March 23, 2007 11:12

What A Day, What A Day for an Auto-da-fe

Posted by Michael Kinsley | Comments (49) | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email This

At the Los Angeles Times, the self-destruction continues. The editorial page editor, Andres Martinez, was driven to resign yesterday over the discovery that his girlfriend works for a PR firm used by a Hollywood producer who was invited to be a guest editor for an opinion supplement called Current. (Got that?) The suspicion is that the producer, Brian Grazer, might have enjoyed some unfair advantage in securing this plum assignment. There is no evidence of that, and it makes no sense. My own suspicion would be the other way around: maybe the LA Times had some advantage in securing Grazer. Certainly the relationship is, or was, more of a coup for the paper than for the producer.
Naturally, the LA Times publisher says that the problem isn’t a conflict of interest. It is the appearance of a conflict of interest. This formula has irritated me for years, especially when used by the media. It is the job of journalism to bring appearances in line with reality, not to bring reality in line with appearances. The appearance of a conflict of interest is a self-fulfilling accusation. If the Los Angeles Times says there is an appearance of a conflict of interest—and you can always find some journalism professor or ethic bore somewhere to say that there is—why then, there is one. Usually, though, the “appearances” dodge is used to destroy the reputation of someone else. The genius of the LA Times is to turn this weapon on itself. The paper has spent seven years recovering from the notorious Staples Center controversy, in which an earlier publisher arranged to share revenue from a special supplement puffing the new sports arena. Analytically, there is no similarity between that and this, but of course they both involve a supplement and that creates an appearance….
And the folly looks to continue. A former LA Times city editor has called for “a beefed up team of top reporters” to examine past editorials and opinion pieces, looking for…well, I’m not sure what. “How deep and how wide was the corruption?” he blogs, leeringly. (The very notion of a “beefed up team of top reporters” shows that this man is living in the past.) Newsroom busybodies have expressed deep concern over the very idea of having guest editors. As Mickey Kaus says in Kausfiles this morning, God forbid that anyone should try anything interesting. The paper’s star political reporter, Ron Brownstein, has been removed from reporting duties and exiled to the opinion pages because his wife works for John McCain.
The martyred editorial page editor, meanwhile, has struck back, accusing the newsroom of attempting to influence editorials. Apparently a news editor once asked him to consider running an editorial in connection with some news-side series. Or maybe more than once. Heavens. It does sound like the Salem Witch Trials, or the later stages of the Cultural Revolution, there at the LA Times. Who next will be rousted from bed in the middle of the night, denounced for an “appearance” of some sort, and taken out and shot?
Anyway, here’s my own conflict (not just an appearance): I was the editor of the editorial and opinion pages of the LA Times (including Current) before Andres. I hired Andres and he got the job he quit yesterday when I was canned at an earlier stage of the ongoing auto-da-fe. He remains a good friend (and an excellent journalist), as do many others at the LA Times. The publisher who fired me later got fired himself, but that’s another story. Or a different chapter of the same one.

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Reader Comments (49)

Anonymous:

anybody else think it's ironic that Kinsley once worked as an editor?

I never heard of an editor who read something and said: "This needs to be about four times as long", as Kinsley apparently does whenever he reads through one of his own drafts.

YO, Ana! Aren't you the editor of Time.com? Go through this and cut out every other word. It'll still be too long, and not terribly interesting, but it'll make it easier for readers to scroll through Kinsley's navel-gazing.

Posted by Anonymous | March 23, 2007 11:24 AM

Enceladus:

Kinsley's running theme:

"What's all this fuss about 'ethics'? It bores me, so I'll dilate at length about it."

Posted by Enceladus | March 23, 2007 11:29 AM

YMM:

Before someone else does it, let me be the one. One does this post have to do with the Swampland?? Ok there I said it. Seems like recently posts here could be better suited to one of the other blogs Time has, most of us...not all perhaps, but a good number come on here looking for posts regarding...umm, dare I say, "A Blog about Politic's in the Nation's Capital."

Ok enough of that, I will say this...I thought this point was interesting in the post: "It is the job of journalism to bring appearances in line with reality, not to bring reality in line with appearances." Then I think back to the early years of the Iraq war, everything from the WMDs claims, the involvement of journalists in the revelation of Valeria Plame and the adminstration attacks on her husband, the list goes on. And I wonder, how bad did the media fail to real delve into the reality of so much that was peddled by this administration, so much accepted by the public because our esteemed colleagues of the '4th Estate' weren't willing to dig deep enough.

Now that they are, they're so worried about appearances they're attacking their own about possible conflicts of interest on guest editors on Op-Ed pages? Wow, talk about missing the boat again.

Posted by YMM | March 23, 2007 11:30 AM

Jake Gittes:

It's amusing the things that Kinsley views as important.

Posted by Jake Gittes | March 23, 2007 11:39 AM

linda:

Hey, hey here we go. More hot air balloons.

Oxymoron of the Week: MSM ethics

It is obvious that Pundits pay no attention to the news that is reported by their own organizations' reporters. If they do, they redirect the story much as 'if they facts don't fit the theory, change the facts'.

Example:
Kinsley has a health issue. Elizabeth Edwards has a health issue. Both, obviously well insured. The USA has a major issue with health care that is multifaceted.

Gee, an opportunity for MSM to shine a light on the loss of research money under the Bush Compassion Canopy. The lack of equitable health care from Walter Reed to Great Bend, KS to the LA Skid Row dumping of the indigent ill could be discussed. Instead we have Doctors, ala Frist, making generalized diagnosis without examination.

The power of investigative journalism to promote possitive change wasted again.

Posted by linda | March 23, 2007 11:55 AM

Anonymous:

Kinsley reads Kausfiles. Enough said.

Posted by Anonymous | March 23, 2007 12:15 PM

feral1:

Kinsley makes Colmes look alpha.

Posted by feral1 | March 23, 2007 12:22 PM

cc:

Hey, instead of doing the whole ad hominem thing, why not try engaging with the substance of the argument? I think Kinsley's right: The appearnce of impropriety isn't the same thing as an actual impropriety, and to accuse someone of the former is totally self-fulfilling.

I do think that the appearance of impropriety might be a good reason to look for an actual impropriety -- maybe the attorneygate subpoenas are a good example? -- but I don't think it's a good reason to cancel the supplemental section, sell the farm, or whatever. And it just doesn't seem like an actual impropriety exists in the LAT case.

Posted by cc | March 23, 2007 12:33 PM

monchie b. monchum:

"Kinsley reads Kausfiles. Enough said."

Yeah, Mickey Kaus, the concern troll who was oh-so-worried that angry liberals would resort to violence...while having a permanent link to Ann Coulter, who advocated poisoning a Supreme Court justice, beating liberals with baseball bats and blowing up the New York Times building with a fertilizer bomb.

Enough said indeed.

Posted by monchie b. monchum | March 23, 2007 12:39 PM

ECR:

Lord! Has Kinsley gone senile already or what? He seems to pride himself on saying nothing with maximum verbosity, and probably harbors delusions of eloquence and folksy yarns.

Posted by ECR | March 23, 2007 12:41 PM

Paul, no not that one:

Perhaps I misread but I don't think the Grazer situation, which couldn't be less important to the reader, and the star political reporter being reassigned because his spouse works for one of the major candidates are the same.

Posted by Paul, no not that one | March 23, 2007 1:02 PM

Phil:

Good God. How many of your posts end with the final paragraph stating: "btw the millionaire I was just defending for 10 paragraphs is a good friend of mine." Is that the only reason you came here, to defend your buddies that noone here knows or cares about? Do you think you can go back and add those qualifiers to your attempts to discuss the USA scandal? It would make a lot more sense to everyone if you pointed out that Karl Rove is a great friend of yours.

And although this may be your last day here, it seems that you haven't noticed that indentations won't format when you post. This means you should double space between paragraphs. This may make it possible for people to get all the way through your entries.

Posted by Phil | March 23, 2007 1:03 PM

cc:

why is it surprising or interesting that kinsley reads kausfiles? he used to edit slate, for chrissake, and kaus is a former new republican.

and anyway, why do all of you seem to know so much about the evil Kaus's positions? Could you be readers of the dreaded kausfiles as well? for shame.

Posted by cc | March 23, 2007 1:08 PM

Anonymous:

On one hand, it's good to see a major newspaper examine their ethical behaviour and undergo some honest Navel gazing.

On the other, it's sad that Newspapers have waited this long to start examining their biases. After all, those Dirty Hippies in the left-leaning blogosphere have better defined ethics platform then major newspapers have.

Posted by Anonymous | March 23, 2007 1:11 PM

Anonymous:

there's no 'c' in Sprezzatura, is there?

Posted by Anonymous | March 23, 2007 1:11 PM

James, Los Angeles:

The LA Times editorial page is a shambles. You had a hand in its destruction, Kinsley, but Martinez has been an unmitigated disaster. The editorials under you and Martinez were completely out of step with the fabric of Los Angeles; not surprising under your direction because you lived in Seattle and know next to nothing about Los Angeles. Your editorial mindlessly supporting Social Security privatization was really despicable. I could go on with your lousy out-of-touch editorials but Martinez is worse. His purge of all liberal voices (Scheer was the only one left) while adding the inane rightwing navelgazing lightweight Jonah Goldberg was when I knew I'd never send another dime to that newspaper as long as Hiller and his Chicago thugs were in management. Presently the LA Times editorial page consists of rightwinger Goldberg and Max Boot defecating bi-weekly on my hometown newspaper pages, plus a bunch of superficial, uninteresting, self-absorbed nobodies. Who gives a flying fork about Brian Grazer, whoever he is?

It's embarrassing for a great and wonderful metropolitan area like Los Angeles to suffer the loss of a once-great newspaper to a bunch of Cubs-crazy idiots from Chicago. Take 'em back, Chicago. I implore you.

Posted by James, Los Angeles | March 23, 2007 1:14 PM

Mark:

Swampland: A Blog about Politics in the Nation's capital

So far only two of your articles have dealt with the purpose of the blog and they can be best described as disingenuous.

The rest, except for one, have dealt with your rich friends and their oh so terrible plights in this world.

I read your bio and had high hopes, so far your present has not lived up to your past.

Posted by Mark | March 23, 2007 1:15 PM

Kinsley Must Go:

Every good swamp needs a thick layer of decaying fecal matter. Mike Kinsley provides this service admirably.

Rather than auto-da-fe, Kinsley provides auto-de-fecation, otherwise known as self-involved crap-wallowing.

Jesus Christ man, your blogging sucks.

Posted by Kinsley Must Go | March 23, 2007 1:25 PM

Tim:

Love the "all about me" post Mike. You stunk things up pretty good out here as well.

Posted by Tim | March 23, 2007 1:34 PM

Todd and in Charge:

Mike will be pulling a Jay Carney pretty soon.

Posted by Todd and in Charge | March 23, 2007 1:42 PM

cc:

sorry, no c in sprezzatura...

Posted by cc | March 23, 2007 1:51 PM

Brian Moore:

The comments here are bewildering.

Posted by Brian Moore | March 23, 2007 1:54 PM

M.O.:

/Quote: Enceladus
Kinsley's running theme:

"What's all this fuss about 'ethics'? It bores me, so I'll dilate at length about it."

/Quote

This is really insightful.

Posted by M.O. | March 23, 2007 2:01 PM

jayackroyd:

"Kinsley reads Kausfiles. Enough said."

Kinsey HIRED Mickey.

Mike, this one is a little more readable. But in the future could put a line break after each paragraph. There is still not enough white space in your posts.

Posted by jayackroyd | March 23, 2007 2:35 PM

bartkid:

>It is the job of journalism to bring appearances in line with reality, not to bring reality in line with appearances

Mr. Kinsley,
Why the whistling, gazing off and upward, and hands in pockets when it appears that 6 of the 8 dismissed U.S. Attorneys were either investigating Republicans or were asked by Republicans to more vigorously investigate Democrats?

Posted by bartkid | March 23, 2007 2:48 PM

zota:

Let me see if I can help Kinsley edit this post:

The LA Times was sold off to a publisher. With bad editorial choices, they helped make the paper suck.

I used to edit the LA Times editorial page. It sucked. Hard.
I got fired.

I hired the guy editing the LA Times editorial page. He was able to make it suck even harder.
He got fired.

Now I'm blithering about it on a blog where it's not really a relevant topic.
Soon, I will not be blathering here.

Goodbye.

Posted by zota | March 23, 2007 2:57 PM

JoyousMN:

Thank you zota. I couldn't figure out what the hell he was saying.

Cribsheet have been very handy this week.

Posted by JoyousMN | March 23, 2007 3:36 PM

JJ:

PBS dedicated almost a whole show on the LA Times:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/part3/latimes.html

I think the story of the LA Times is a national story because it's about traditional newsgathering in a modern era (think steady consolidation, competition, Wall Street expectations, etc.) We still need traditional, non-dysfunctional newsgathering. Blogs do newsgathering only in very rare cases in specialized areas.

Anyway, I guess the troubles with the LA Times and its corporate owners has lead to a lot of discontinuity...

Posted by JJ | March 23, 2007 4:24 PM

TomT:

Is the title supposed to be funny and/or clever, Mr. Kinsely? Because it's annoying and pretentious.

Posted by TomT | March 23, 2007 5:26 PM

Michelle Kaus:

Anal Marie Cox sez: Mikey K. is real reamboat.

Posted by Michelle Kaus | March 23, 2007 7:17 PM

rmrd0000:

A few weeks ago, I passed by a break room at my place of employment. MSNBC was discussing Anna Nicole Smith's death. A woman watching the show said, "I think Howard Stern killed her". I was flabbergasted. Why would a radio shock jock want to kill Ms. Smith. I was corrected and informed that Stern was Anna Nicole's lawyer. Boy was I embarassed.
The above story has nothing to do with DC politics. I did not have the facts relevant to the story under discussion. But the story did invole me. Oh, by the way the woman watching TV is very wealthy. I think this meets Kinsley criteria so I submitted it.
One question for Mr Kinsley. How is it that MSM can spend hours on Anna Nicole Smith's tragic death, but be totally incapable of detailing the nuances of the USAG scandal? Why are tons of information provided on Ms Smith, but the USAG situation is simplified into "Bill Clinton did it too"?

Posted by rmrd0000 | March 23, 2007 7:55 PM

culver city:

The Los Angeles times has some very good reporters and its in depth multi-day stories are generally excellent. The editorial page and The Current are dreadful. You have disingenuous Boot, vacuous whiner Goldberg, and slightly derranged Ferguson (now that he has decided Bush's war wasn't the best idea ever he is more lucid and interesting) sprinkled with a few nobodies writing about local issues. Bless her bonnet wearing soul, but Patt Morrison has no place on an editorial page.

With the NYTimes hiding behind a subscription wall and the Post editorial page completely out of touch, there was a chance for a liberal or progressive editorial page to really stake out a place in the national conversation. (Hell, even an interesing center-left page) Instead the boys on Michigan Ave decided to establish a parody op-ed page.

If the Trib is secretly attempting to expose the absurdities of opinion journalism I tip my hat to them.

Posted by culver city | March 23, 2007 8:33 PM

ama:

***His purge of all liberal voices (Scheer was the only one left) ***

LA Times really screwed the monkey by getting rid of Mr. Scheer. I recall it was Scheer from whom I first learned that Bush gave the Taliban a bunch of money (maybe $6 million or so) prior to 9/11. I think the name of his article was something like Bush's Faustian Deal. As I recall, Bush wanted the Taliban to stamp out the poppy growing, no mention of women's rights or human rights. And I don't believe Osama bin Laden or al Qaeda were mentioned either.

It was especially remarkable in light of all that happened afterwards.

P.S. If I am faulty on my memory, please forgive.

Posted by ama | March 23, 2007 9:18 PM

Marty:

Mike Kinsley in a nutshell: Incoherent, but wordy.

Posted by Marty | March 23, 2007 10:07 PM

Francesco Sinibaldi:

And a beauty in the sun.

A tempest returns
when the light of
my pleasure discovers
a dream: everywhere
the sun disappears,
beautiful birds escape
in the nest of a
sweet atmosphere,
and a weeping inside,
a tender recall while
a song fades away.

Francesco Sinibaldi

Posted by Francesco Sinibaldi | March 24, 2007 5:24 PM

Kaus MixCDs:

Was there ever any more beautiful hubris than Kinsley's disastrous reign at the LA Times?

Kudos to Jacob Weisberg for making Slate a half-way interesting publication.

Come on, Mike -- Andres was sleeping with the publicist who had Imagine as a client. Doesn't it seem a LITTLE FISHY that Grazer was the first person to edit this section? It's not like Grazer is known as a Los Angeles figure with a real interest in current affairs and politics. Unless you count Kindergarten Cop.

Posted by Kaus MixCDs | March 24, 2007 7:43 PM

LATobserve:

The LA Times problems run much deeper than the editorial page. The news pages seem totally uninterested in actually reporting the news. For example, it took the LA Times months even mention the Long Beach hate crimes. There are other cases of the LA Times ignoring important local stories as well.

The paper is a joke in and out.

Posted by LATobserve | March 25, 2007 12:33 PM

Doginfollow:

Someone with so little to say really should not be blogging. It's a bad fit.

Posted by Doginfollow | March 25, 2007 1:53 PM

Banjo:

After reading these posts, I wonder how anybody ever got the idea the left was angry.

Posted by Banjo | March 25, 2007 9:33 PM

df:

What is wrong with all of you? This wasn't Kinsley's best work, but it was a decent blog post. Can someone explain all the anger?

Posted by df | March 26, 2007 4:23 AM

zoe:

All I know is that the LAT opinion section before Kinsley was dull and not worth reading.

And the LAT opinion section after Kinsley looked like it was put out by some tedious clique of annoying and stupid children. I won't miss Martinez -- his exit was of a piece with his stewardship: adolescent.

Even with that lame wiki fiasco, however, Kinsley put out a section worth reading, and for a short but interesting time, it made Southern California seem like a public-spirited place.

Posted by zoe | March 26, 2007 12:05 PM

Henry:

A friend of mind was a B36 pilot (yeah, that long ago) who spoke of an untennable business situation as "being on the wrong side of the power curve." He explained when a pilot has managed to get into that state, there's only two things that can happen: (1) Increase power and fly into the ground. (2) Decrease power and fly into the ground. It appears as if management at the Tribune and Times has put themselves on thewrong side of the power curve, whether one cares for Kinsley's observations or not.

Also, it was my observation, honed by 8 years in journalism and 31 years in p.r., that newspaper managements as a class have an uncanny ability to take people who love the work so much they'd toil for nothing, if they could afford, and make them feel bad about doing their jobs.

Posted by Henry | March 26, 2007 1:06 PM

WES:

Let's not forget one thing. In the several years prior to Kinsley and co.'s short tenure at the Times, the paper's Op-Ed section had pulled in two Pulitzer prizes. Pretty good for a bunch of provincial dullards and newsroom wannabes, huh Mike? Instead of the thought-provoking public-spirited (and prize winning) opinion journalism, Kinsley brought readers what? A snide and flip attitude, windy rhetoric, and Andrés Martinez, that pillar of ethics and enabler of the run-on sentence. Martinez was at the times a year and a half, and his run there wasn't spectacular or even noteworthy. But his exit sure was, and is. And if the windbaggery continues apace, it ever will be.

Posted by WES | March 26, 2007 1:52 PM

larry:

The decline of the Times began with its purchase by the hog butchers, but the decline of the editorial pages began with the appointment of Michael Kinsley, and accelerated under Mr. Martinez.

Posted by larry | March 26, 2007 2:39 PM

Nonny Mouse:

What kind of idiots attack Kinsley for making sense? He did NOT say that he finds ethics to be boring. Do you think you're being funny? This is the sh*ttiest set of comments I've seen on ANY political blog. Don't worry. I won't be back.

Posted by Nonny Mouse | March 27, 2007 1:37 PM

libya:

ضحك,
ليبيا,
شباب ليبيا,
احاديث نبوية,
السيرة النبوية,
برامج اسلامية,
صوتيات اسلامية,
خواطر,
غرائب وعجائب,
الشعر الشعبى,
قصص,
اللغات الاجنبية,
تعلم الفرنسية,
تعلم الانجليزية,
الطب
تقنية الاسنان,
كتب طبية,
طب الاعشاب,
اناقة وجمال,
اناقة الرجال,
الاسرة والمجتمع,
الطبخ,
اثاث وديكور,
مقاطع كورة,
الدوري الليبي,
المصارعة,
الكرة العربية,
الكرة العالمية,
رسائل خيانة
مسجات عادية
منتديات,