Patterico's Pontifications

12/31/2009

Patterico’s Los Angeles Dog Trainer Year in Review 2009

Filed under: Dog Trainer — Patterico @ 10:28 pm



The time has come to document another year’s worth of bias, omissions, and distortions at the L.A. Times — all gathered together in one handy post. As always, there’s something about seeing all this stuff in one place that really opens your eyes.

This year, L.A. Times editors whitewashed (and botched basic facts about) the ACORN scandal; protected their hero Barack Obama; sneered at tea parties; openly pushed health care reform; gave space to someone lauding killer Ted Kennedy’s “moral largeness”; hid evidence of the Fort Hood shooter’s Muslim ties and then flushed the evidence; made up a quote from John Cornyn and then flushed the evidence; hid conflicts of interest from multiple op-ed contributors; plagiarized Wikipedia; eliminated its local news section; had four rounds of layoffs; suffered from plummeting circulation; and committed numerous high-profile editing errors.

To name just some of their problems.

Oh: and they wrote numerous detailed corrections in response to my complaints. As they do every year.

Liberal bias? Check. Rank incompetence? Check.

Without further ado, here is my seventh annual review of the Los Angeles Times, otherwise known as the Los Angeles Dog Trainer.

WHITEWASHING THE ACORN SCANDAL

DSC02024.jpg
Above: James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles

In September, James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles released eye-opening undercover videos showing ACORN workers at numerous offices helping the couple with a purported prostitution ring. This newspaper whitewashed the ACORN scandal right from the beginning, portraying it as a “conservative” complaint, utterly failing to mention the fact that Giles and O’Keefe told ACORN employees that they were pimping out young girls aged 13-15 smuggled in from El Salvador.

Then Peter Dreier wrote a fact-challenged op-ed claiming that Giles and O’Keefe had received assistance at only two ACORN offices. (The documented number was at least five at the time the op-ed appeared.) Dreier also incorrectly claimed that “not a single person who signed a phony name on a registration form ever actually voted” — although one person who did was later convicted only of false registration and not voter fraud.

It quickly emerged that Dreier has been a consultant for ACORN, and served on their advisory committee — a fact not disclosed in his op-ed. Dreier later claimed to me that his consulting work was unpaid — but he pointedly refused to answer questions about his work on the advisory committee, or why he failed to disclose his ties to ACORN.

I wrote a letter to editor Nick Goldberg complaining about the inaccuracies and omissions. The paper eventually issued an inadequate correction in response to my complaints.

[UPDATE: I don’t consider Goldberg to be part of any deliberate “whitewash.” I think he gave op-ed space to someone who is either dishonest or plain stupid — and then lacked the single pair of conservative editorial eyes necessary to catch the blatant misstatements in Dreier’s piece.]

But the funniest material came from hapless L.A. Times columnist James Rainey.

Rainey EggFace

In September, Rainey wrote a column in which he uncritically quoted ACORN worker Lavelle Stewart suggesting that she had turned Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe out of her office. Rainey hadn’t bothered to contact Breitbart — or Giles or O’Keefe — to ask their side of the story. I predicted that Rainey would end up with egg on his face. When Breitbart started hinting that he had damning video, my prediction started looking better and better. And sure enough, the very person Rainey had uncritically quoted turned out to be the star of Giles and O’Keefe’s latest ACORN video:

doh.jpg

Above: James Rainey

Leading me to post this:

Crow for Dinner

Breitbart appeared on Hannity and slammed Rainey for his slippery treatment of the scandal.

The best part: Rainey had criticized Fox News for uncritically accepting only one side of the story. There were so many levels to the irony, you needed an elevator to visit them all.

But it didn’t end there. Rainey then wrote an ass-covering column that minimized his error — and which included a purported quote from O’Keefe. After I investigated the source of the quote, it turned out to be largely fabricated.

As if all this wasn’t enough, the paper let stand another fabricated quote from O’Keefe, which was originally reported by the Washington Post, and reprinted by the L.A. Times. The Post corrected the error back in September. The Times still hasn’t.

SYCOPHANTIC COVERAGE OF OUR HERO BARACK OBAMA

The paper uncritically reported that opposition to Obama’s health care plan was fueled by angry mobs of right-wing extremists. Typical of editors’ attitude was this strawman from a front-page “news analysis” which claimed Obama “has seen the healthcare debate sidetracked by false warnings that government ‘death panels’ would be employed to snuff out Grandma.” Naturally, genuine concerns about rationing of health care were not discussed in this polemic.

Strawman

The paper gave op-ed space to someone who implied that government can cover our health care — and it won’t cost us a dime! Because government money appears magically, out of nowhere!

When Obama held a town hall meeting on health care, he declared: “I have not said that I was a single-payer supporter.” This was an easily provable lie, and editors failed to tell readers about it.

The paper dutifully ran a picture of doctors in white coats — an image designed to lend credibility to Obama’s health care plan — and didn’t tell readers that the White House had passed out the coats beforehand to any doctor not already wearing one.

Handout Coats
Editors forgot to mention Obama’s little costume trick

When a controversy arose about Truther and Obama appointee Van Jones, the paper dismissed it as “a firestorm that raged almost entirely on conservative talk shows and websites.” Well, sure: the print version of the paper did indeed ignore the controversy until Jones resigned — an indication that it was indeed a legitimate story that the paper had simply refused to cover. The same pattern held with NEA communications director Yosi Sergant: editors hid the controversy from their print readers right up until he resigned.

Official gusher Faye Fiore called the Obamas’ date night a “fascination and an inspiration.” She breathlessly declared the Obamas “impossibly elegant” — forgetting to mention that the evening was impossibly expensive.


Above: reporter Faye Fiore forgot to mention that you and I are footing the bill for the Obamas’ “impossible elegance”

Under Bush, unemployment was called “unemployment.” Under Obama, L.A. Times editors came up with a different name, which I am not making up: “funemployment.” iowahawk had a field day with that one.

Obama promised to “create or save” 600,000 jobs. It was a bogus formulation to begin with, but it became even more bogus when editors left out the “or saved” part of this weaselly phrase.

When Obama violated his pledge to make bills available for review for five days, editors overlooked it. But hey, the bill wasn’t that important — it was just a stimulus bill costing almost a trillion dollars. The paper groused that Republicans had failed to participate in the drafting of the bill to give it a bipartisan sheen — all because Republicans failed to treat things like an increased government role in health care as the “consensus item” that the editors falsely claimed it was.

Editors employed classic techniques of liberal bias in describing Republican criticism of Obama.

After Obama repeatedly described as “unprecedented” a business-as-usual plan to root out waste in government, L.A. Times stenographers described the plan as unprecedented!

Editors declared a string of broken Obama promises to be a sign of flexibility and pragmatism.

The paper wrote a slobbering article about Obama solving a diplomatic crisis — with one word!

Obama Genius
The editors’ mental picture of Obama

Barack Obama: is there anything he can’t do??

Before Obama took office, editors wanted to portray the job situation as bleak. So they told readers that job losses were at their highest level since 1945 — but failed to mention that this figure represented absolute numbers, and misleadingly failed to reflect the explosion in the country’s population since then.

Robert Gibbs told reporters that Obama did not teach constitutional law. Tell that to the editors of the L.A. Times, who had claimed otherwise numerous times.

On the positive side of the ledger, the paper reported it when the Obama administration warned a Democrat strategist to stay off Fox News.

PRO-DEMOCRAT BIAS IN GENERAL

As Hillary Clinton faced confirmation as Secretary of State, editors failed to document the extent of the questionable donations received by the Clinton Foundation.

The paper lauded killer Ted Kennedy as a “top warrior for health care reform.” You could almost hear reporter Bob Drogin sobbing as he wrote his melodramatic story about Kennedy’s funeral. We had to endure commentary talking about the “moral largeness” of a guy who left a woman to drown at Chappaquiddick, promptly informing authorities within a mere ten hours.

chappaquiddick-kennedy
Above: the results of Ted Kennedy’s “moral largeness”

ANTI-REPUBLICAN BIAS AND ANTI-TEA PARTY SENTIMENT

The paper used loaded language such as saying Republicans would “snipe” at Obama as he swam “against the partisan tide” — as layoffs “add[ed] urgency to the need to agree on a stimulus plan.”

Stimulus plan good . . . tea parties bad. And inconsequential. When KFI’s John and Ken hosted a taxpayer revolt that drew 8000-15,000 people, the paper refused to cover it, for transparently phony reasons. Editor David Lauter responded to hundreds of angry readers in one e-mail — and failed to use a “bcc” line, meaning he shared each angry reader’s e-mail address with all the others. If you’re thinking: “What a moron!” then you have plenty of company.

They did, however, find space to cover one tea party . . . a toddler tea party given by Katie Holmes and Angelina Jolie. The paper later did a fact-challenged hit piece on John and Ken.

When they did cover tea parties, they portrayed them as a uniquely Republican phenomenon that carried risks for Republicans — ignoring the fact that tea-party attendees are also largely fed up with the Republican party.


The L.A. Times thinks these people are all Republicans

Editors, displaying their typical balance, described outgoing President Bush as “unrepentant.” Well, hey, that’s the word I’ll use about the editors after their paper finally dies.

When the government produced a ridiculous report that appeared to declare conservative sentiments to be a worrisome phenomenon that should concern law enforcement, did the L.A. Times worry about the obvious chilling effect on political beliefs? No, it parroted the phantom concern about those damn violent right-wingers.

In the stimulus bill debate, the paper unfairly portrayed Republicans as “complainers.”

It was instructive to compare the unflattering portrayal of Republican opposition to the favorable portrayal of Democrat opposition to Bush in 2001.

The paper explained that George W. Bush never admitted error. Except, he did.

The paper recycled a hoary old fable about George H.W. Bush being surprised by supermarket scanners.

Every past Republican president in recent memory got slandered. With Reagan, the editors compared his resurgent popularity to that of Josef Stalin.

DA-SC-90-03096 stalin

Potato, potahto

Jack Dunphy caught the paper putting an angry-looking picture of Michael Steele on the Web site’s front page.

The paper resurrected its oft-repeated canard that George W. Bush came to power through the strength of a Supreme Court ruling — rather than the way he actually did: by winning the 2000 election.

PRO-TAX AND SPENDING BIAS

Editors ran an article about the Horrible Impact of Spending Cuts and the Questionable Nature of Republican Claims — while burying or omitting any discussion of the horrible impact of tax increases and the questionable nature of Democrat claims.

The paper portrayed a ridiculous California budget deal as an attack on the elderly, the poor, and children.

The paper always details the horrors of spending cuts, but ignores the problems associated with tax increases.

The paper persisted in its usual tactic of describing a cut in projected wish list spending as a budget cut. This way, even keeping spending at the same level gets described as a “cut.”

Editors pretended that the rich were failing to pay their fair share of taxes — while burying the dire economic consequences of soaking the rich.

WAR ON TERROR

When Major Nidal Malik Hasan perpetrated a terrorist act of mass murder at Fort Hood, the L.A. Times‘s initial story had no mention of the shooter’s religion, his alleged rants against U.S. involvement in Iraq, his alleged approval of suicide bombings, or the allegations that he was shouting something in Arabic as he shot. But the paper did make sure to include irrelevant statistics concerning suicides at Army bases due to deployments to the war. After Instapundit linked my post and the story became an obvious embarrassment to the paper, editors did what they generally do with embarrassing stories: they flushed it down the memory hole.

TEXAS-SHOOTING/
Nidal Malik Hasan
Media Memory Hole2
Where the original Hasan story went
(Credit: Freedom Now! blog)

Reporter Carol Williams wrote an utterly irresponsible article that badly mischaracterized the holding of a significant court decision about the war on terror. As I explained in an e-mail to Williams and her editor, Williams had reported assumptions about John Ashcroft’s policies as if they were fact, and falsely implied that all three judges on the panel had criticized Ashcroft. The paper ended up issuing a remarkably lengthy and detailed correction that noted the errors I had pointed out.

Editors engaged in a highly misleading campaign against the use of the Patriot Act to prosecute unruly airline passengers. The paper significantly minimized the behavior of two people accused of disrupting flights. It later turned out that one of the experts they quoted completely disagreed with the thesis of the article — not that they bothered to explain that to readers in the first instance.

An article about convicted terrorists portrayed them as impoverished dupes who were dragged through the coals in a years-long, multi-million dollar persecution.

Editors somehow managed to publish an entire article regarding whether waterboarding was effective without once mentioning its biggest reported success.

The paper is always happy to give op-ed space to a Hamas terrorist.

IRAN

Editors acted as stenographers for Ahmadinejad after his dubious re-election.


Editors called this maniac “vigorous and assertive” while burying doubts about his election

However, from the “Credit where credit is due” department, we saw the paper tell the story of an Iranian martyr named Neda. Nice job, for once.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

The paper wrote a story about a college student who was both an illegal immigrant and an affirmative action beneficiary. Shockingly, the tough questions were studiously avoided.

Editors took on an ICE policy of deporting illegal aliens with whom they came into contact — distorting the policy to falsely suggest that ICE was targeting innocent illegals. Internal ICE memos discovered by a reader of mine proved that the paper had distorted ICE policy.

Just to make it clear which side of the immigration debate the L.A. Times is on, the paper told a sob story about a man being deported for the minor crime of trying to kill someone.

RACE/POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

In 2005, the editors sanctimoniously announced that there was no reason to segregate state prisoners by race. I like to remind them of this every time there is a major race riot at a prison, and this year was no exception.

One thing that has always frustrated me is the way that the paper portrays good police work as racism. A great example can be found here, where editors complained about numerous examples of black men being stopped by police because other black men had committed crimes. Whose fault is that?

THE FEDERAL JUDICIARY

Editors claimed that Sen. John Cornyn said he “would probe deeply into Sotomayor’s past comments and rulings to see if her heritage colors her ability to make fair decisions.” This was a lie, as Cornyn said no such thing. Editors then sent the false claim down the memory hole.

Cornyn
John Cornyn
Media Memory Hole2
Where the story with the fabricated quote went
(Credit: Freedom Now! blog)

When Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor got caught saying something very impolitic — that courts make policy — editors suggested that she was joking. But she wasn’t.

After being slandered by this paper all last year, Judge Alex Kozinski saw the proceedings against him concluded without a finding of misconduct. The paper chose instead to fixate on some footnote concerning a gag e-mail list Kozinski had a few years ago. When the Ninth Circuit finally dismissed the claims against Kozinski, the paper totally ignored it.

Just as the paper slammed Kozinski, it protected liberal federal judge Stephen Reinhardt, deciding not to tell readers when the Supreme Court declared that Reinhardt had dissembled in a death penalty appeal.

CRIME

The paper’s coverage of the Roman Polanski case was an object lesson in the heights — and depths — of which the paper is capable of reaching. Starting with the depths: Patrick Goldstein suggested that the pedophile and child rapist should not be held accountable because it would cost too much money to sentence him. After a considerable backlash, Goldstein implausibly asserted that Hollywood doesn’t really support Polanski — a claim easily refuted with video of the standing ovation he received for winning the Oscar for “The Pianist.”

A front-page headline claimed that Polanski had merely been “accused” of the sexual assault — when, in fact, he had pled guilty to unlawful sex with a minor.

Polanski Merely Accused

On the positive side, Steve Lopez wrote an excellent column that publicized the victim’s grand jury testimony — testimony that I had been telling readers about for months. Reporter Joe Mozingo broke news about Polanski’s civil settlement with the victim, and wrote a lengthy and seemingly accurate article that dispelled many of the myths that were floating around about the case.


This time Steve Lopez did his research

The paper told readers about a decree from federal judges that 43,000 prisoners be released from state prisons. But editors neglected to mention that the judges were all appointed by Democrats.

The paper reported on a 19-year-old rape/murder being solved by a hit from a DNA database — but neglected to mention that editors had crusaded against exactly these kinds of databases.

They’re such sniveling cowards at this paper, they won’t say someone committed a crime — even after they’re convicted by a jury. But then, these were co-conspirators working with Anthony Pellicano — and we know that the paper has always been partial to him, even at the expense of its own reporter, Anita Busch.

The paper trumpeted the ACLU’s crusade to empty Los Angeles area jails — but failed to remind readers that this would undoubtedly result in more innocent people dying.

The paper swallowed whole a ridiculous liberal claim about the cost of the death penalty. (Editors have a history of making similar claims themselves.)

As is its habit, the paper trumpeted the bona fides of an alleged anti-gang worker who is really a criminal. This time, it was Alex Sanchez.

ANTI-POLICE AND LAW ENFORCEMENT ATTITUDES

Editor Paul Thornton allowed himself to get misled by Radley Balko and Brian Doherty, and thus criticized Jack Dunphy for things he never said.

The paper consistently reports on the number of officer-involved shootings, implying that they are the fault of law enforcement — even when they clearly aren’t.

On a positive note, the paper gave a nice write-up to our friend, DDA Debbie Knaan.

OP-ED AND COLUMNISTS

The paper failed to disclose a significant conflict of interest on the part of self-styled police critic Merrick Bobb. I sent an e-mail to editor Sue Horton about it. Editors decided to do nothing.

Editors have this habit of soliciting comments from my guest poster Jack Dunphy and then refusing to publish them because he uses a pseudonym. They did it again this year, and I think it’s pretty rude.

MICHAEL HILTZIK

hiltzik-sock-puppets.jpg
Above: Michael Hiltzik

Sock puppeteer Michael Hiltzik got his “business” column back last year. This year, the column continued to be mostly leftist political claptrap as opposed to “business.” I called this repeat phenomenon “giving readers the business.” (Apologies to Wally Cleaver.)

In a typically fatuous column about the state budget, our friend Nofanofcablecos became Nofanofaccuratestatistics — claiming that the California population had increased by 30% over 10 years. He only overstated it by 100%. Close enough for L.A. Times work? Surprisingly, no. I complained, and the paper issued a correction. The correction was incorrect and misleading — i.e. par for the course.

Hiltzik is such a crazy leftist, he actually suggests that the government should prevent banks from repaying TARP money, so that the government can retain control over the banks.

Hiltzik also claimed to be in favor of competition for health care — yet at the same time, he favors a single-payer system. Huh?

JAMES RAINEY

James Rainey
Above: the hapless James Rainey

We already roundly mocked James Rainey above for his dishonest and ridiculous coverage of the ACORN scandal. But I’m not done with him yet.

Rainey railed against Fox News — yet was mostly silent about MSNBC and totally gave a pass to CNN.

Rainey slammed my friend Jill Stewart — without revealing his ulterior reasons for doing so, or contacting anyone with a contrary viewpoint. In doing so, he appeared to violate his paper’s policy on anonymous sources. Luke Y. Thompson responded here.

Rainey sanctimoniously proclaimed that there had been too much coverage of Miss California — in a column about Miss California. Complete with a picture of Miss California.

Matt Welch discussed the prospect of government bailouts of newspapers — which would turn watchdogs into lapdogs. Meanwhile, the paper pretended that the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine was a phony Republican bugaboo — even as a U.S. Senator called for hearings to explore the reinstatement of the doctrine. As Democrat sponsors continued to line up, I wondered: did columnist James Rainey plan to print a retraction?

TIM RUTTEN

rutten.jpg

Above: Tim Rutten

Jack Dunphy recalled Tim Rutten’s complaint that officer concern over release of private information was “preposterous.” It seemed less preposterous after it actually happened. He’s such a shill, he even uncritically accepted the Obama administration’s “created or saved” nonsense.

How big a tool is Rutten? He actually believes that Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize.

Tim Rutten argued that the criticism of the president was violent and hysterical — but somehow forgot to note that there had been violent and hysterical criticism of Bush. I reminded him.

imheretokillbush
Yes, Mr. Rutten, President Bush got violent and hysterical protests too

POTHEADS

Why were the paper’s columnists so awful? Maybe it had something to do with the fact that so many of them used their positions as columnists to obtain medical marijuana — under the pretext of writing about it (or doing stupid and pointless videos about it).

You’d have to be high to think this is funny

FINANCIAL WOES AND ENDLESS LAYOFFS

In a stunning move, the paper killed its California section — even as it raised the price of the paper. But the paper decided to keep it on Sundays — news that broke exclusively at my site. The paper claimed it was still covering local stories — yet somehow missed a story about a proposed $70 million increase in unfunded liabilities at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

A rumor went around that Rupert Murdoch was considering buying the paper.

After this web site accurately reported rumors of massive layoffs, the news of 70 more layoffs in January seemed like death in slow motion. After a while, news of further March layoffs became a dog bites man story. It happened again in October, and then again in December. Circulation continued to plummet, and I have begun to question whether the paper even makes a profit any more.

MISTAKES, WE MAKE MISTAKES

I guess they laid off a lot of editors, because one edition of the paper went out with all the headlines unwritten.

L.A. Times Unwritten Headlines 1
(Source: lies.com)

And then it happened again (albeit only online).

Insert Headline Here

In a single day, the paper managed to confuse LAPD officers and LAPD Explorers (members of a youth program); confuse the concept of a “radius” with that of a circle’s area; and misstate the weight of water by over 50%. They soon corrected the error about Explorers and officers.

The paper told readers that Obama had “dawned” a pair of jeans (later identified as “mom jeans”) to incompetently toss out the first pitch at a baseball game.

MISCELLANEOUS

The paper ran countless stories about Michael Jackson’s death — while lesser stories like the revolt in Iran or cap-and-trade legislation went virtually unnoticed.

The paper engaged in blatant plagiarism. Worse, the source that was plagiarized was the notoriously unreliable Wikipedia.

The paper ran an advertisement disguised as a front-page story. Funnyman Roy Rivenburg mocked editors.

The paper found room (apparently online) to write about penile fractures. Ouch.

In an exclusive interview with patterico.com, John Ziegler provided a critique of an L.A. Times article about talk radio.

IN CONCLUSION

I hope you enjoyed the post. If you’re interested, I have done six previous annual reviews of the newspaper. The previous annual reviews can be found at these links:

UPDATE: Thanks to John Hinderaker at Power Line for the link and the kind words.

UPDATE x2 1-1-10: The paper today corrected the fabricated O’Keefe quote that had been published in the Washington Post. They have yet to correct the fabricated O’Keefe quote appearing in James Rainey’s column. Details here.

62 Responses to “Patterico’s Los Angeles Dog Trainer Year in Review 2009”

  1. Patrick–

    Congratulations, and many thanks–brilliant stuff on the Times, as always. Fiore, Rainey, Rutten–have three more biased and incompetent boobs ever worked for the same newspaper at the same time? The good news, of course, is that hardly anyone reads the thing any more, and that trend is sure to accelerate in a turbo-charged way in 2010.

    Kevin Stafford (abdb87)

  2. Date night was impossibly UPN sitcom I thought.

    hf (9bda9c)

  3. Well done. Even though I read these stories throughout the year, it’s still shocking to see it consolidated in the annual review.

    DRJ (84a0c3)

  4. I went to an improv show in Seattle for New Years Eve. One of the skits ended up seeing Sarah Palin shot to a pulp with a shotgun outside an igloo. Another skit made sure to lace in how horrible the health care system in the country is, rejecting treatment to a woman having a seizure at the ER.

    Oh, and by the way, neither of these ideas came from the audience, they were part of the improv from the thespians, although the predictably liberal audience ate – it – up.

    I wonder what would happen if a bunch of conservatives got together and did skits of shooting Obama. Would that be equally “artistic”?

    Sure hope these folks are getting some funding from the NEA, they were definitely doing their share for Obama.

    George (ba8bc6)

  5. I actually thought it was worse than that. You left out David Lazurus, the other half of the Hiltzig-Lazarus metaphor for the California business climate. I’m pretty sure that over 90% of their “business” columns contain either “Democrat” or “Republican”, something you would more expect on the editorial page.

    You left out almost all of the failure to report economic news, which is surprising in a state with hostorically high unemployment.

    You left out their utter unwillingness to examine the state budget and “cuts” therein. I swear, if you started with the 2004 budget, that with all the cuts they’ve made since, it should be negative by now.

    And, while I despise Rupert Murdoch, he’d be an improvement. Hell, Donald Trump would run a better paper — all you need to do is fire everyone and start over.

    Kevin Murphy (3c3db0)

  6. A few links take you to the wrong places (if you click on the link about LAT criticizing the budget as attack on the poor and elderly you get a page about Obama “dawning” new shoes”).

    David Lazarus absolutely deserves more scrutiny. The guy’s just outlandish.

    Otherwise, good stuff.

    lee (cae7a3)

  7. Another weird LAT trend in 09 – They spent way too much time covering Philharmonics conductor Gustavo Dudamel. The guy made their front page (online edition?) 3,4 times easy.

    He reminds me of Bartolo Colon for some reason.

    lee (cae7a3)

  8. Good work as usual. Although I don’t comment frequently, I have this site as a daily must read.
    Rob

    Dr T (324d86)

  9. Under the heading of “PRO-TAX AND SPENDING BIAS” you have the following construction:

    The paper always details the horrors of spending cuts, but ignores the problems associated with tax cuts.

    Shouldn’t it be “…tax increases”

    Otherwise, superior work. Thank you.

    ropelight (73b5b8)

  10. OUCH!!!

    GeneralMalaise (68a574)

  11. Now that’s a good old-fashioned beating being administered right there.

    Subotai (b8eba6)

  12. Patterico: Thanks for all of your hard work, can’t imagine how you do it. Happy 2010 to all, even the trolls.

    Old Coot (d2bd0f)

  13. I’d add Dan Neil’s name to the posse of preposterous prevaricators publishing puerile pablum at the Times. May as well identify all of the guilty.

    Mike Myers (3c9845)

  14. How I love it. Pat, your work has been appreciated by me for years. It usually takes me a few days to get through your year-end wrapup, as I savor the documented incompetence, prevarication, and intentional ommission. Cheers to you, hope 2010 is your best year, yet.

    TimesDisliker (9bafbb)

  15. Haven’t made it through yet but shared on FB. Outstanding work, Patterico! It’s a herculean task I would not be able to undertake so no criticisms from me. 😉 Congrats!

    Peg C. (c3fd4c)

  16. The overweening left-liberal slant that The Times has displayed over the last 30 years is even more striking when contrasted with its almost equally strong bias in the other direction during the 1960s. Just as Barack Obama can do no wrong today, Richard Nixon could do no wrong then. The paper has a long and rich tradition of bias.

    Truly, I have not paid the slightest attention to The Times for more than a decade. If it weren’t for you writing about it here, I wouldn’t even be sure it was still being published.

    Voiceguy (c9e2ec)

  17. Congratulations for another tour-de-force! May 2010 bring the hacks, dissemblers and liars on Spring Street just what they deserve.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (9eb641)

  18. Now, a contest for the most outrageous article or editorial (hard to separate those) in 2009.

    My first choice: Conflating Reagan with Stalin. I guess if you view both of them as enemies of True Socialism it makes sense.

    Kevin Murphy (3c3db0)

  19. Why does it seem that I’m more distressed about the continued slide into oblivion of a once-great paper, the paper that for years I coudn’t do without every day, than the people working there?

    Rutten, Rainey, Williams etc seem more interested in offending the common sense of Times readers than reporting the news accurately.

    The Reagan-as-Stalin piece was a new low; wonder how they’ll top it this year?

    harkin (b57b4d)

  20. Congrats on the Powerline link.

    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/01/025289.php

    reff (176333)

  21. Details..Shmetails…
    Why are you picking on these poor fellows?
    Just because their descent into irrelevance happens to parallel the same descent of the town on their masthead, why should we who live here be upset about the small minor errors (always promptly corrected) that occassionally pop-up in their “reporting”?

    And, if you believe any of what I’ve written above, I’ve got a Navy Base in Long Beach to sell you.

    The big question for this year is:
    In a year that will feature a fractious election campaign to everturn the current Congressional leadership, and one that will settle who will lead Kahleeforneeyah for the next four-years, plus determine the outlines of Congressional Districts for the next ten-years, will the LAT be around to lend its’ viewpoint to the debate (even as biased as it has become, they are still an important voice in the Southland, and State)?

    Personally, I think this might be the year that they finally close the doors (even the Wash Times is downsizing today – starting Monday, no more Sports section, plus a change of emphasis in coverage). Unless Zell wants to be a modern incarnation of Charles Foster Kane (which in today’s economy would be precluded by a responsibility towards investors, and their lawyers), he has to know that he can’t subsidize this insanity much longer? You do know that, don’t you Sam?

    BTW, Voiceguy, the 60’s marked the first decade of Otis Chandler’s stint as Publisher, and you could mark his “progress” in turning the Times from a paper focused on Los Angeles and California into one with a National/International scope during that decade. By the end of the decade all of the elements were in place that mark today’s LAT: an overemphasis on liberalism and fairness; the replacement of hard-facts with viewpoint. He definitely changed the paper that his father and grand-father’s had created, and his position in the Chandler Family Trust had direct influence on the Editorial direction of the paper after his retirement.

    Patrick:
    Well Done!…and Thank You!

    AD - RtR/OS! (cd4296)

  22. Patrick, thank you for reading the Times so I don’t have to.

    I do read the Sports section on-line during football season. I actually decided to subscribe again a couple of years ago, thinking that, since I did read the on-line Sports section, I would pay a little for the service. They screwed up the billing for my discounted subscription (I think it was $2.99 a month or something like that) and sent me a collection letter before I got my first copy of the paper. They don’t run their own business any better than they write. I cancelled before they messed up my credit score.

    Mike K (2cf494)

  23. lee,

    I fixed the one link you pointed out. Thanks for that. You implied that there are other incorrect links? Could you specify?

    ropelight,

    I fixed the error you noted. It was indeed tax “increases” I was referring to. Thanks.

    Patterico (231873)

  24. and didn’t tell readers that the White House had passed out the coats beforehand to any doctor not already wearing one.

    What a joke. I wasn’t even previously aware of such a phony-baloney type of staging by the current White House. But when you combine the false compassion, the lame judgment, poor decisionmaking, deficient logic, flakiness and dumbed-down honesty/standards of the left, you can’t expect any less.

    As for the LA Times, it’s baffling how supposedly intelligent people employed by that paper — ie, in terms of what one assumes is their basic rote ability and the skills thereof — can be, well, almost mentally retarded when it comes to common sense. Then again, they are of the left.

    I imagine the LA Times will eventually become similar to the LA Weekly (or maybe a newsprint version of Mother Jones), a small publication stuck forever in a niche category read by about as many people as the number that read alternative “progressive” newspapers—-the ones that, among other things, live off of X-rated, swinging-single type of ads.

    Mark (411533)

  25. Apparently they have more in common with big liberal government than just political beliefs. In any other private business, this level of quality performance would ensure failure and termination.

    ray (f45cc3)

  26. I expected something on climategate. Did the LA Times report it appropriately?

    Amphipolis (17a9b7)

  27. I love you, man!

    The very best to you, and all at PP, this new year.

    Matador (176445)

  28. Hey, today they finally corrected the error about the O’Keefe quote from the Washington Post. I’m drafting up a new post now, and will be updating this one.

    Patterico (231873)

  29. Congratulations, Patrick. You’ve really outdone yourself. Funny how they keep giving you so much to work with, year after year.

    Ironically, there appears to be a correction, of sorts, from today’s online paper in regard to your,

    As if all this wasn’t enough, the paper let stand another fabricated quote from O’Keefe, which was originally reported by the Washington Post, and reprinted by the L.A. Times. The Post corrected the error back in September. The Times still hasn’t.

    At the LAT link,

    ACORN: An article in Section A on Sept. 19 about the individuals whose video sting prompted the ACORN scandal incorrectly said one of them had targeted the community activist group because its voter registration drives bring Latinos and African Americans to the polls. Although the organization registers people mostly from those groups, James E. O’Keefe did not specifically mention them. The article was first published in the Washington Post, which published a correction on Sept. 22. The Times had overlooked the correction.

    Dana (f64b7d)

  30. My first choice: Conflating Reagan with Stalin. I guess if you view both of them as enemies of True Socialism it makes sense.

    That editorial is a remarkable window into the narrow minds of LA Times editors. It’s not just that their politics are well to the left of most Americans; they are clueless about how most Americans think. No wonder they’re puzzled about Reagan’s popularity. And yet they think themselves qualified to explain the nation and world to us.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (9eb641)

  31. We cross-posted re today’s correction. The page took forever to load…

    Dana (f64b7d)

  32. Dana,

    I just did a new post on that, and I think the drafting of the post was causing the site to get slow.

    Patterico (231873)

  33. Fabulous, Patterico!

    MayBee (a4324b)

  34. The link about Michael Hiltzik writing mostly “leftist political claptrap” columns takes you to the top of this page.

    I think that’s about it for broken links.

    lee (cae7a3)

  35. Patterico, there is hardly anything more to say except, “We’re not worthy!”

    The Jamie Gold era ended yesterday. The new Los Angeles Times Readers’ Representative is Mr. Help Wanted.

    Official Internet Data Office (0247d7)

  36. Picky picky picky…..If the LA Times was so biased why would Congress consider giving them bailout money? Huh? Huh? Can’t answer, can you?

    Howard Veit (0d2b4f)

  37. lee,

    Thanks. The last broken link you highlighted was a simple matter of a misplaced quotation mark. Fixed now — and in searching for the problem I found another silly Hiltzik foible that I added to the post.

    Patterico (231873)

  38. Another great end of the year summary.

    Are newspapers like the LA times becoming an unfunny version of “The Onion”? Both seem to be a medium for delivering advertising with mindless drivel used as filler. At least The Onion is funny.

    snookered (6f83c5)

  39. Our hard-working host wrote:

    Editors took on an ICE policy of deporting illegal aliens with whom they came into contact — distorting the policy to falsely suggest that ICE was targeting innocent illegals.

    Emphasis mine. Congratulations on the Oxymoron of the Day! 🙂

    The snarky Dana (474dfc)

  40. Snookered comes up with a good one:

    At least The Onion is funny.

    I think they try to be. If the Los Angeles Times ran a tagline, do you think tey could use that one?

    The amused Dana (474dfc)

  41. As far as I can tell from that picture the bigger thing the taxpayers are paying for is Michelle Obama’s weight-lifting machines, not her clothing. My God that woman has a cut back.

    chaos (9c54c6)

  42. Has foobar complained about the placement of commas yet?

    daleyrocks (718861)

  43. Thanks for this– I think you might have included the Mike Penner/Christine saga, ir rather the way the LAT leaped on his personal story, only to scrub it away from the website after his death.

    KateC (7f3e3d)

  44. Pat, what will you do for a Year in Review article when the Times simply goes out of business in the middle of the year?

    The Dana who would miss next year's article (474dfc)

  45. The rag should pay you, good or bad writing/evaluating don’t matter.

    Their readership of portions of their rag must be larger from this place than any direct source they have to offer.

    Thanks for putting all this together, as others have said, I don’t know how you do it.

    Do your children recognize you? Wife?

    🙂

    TC (0b9ca4)

  46. Yet another hearty WELL DONE! Heh.

    HE WILL CALL YOU OUT.

    Obama needs to give you a hat tip for one of his favorite lines methinks.

    daleyrocks (718861)

  47. Owned.
    You can’t say “epic fail” without an L or an A.

    Darwin Akbar (1c4f47)

  48. […] of 2009. She’s referring to “underreported” as pertains to the Mouthpiece Media. Patterico’s Los Angeles Dog Trainer Year in Review 2009 ‘Underwear Bomber’s’ Alarming Last Phone Call NCAA BOWLS SCOREBOARD 2010 Will […]

    Friday: January 1, 2010 – New Year’s Day : DBKP REPORT (74b34b)

  49. Happy New Year Patrick!

    I first found your page one year ago today when you were linked to from Hot Air. I’ve been reading nearly every day since AND I’ve been looking forward to this review all year.

    Fantastic job as always!

    Mike H. (839742)

  50. Patterico, you’re the man.

    We really appreciate what you do—not only for your time investment in being an LA Times watchdog, but also because you have the unique skills which enable you to be so effective in highlighting the LA Times’ left wing advocacy and incompetency.

    I hope 2010 is a prosperous and healthy one for you and your family.

    90210 Conservative (9d1bb3)

  51. The LEFTIST media is the ENEMY of the GOOD ie: Conservatism! The Democrats would be NOTHING without the LEFTIST media covering their butts. That party would have been kicked to the curb years ago if the LEFTIST media wrote of them in the same way they wrote of Republicans and STILL WE STAND in spite of them and will grow in 2010 because America is ON TO THEM!

    Jaded (1f19fe)

  52. Fantastic piece! Happy New Year Mr. Patterico.

    LaFong (ef6b83)

  53. A credible list. Could have also added the LAT articles about a threat to California’s ports due to sea levels rising because of global warming.

    The LAT article quoted state officials regarding the alleged threat, but no one checked the NOAA tide station data for Los Angeles or San Francisco. The sea level measurements have actually declined since the 1990s!

    At the least, the LAT could have asked someone why the tide station readings, which are consistent with general observations of coastal conditions, weren’t cited as evidence of a minimal threat from sea level increases.

    RB (6c0b54)

  54. An annual classic!
    Great work again, Patterico!

    *

    DPierre (bbceb5)

  55. Great to read your annual pummeling of the Times, and you were right to spotlight Rainey and his anti-conservative bias. But one update: He did devote a recent column to pointing out MSNBC’s bias in news coverage. Maybe he saw the Patterico year-end hit coming.

    James Fulton (b33b1d)

  56. […] Patterico’s Los Angeles Dog Trainer Year in Review 2009 Filed under: Freedom of Speech, Funnies, Laughs and all that, Politics — cliftonchadwick @ 8:08 am Blogging has made significant contributions to sharing information about what is going on in the world. One of the contributions has been to counter the biased mainstream media and to critique them.  The guys at Patterico’s Pontifications have just released their annual analysis of the L.A. Times.  I offer a few snips and encourage you to go to the web site. […]

    Patterico’s Los Angeles Dog Trainer Year in Review 2009 « Cliftonchadwick's Blog (bd1ac8)

  57. I just love these year end reviews on LAT. Will they ever learn?

    rickster (aea635)

  58. A great public service. How does the LA Times-a parody of a newspaper-continue?

    Mason (db4bc2)

  59. Geez, Patterico: another year of not having to read the LAT because you have encapsulated it so well in a single post!

    Well done, again! And thanks.

    EW1(SG) (edc268)

  60. […] to the Los Angeles Times for giving Patterico another year’s worth of mockworthy material. That craptastic year 2009 won’t be fully […]

    damnum absque injuria » Apparently Some Still Read That Piece O’Crap (490ac4)

  61. […] that is really the title of his post. You’d think one glance at one of my year-end reviews of the L.A. Times would somewhat dispel that notion. And it would . . . for honest […]

    » Eric Boehlert: ‘Why Does the Los Angeles Times Hate Obama?’ - Big Journalism (4556c3)


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