Patterico's Pontifications

11/7/2006

L.A. Times Editor Dean Baquet Resigns Under Pressure from Tribune

Filed under: Dog Trainer — Patterico @ 5:51 pm



Which is a technical way of saying that Baquet has been fired.

When things happen at the L.A. Times, the place to read about it is L.A. Observed. Today is no exception; go here for details.

According to the L.A. Observed post, people at the paper are not happy. L.A. Observed reminds us that top editors had pledged to leave if Baquet were forced to step down. I don’t know whether there will be mass resignations or not, but it’s safe to say that the paper will experience some tumult in coming days, as staffers and editors express their disgust with Tribune — by word, deed, or perhaps both.

UPDATE: This was posted from my Treo. I didn’t know that See Dubya had already broken the news below. Ah well. I’m closing comments on his post; you can comment here.

UPDATE x2: Here is the L.A. Times story on the resignation.

See-Dubya: Dean Baquet To Leave LA Times

Filed under: General — See Dubya @ 5:16 pm



(A post by occasional guest blogger See-Dubya; to be cross-posted at Junkyard Blog.)

Straight from the horses’ mouth: the Editor of the L.A. Times is cleaning out his office. He wouldn’t agree to further staff cuts, but the publisher insisted on them.

We now take you back to your regularly scheduled election freakout. If you’re like me you’ve taken everything you’ve heard with so many grains of salt that your blood pressure is redlining.

See-Dub, over and out.

UPDATE FROM PATTERICO: I posted a post of my own breaking the news, not realizing that See Dubya had already done so.

Just so there is no confusion about where to comment, I’m closing comments here. Leave your comments on my post.

7/4/2006

Dean Baquet Declines My Request for an Interview

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 11:17 am



Yesterday I wrote this letter to L.A. Times editor Dean Baquet, requesting an interview about the paper’s disclosure of classified details of the legal and effective Swift counterterror program. I said, among other things:

Publishing op-eds defending your decision is all well and good, but you have yet to face the truly tough questions. I think you should be willing to do that. In your op-eds, you and Mr. Keller have alluded to the quasi-governmental role of the press in our system as a watchdog. Indeed, many refer to newspapers as the Fourth Estate — the fourth branch of government. Further, you and Mr. Keller appear willing to arrogate to yourselves some of the powers of duly elected officials, such as choosing what classified information will be disclosed to our citizens (and our enemies). If you are going to exercise such awesome and quasi-governmental powers, you should face the same kind of scrutiny that you would expect members of the actual government to face in similar circumstances.

In sum, you have a responsibility to defend your decisions to the public — not simply in antiseptic op-ed pieces ringing with platitudes, but also by facing difficult questions posed by someone who disagrees with your decision.

Mr. Baquet has declined my invitation.

He gave me a reason, which I have asked him to allow me to publish. It’s . . . unconvincing. But hopefully he’ll allow you to read it for yourself.

7/3/2006

My Letter to Dean Baquet

Filed under: Dog Trainer,General,Terrorism — Patterico @ 10:26 am



I have written this letter to Dean Baquet:

Dear Mr. Baquet,

As I believe you are aware, I run a blog called “Patterico’s Pontifications” that is frequently critical of your newspaper. I am appalled by your decision and that of New York Times editor Bill Keller to publish classified details of a legal and effective counterterror program with appropriate safeguards.

I have read both your personal defense of the publication decision, as well as the one that you have written jointly with Mr. Keller. Many questions remain unanswered.

I would like to ask you those questions.

I am asking you to do an interview with me, in any format you choose — via e-mail, on the phone, in person, or on the radio. (I am quite sure we could find a radio venue if that’s what you’d prefer.)

Publishing op-eds defending your decision is all well and good, but you have yet to face the truly tough questions. I think you should be willing to do that. In your op-eds, you and Mr. Keller have alluded to the quasi-governmental role of the press in our system as a watchdog. Indeed, many refer to newspapers as the Fourth Estate — the fourth branch of government. Further, you and Mr. Keller appear willing to arrogate to yourselves some of the powers of duly elected officials, such as choosing what classified information will be disclosed to our citizens (and our enemies). If you are going to exercise such awesome and quasi-governmental powers, you should face the same kind of scrutiny that you would expect members of the actual government to face in similar circumstances.

In sum, you have a responsibility to defend your decisions to the public — not simply in antiseptic op-ed pieces ringing with platitudes, but also by facing difficult questions posed by someone who disagrees with your decision.

I look forward to your response.

Patrick Frey
Patterico’s Pontifications
https://patterico.com

I’ll let you know if I hear anything back.

UPDATE: I have received an autoreply to my e-mail stating:

Dean Baquet is out of the office until Tuesday, July 11.
If you need immediate assistance with a news story please contact Managing Editor Doug Frantz @ doug.frantz@latimes.com.
Thank you.

Hopefully all this Swift nonsense will have blown over by then, eh?

7/1/2006

What Would You Ask Dean Baquet?

Filed under: Dog Trainer,Terrorism — Patterico @ 12:35 am



I have been thinking about drafting up a list of questions for Dean Baquet, editor of the Los Angeles Times, regarding his decision to publish the details of the Swift anti-terror program. I thought I might put together a list of questions in an open-source fashion. I’ll throw out a few questions I’d like to see answered, and you leave me a comment with suggestions for other questions.

I’m not saying he’s going to sit for an interview with me. But he should, don’t you think?

In no particular order, here are a few questions I’d like him to answer:

(more…)

6/27/2006

Dean Baquet Publishes Letter Attempting to Justify the L.A. Times’s Exposure of a Classified and Successful Counterterrorism Program

Filed under: Dog Trainer,General,Terrorism — Patterico @ 6:55 am



Editor Dean Baquet has published an open letter to readers explaining the paper’s decision to publish classified details about the legal and effective Swift counterterror program.

Baquet fails to offer any compelling justification for eviscerating this legal and successful counterterrorism program. And Baquet fails to recognize that his decision was made on the basis of woefully inadequate information.

There is little I can say that I haven’t already said in several other posts, but let me point out some of the more glaring problems. Baquet says:

The decision to publish this article was not one we took lightly. We considered very seriously the government’s assertion that these disclosures could cause difficulties for counterterrorism programs. And we weighed that assertion against the fact that there is an intense and ongoing public debate about whether surveillance programs like these pose a serious threat to civil liberties.

We sometimes withhold information when we believe that reporting it would threaten a life. In this case, we believed, based on our talks with many people in the government and on our own reporting, that the information on the Treasury Department’s program did not pose that threat. Nor did the government give us any strong evidence that the information would thwart true terrorism inquiries. In fact, a close read of the article shows that some in the government believe that the program is ineffective in fighting terrorism.

In the end, we felt that the legitimate public interest in this program outweighed the potential cost to counterterrorism efforts.

I remain stunned that Mr. Baquet believes his newspaper was in a position to have “weighed” the effect that disclosure would have on counterterrorism efforts. The program’s chief success has been the capture of Hambali, the mastermind of the Bali bombing. Yet Baquet’s own Washington Bureau Chief, Doyle McManus, has admitted: “The first I knew of that was when I read it in the New York Times.”

Indeed, a close read of the L.A. Times article does suggest that the program has been ineffective. But a close read of the articles published by the New York Times and Wall Street Journal shows something quite different. Not only did the government capture Hambali, but it also confirmed the identity of a major Iraqi terror facilitator, and learned information regarding the 2005 London terror bombings.

The bottom line, Mr. Baquet, is that you are not in a position to weigh anything if you don’t know all the facts. And your paper clearly didn’t.

We are not out to get the president. This newspaper has done much hard-hitting reporting on terrorism, from around the world, often at substantial risk to our reporters. We have exposed terrorist cells and led the way in exposing the work of terrorists. We devoted a reporter to covering Al Qaeda’s role in world terrorism in the months before 9/11. I know, because I made the assignment.

But we also have an obligation to cover the government, with its tremendous power, and to offer information about its activities so citizens can make their own decisions. That’s the role of the press in our democracy.

The founders of the nation actually gave us that role, and instructed us to follow it, no matter the cost or how much we are criticized. Thomas Jefferson said, “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” That’s the edict we followed.

I’m not going to follow the lead of many of my conservative brethren and accuse you of being out to get the President. I think people can make up their own minds on that issue. But I do accuse you of having blown this decision, and you can’t hide behind Thomas Jefferson now.

This was a tough call for me, as I’m sure it was for the editors of other papers that chose to publish articles on the subject. But history tells us over and over that the nation’s founders were right in pushing the press into this role. President Kennedy persuaded the press not to report the Bay of Pigs planning. He later said he regretted this, that he might have called it off had someone exposed it.

History has taught us that the government is not always being honest when it cites secrecy as a reason not to publish. No one believes, in retrospect, that there was any true reason to withhold the Pentagon Papers, although the government fought vigorously to keep them from being published by the New York Times and the Washington Post. As Justice Hugo Black put it in that case: “The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security for our Republic.”

I don’t expect all of our readers to agree with my call. But understand that it was one taken with serious reflection and supported by much history.

And inadequate facts.

Notably missing from your piece, Mr. Baquet, is any true justification for printing the article. We learn that you supposedly agonized over the decision, and that the Founding Fathers loved a free press, and that you really, really aren’t out to get Bush.

But what is the affirmative argument for publication? Surely you see that publishing such sensitive details requires one. But I don’t see it.

Your Washington Bureau Chief has said that the key factors he looked at in making the decision to publish were: “Is this legal? Are there safeguards?”

Yet, as I have demonstrated, the evidence in all the articles suggests that the program is legal, that it does have adequate safeguards, and that key Congressional committees were briefed.

Given these facts, where is the compelling public interest in revealing classified details of a legal and effective anti-terror program?

If this is the best you have to offer as a justification, Mr. Baquet, then you have made a terrible mistake, that may have tragic consequences for our country.

UPDATE: Thanks to Hugh Hewitt for the link. He has much more on the Baquet piece, here.

6/25/2006

L.A. Times Administers Punishment to Dean Baquet for Exposing a Classified Anti-Terror Program

Filed under: Dog Trainer,Humor — Patterico @ 7:34 pm



There is photographic evidence, and it isn’t pretty.

Mr. Baquet looks like he’s ready for his spanking. The woman about to administer the punishment has not yet been identified.

OK, that may not really be Dean Baquet, but it is indeed a photo hosted on the L.A. Times web site. The URL: http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2006-06/24075731.jpg.

In case they take it down, you can still see it at this link.

Links via Allah, of course.

UPDATE: That was quick! The picture is gone. I promise you that the picture you can view at the Lou Minatti web site, linked immediately above, is the exact same picture that was hosted on the Times website, albeit for a very brief period of time.

What the hell it was doing there, I have no idea.

1/30/2007

Baquet Leaves L.A. for New York Times

Filed under: Dog Trainer,General — Patterico @ 5:48 pm



The New York Times reports:

Dean Baquet, the editor of The Los Angeles Times who was fired in November for refusing to cut jobs from his newsroom, is returning to The New York Times as chief of its Washington bureau and an assistant managing editor, effective March 5.

The L.A. Times begs to differ, claiming that Baquet wasn’t fired — he quit! The story is titled Editor who quit over staffing cuts hired by N.Y. Times.

I think the New York Times‘s version is a little closer to the truth.

I wish Mr. Baquet well. I think his paper demonstrated clear leftist bias during his tenure, but he wasn’t the first editor to preside over a leftist Los Angeles Times and he won’t be the last. It’s true that I cancelled the paper over a decision he made to reveal classified counterterror secrets — a decision that was also made, ironically enough, by Bill Keller at the New York Times — Baquet’s new boss. But while I think that was a terrible decision, I have nothing personal against Baquet, and hope that he has the best of luck at his new job.

Thanks to readers Stacy M., Marty M., and numerous commenters.

9/16/2006

L.A. Times Editor Baquet in Standoff with Tribune Over Staffing Levels

Filed under: Dog Trainer,General — Patterico @ 11:21 am



There’s a standoff between L.A. Times editor Dean Baquet and his bosses at the Tribune Company over staffing levels at the paper.

(more…)

7/14/2006

Still Nothing from Baquet — But We’ll Be Working on the Transcript

Filed under: Dog Trainer,General,Hiltzik — Patterico @ 12:14 am



Dean Baquet was back in the office as of Tuesday. So yesterday (Thursday) I sent him a friendly note asking again whether he’ll allow me to print his reason for declining to let me interview him about the paper’s disclosure of the Swift bank monitoring counterterror program:

Mr. Baquet,

According to your out-of-office reply, you should be back in the office.

I realize it’s always busy when one returns from vacation. Still, could you respond to my request that I be allowed to quote your e-mail explaining why you won’t be interviewed?

I’m told by many people who would know that you probably expected it to be quotable, without my having to ask your permisison. But I think the polite thing for me to do is to ask, since I didn’t make it clear that I intended to print any reply.

Yours truly,

Patrick Frey

I have the feeling that I’m talking to a brick wall, but you never know. We’ll give him a few more days before we conclude that he is simply refusing to reply. If he never responds, I won’t publish it. But if it happens that way, it will be a disappointment and, I think, an example of cheating members of the public out of something they have a right to know.

In the meantime, I’ll work on transcribing portions of Luke Ford’s tape recording of Baquet’s interview regarding the Hiltzik matter and “pushback.” (Some of you may have missed the fact that there is a recording; it was a late update to the “pushback” post.)

I am especially interested in the parts where he claims that what happened to Hiltzik was in part a result of the paper’s failure to “push back” effectively (!). That is an odd statement that I hadn’t noticed in Luke’s description. Also, he believes that part of the reason for the paper’s declining circulation is “cheap criticism” of the paper. (And he sounds plenty angry when he says it, too!)

This could be the real reason he won’t let me interview him after all: maybe he thinks my blog is an example of the “cheap criticism” that is costing him readers — and that cost him a business columnist. (He didn’t say any of this; I’m speculating here.)

If that’s what he thinks, I disagree. I think my criticism is well-founded and fair — not “cheap.” Maybe he agrees; maybe not. But I wish I could ask him myself, and get him to answer.

Anyway, these are just teasers. There is a lot more to discuss from Luke’s recording. But it will be a more focused discussion with a transcript. So stay tuned.

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