damage.
Because I worked downtown in 1967, I also got to see Angels Flight in operation in its original 2nd Street location, before it was mothballed for several decades and eventually rebuilt two blocks to the south at 4th Street, only to end operations a short time later after a tragic accident.
I figure I'm also probably one of the few people left around here who ate at the Blue Cube when it wasn't blue and was called Husky Boy and actually WAS a small, cube-like structure in the parking lot along 2nd Street. It had a counter with a few stools and featured greasy burgers and a salty old fry cook with a pencil-thin moustache. And it had long lines of folks in suits at the lunch hour.
The past nine years I've been on the LA Times Helpdesk trying to help you with your computer problems. When I couldn't help, at least you and I could agree that it's all Bill Gates' fault.
(One interesting tidbit: The first calls I took on the Helpdesk were on the morning of Aug. 17, 1998; tomorrow is Aug. 17. Go figure.:-)
I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for letting me work with you or serve you in some capacity during these years and for being gracious and generous despite the severe stress you might have been under at the time. (Oh, there was one guy who yelled at me on occasion, but I yelled back. We're both Irish, and I consider him a friend.)
I will miss you all.
When I first started at UPI, I set a goal that some day I would work for the Los Angeles Times. The Square was like Yankee Stadium to me (a life-long Yankee fan) and I wanted to be part of the great team that worked there.
I mention that only so I can offer this word to you, my friends:
Despite all that may have happened around here in recent months, you all are still the core of a great team and I'm proud to have been small part if it. I expect you will continue to produce wonderful journalism and I remind you to take the following phrase to heart: Illegitimi non carborundum.
(Note To Mac Outlook users: links are below that you can copy and paste into your browser.)
As for the future, there are my two granddaughters (ages 9 and 5), some teaching and consulting, some cartooning and a serious plan to get better as a bluegrass banjo player and singer. I particularly love bluegrass Gospel music. I live in Cerritos, by the way, and if you know a fiddler or guitarist or bass player or one of each, feel free to point them in my direction. :-)
Please notice that I've put my home email address (mdeanhill@mac.com) in this email. Drop me a note. (NO computer questions, please. That knowledge is rapidly leaking away. :-)
And on Friday when I walk out of here, I will turn fondly and call out softly: "So long and thanks for all the fish."
My best wishes and affection to everyone. May God bless you.
Dean Hill
Soon to be formerly of the Helpdesk
LA Times
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