Comments (6)

• Hiller’s departure, of course, has nothing to do with his friendliness toward moguls. Everybody should be sorry to see him go because any successor is going to preside over a second rate rag that Zell is going to create in order to possibly save his investment. In two years time, the once great Times will be like the NY Post or Daily News and Los Angeles will be without a quality newspaper.

  Comment by richard — July 14, 2008 @ 3:36 pm  Reply to this post

• Agreed Richard … well said!

  Comment by Anonymous — July 14, 2008 @ 5:05 pm  Reply to this post

• The LAT is done for — Hiller came on as the designated Angel of Death during the last purge, so whoever takes over now will likely be an even more ruthless bean counter. The question is — who will start a new LA paper — something that better integrates web and hard copy coverage? A city this big needs a decent daily news source, and starting from scratch may be just what is needed.

  Comment by just wondering — July 14, 2008 @ 5:17 pm  Reply to this post

• Have to echo Richard’s thoughts. Hiller is the third Times publisher to go over cuts in staff. Somebody had to make a stand. People moan that it’s the internet that has ruined the newspaper business, but that isn’t wholly true. What’s ruined newspapers are greedy corporations who are absent any clue as to what the function of a newspaper is. And those same corporate fuckheads are the ones who think that newspapers are an extension of the other business and should shill their products and viewpoints, and they’re killing what’s left of the idea of the free press.

  More articles and staff are what’s needed at the Times, not less–let the corporations prop up the newspaper with funds from their other arms of business.

  I wish Geffin had bought the Times, at least it would be a local newspaper, something for the people of Los Angeles.

  Comment by Hank Hollyweird — July 14, 2008 @ 6:21 pm  Reply to this post

• What everyone above said.

  They echo people I know who work at the Times. Whoever is coming next will not be an improvement.

  People like Sam Zell are criminals, in a very real sense. They loot a resource that serves the public, leave it a shell of itself and then wonder why it continues to lose money. When the resource is a newspaper, the looting represents a very real threat to democracy.

  Comment by wfive — July 14, 2008 @ 10:20 pm  Reply to this post

• With regard to “just wondering”’s comment, the idea of starting a quality newspaper from scratch is wonderful in theory but it won’t happen. The economics of the newspaper industry are such that no one is going to invest in that type of gamble. Would have been nice if Geffen had bought it because at least there would have been an owner interested in running a newspaper (despite no experience in doing so) rather than Zell who repeatedly states that a newspaper is no different than any other business

  Comment by richard — July 15, 2008 @ 9:22 am  Reply to this post