Comments on Tell Zell: Protests, Protests Everywhere

crybabies!

2008-07-21T04:33:00.000-08:00

crybabies!

Zell is trying to instill fiscal discipline? How c...

2008-07-17T22:11:00.000-08:00

Zell is trying to instill fiscal discipline? How can you be so naive?
There are three newspapers in Southern California that cover 85 percent of the metropolitan area. The Times, the Singleton papers and the Register, owned by Freedom, down in Orange County. They are also three of the four lowest rated companies by Standard & Poors. All have debt ratings at the bottom end of junk bond status. All are crushed by debt taken on by their owner/managers. None will climb out of their death spiral because all they can do is struggle, probably fail, to service the debt. Sam Zell is nothing but a classic rip and flip guy who has been caught in mid-flip. He's like the guy with five subprime mortgages that he thought he could cover with the profits from quick resales. Since Zell likes to throw the word around and it seems to be a favorite today on this blog, here's the bottom line:
He's fucked.
You're fucked
L.A. is fucked.

Hey moderator--stop censoring perfectly appropriat...

2008-07-17T14:01:00.000-08:00

Hey moderator--stop censoring perfectly appropriate comments, dawg! (although it is a fitting tribute to the Times to wield your blue pen like that)....

I understand the urge to demonize a bogeyman, and ...

2008-07-17T12:17:00.000-08:00

I understand the urge to demonize a bogeyman, and maybe Sam Zell makes an attractive bogeyman, but folks, he's not the problem.

He's trying to impose fiscal discipline on an institution that considers profligate spending a birthright. He wants to make the Times responsive to its customers, the readers, rather than prize-hungry editors. He wants to break down the walls of journalistic arrogance and hubris that have weighed down productivity and profitability for years.

The problem lies in changing reader habits, the migration to the Internet of advertising, and the Times' own sclerotic culture that blinded it to those things for years.

Guys(and girls): I'm a former subscriber. I've li...

2008-07-17T10:42:00.000-08:00

Guys(and girls): I'm a former subscriber. I've lived in LA since the 3rd grade. I grew up with the Times. I hate what's been happening but even though there have been some editors and reporters fighting the good fight there, it's been not worth my subscribing for about 3 years now-it's just been too thin, takes too little time to plow through, and has a lot of sloppiness on the front page and elsewhere.
The paper badly needed a shakeup, an overall reinvigoration(there are obvious exceptions to the general thinness of the Times-King-Drew, Sports, a few other investigative stories). But Zell is a fool and this throat cutting isn't it.
I never thought I'd say this but--how bad would Geffen have been compared to this? Or Charles Foster Kane for that matter! Would someone do something constructive to save the only major daily in southern CA? Please?
Los Angeles is worth it, damn.
And this is no way to run a newspaper.

Amen. We're all fucked equally. We need to stop bi...

2008-07-17T10:00:00.000-08:00

Amen. We're all fucked equally. We need to stop bickering with each other and pool our resources to fight the same common cause: Saving newspapers. Ads are a big part of that, too, and we cannot exclude anyone. There is only one enemy: Sam Zell.

ABOVE:"I'm sicked by the newsroom folks...I'm happ...

2008-07-17T09:48:00.000-08:00

ABOVE:

"I'm sicked by the newsroom folks...I'm happy to see the snotty fucks finally held accountable..."

"Fuck you, ad person..."

Are these two posts actually real?? I'm thinking they are jus two posts by the same person trying to stir things up. I mean, is there really anything productive at all in in-fighting like that when all of us clearly want this place to survive and do well? Or am I just that naive??

-An editorial staffer

Fuck you, ad person. You couldn't sell an ad if it...

2008-07-16T22:11:00.000-08:00

Fuck you, ad person. You couldn't sell an ad if it smacked you in the face. Maybe work a little? You know, go after advertisers? Try it.

the paper IS smug and PC. It is full of precious f...

2008-07-16T20:20:00.000-08:00

the paper IS smug and PC. It is full of precious features from faraway places that nobody gives a damn about. it often treats news in los angeles as an embarrassment to its national and international ambitions. it does need to change.

I'm sicked by the newsroom folks crying over their...

2008-07-16T18:38:00.000-08:00

I'm sicked by the newsroom folks crying over their losses, after every other department, for years now, has been brutalized with layoffs because of declining biz, largely due in part to a product written completely out of touch with LA at large.

I am happy to see the snotty fucks finally held accountable for the crappy product we were stuck selling for so many years.

"But let's face it, for years the LA Times has bee...

2008-07-16T16:30:00.000-08:00

"But let's face it, for years the LA Times has been a fat, lazy, smug, clueless, ridiculously PC parody of a daily newspaper."
Somebody sounds defensive.
That old song? Really? That's the tune sung by those features editors that came all the way from New York City to save the ridiculously PC parody of a daily newspaper and increase circulation. That worked out really well.

I'm getting tired of all the anti-Times stuff. It'...

2008-07-16T12:50:00.000-08:00

I'm getting tired of all the anti-Times stuff. It's so mean-spirited and a little dated. But my real comment is actually unrelated to that: why has no one brought a lawsuit (or has someone?) that questions the legality of the whole Zell purchase? I could think of various types of suits: by the IRS, which certainly has an interest in fighting fraudulent schemes to avoid taxes; by investors; by employees and other beneficiaries of the pension plans....

Hear, hear. The LA Times could afford to shed anot...

2008-07-16T10:42:00.000-08:00

Hear, hear. The LA Times could afford to shed another 100 bodies with a minimal effect on the product.

In fact, these layoffs might be just what it takes to shatter the sense of complacency that's long dogged the Times newsroom. For too long, writers and editors at the Times have treated their jobs as lifetime sinecures, the reward for work well done in prior jobs.

A leaner, scrappier LA Times will be a better LA Times. How many journalists worked at the Herald-Examiner in the 1980s, anyway? And it was a far better paper than the Times in those days.

Sam Zell is a self-aggrandizing dope. But let's f...

2008-07-16T06:07:00.000-08:00

Sam Zell is a self-aggrandizing dope. But let's face it, for years the LA Times has been a fat, lazy, smug, clueless, ridiculously PC parody of a daily newspaper. While these layoffs are obviously hurtful to some nice people, their impact on the product will be lateral at worst, maybe even beneficial.