Patterico's Pontifications

7/2/2007

Has Jill Stewart Ruined the L.A. Weekly — Or Made It Better?

Filed under: Dog Trainer,General — Patterico @ 6:12 am



The Nation doesn’t like the L.A. Weekly under Jill Stewart. Quoted as agreeing are Tim Rutten and a cast of other holier-than-thou types. I say she has improved it — and so do Matt Welch and Kate at Fishbowl L.A.

You can see what I think of the Weekly‘s relevance by comparing how often I used to link it (basically never) with how often I link it now. Whether it’s coverage of Tennie Pierce, Hector Marroquin, or the Stephen Yagman trial, the L.A. Weekly has been kicking the L.A. Times‘s behind all over the room on local stories for months now.

I freely admit that I have a bias. I am friendly with Jill and see her at the Yamashiro gatherings almost every month. But I praised Jill long before I ever met her; I seek out her company because I admire her, not the other way around. Scroll down this link and you’ll see the proof in several posts dating back to as early as 2003. She’s a fearless journalist who calls ’em the way she sees ’em, and she recognizes a good story when she sees it.

I think the Weekly is lucky to have her.

25 Responses to “Has Jill Stewart Ruined the L.A. Weekly — Or Made It Better?”

  1. I never heard of Jill Stewart until about 1 minute ago, but if she’s the one responsible for getting those articles into the LA Weekly, then I think she’s great.

    Terry (b3f6e4)

  2. I guess when you don’t follow the leftist Indy Media mold to a “T” you will get called out by the powers that be. Remember, “Speaking truth to power” only applies when you are attacking evil conservative rethuglicans.

    Never fear, the OC Weekly is still just as worthless as ever.

    Gabriel (6d7447)

  3. How are we worthless, Gabriel?

    Gustavo Arellano (3419ec)

  4. You have to ask? Other than Ask a Mexican (which I still have not gotten a significant answer to the why doe Mexicans have pictures of Chickens and Bulls on the sides of their cars), the OC Weekly’s nearly day in day out attack on all things righty is as tasteless as a Mother Jones Vegan Potluck.

    The demoniziation of all things “anti-illegal alien” is especially distasteful given the large numbers of illegals populating the area.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m fully aware that free papers have to pander to lefty ideals (how else would they get published?). But the general tone of many of the articles seem like a constant attack on anyone to the right of even Arnold. Its just my perception, and when it comes to free weeklies, the general trend is Leftward Ho!

    I grew up with The Rocket, and I do read the OCWeekly (usually while waiting for the Pollo Bowls at Wahoos) but, I tire of the constant lefty slant of the reporting and the lack of serious reporting on some of the more prevalent problems within our communities.

    Gabriel (6d7447)

  5. A “Mother Jones Vegan Potluck”. That’s a pretty good line.

    Ms. Judged (becd1d)

  6. I was really impressed with the LA Weekly’s piece on the new Michael Moore agit-prop flick “Sicko.” While the “mainstream” media (LA Times, Entertainment Weekly, Roger Ebert, etc.) coverage might briefly mention the controversy of Moore’s visit to Cuba, the LA Weekly write (Ella Taylor) was the only one who bothered to consider the potential downside of socialized medicine a la Canada or Britain. While Ms. Taylor sincerely believes we would be better off with a more Canadian-European style health care system, she is at least willing to acknowledge that it too would have a lot more problems than its advocates are willing to admit.

    If this is the sort of balanced coverage — albeit from a left-of-center perspective — that the LA Weekly is aspiring to, then bravo to them and to Jill Stewart.

    JVW (b44a2c)

  7. Possibly the best review of Sicko out there, was done by Kurt Loader of MTV. I was actually shocked after reading that because it was like, real journalism, and not some clown just re-crafting the Wienstien Press Releases.

    Gabriel (6d7447)

  8. off-thread
    Gabriel
    glad you liked the Rocket, but the history link has so incorrect details. the publisher of the Rocket wasn’t Charlie Cross, it was Robert McChesney, who grew up to become a very liberal media professor. we fought a lot over the cover.
    best
    Robert Ferrigno
    rcferrigno@comcast.net

    robert ferrigno (16589e)

  9. OT

    Bush just “commuted” I. Lewis Libby’s sentence.

    What do conservatism and the Republican Party stand for again?

    Excusing a felon in July of 2007 just doesn’t seem right.

    I know you Kool-Aid drinkers will puff your chests up and say that this was the right thing to have happened. I also know that deep inside you know you’ve cast your lot with a very bad team.

    Shame on all of you!

    The Liberal Avenger (b8c7e2)

  10. Re: Gabriel

    Don’t forget to watch Dead Meat. A look at Canadian Health Care system that Sicko would have us believe is far superior to our medical system.

    BigFire (194640)

  11. Look, much as I’m against socialized medicine, it wouldn’t take much to be far superior to our system. Of course, what’s wrong with our system is almost entirely due to leftist meddling with the medical industry.

    But that’s par for the course; the leftists break it and then they tell us that we need them to fix it.

    Doc Rampage (47be8d)

  12. Back to Jill Stewart….
    I agree with all of the positive remarks made above; plus,
    she’s a very good writer, too!

    Another Drew (8018ee)

  13. OT.

    Patterico’;

    It would be well of you to take a position on the
    commutation of Libby’s sentence. I really don’t understand your reluctance to become immersed in this pivotal matter. By your own admission;

    “As I admitted in my original post on the verdict, I haven’t followed this case terribly closely — certainly not as closely as Clarice or Tom have. Then again, I’m not completely ignorant about it. I think I have a basic idea of the prosecution’s assertions, and the defense’s points.”

    Regardless of the reasons, I think it is safe for you to venture an opinion about this case.

    Am I being too demanding? Sorry.

    Semanticleo (10a7bd)

  14. “How are we worthless, Gabriel?”

    Except for the endorsement of McClintock, I would agree with Gabriel. I always enjoy re-reading the OC Weekly piece on crashing the former INS commissioner’s funeral:

    “Before the Harvest Crusade shindig (and, to belabor the point, I really find the idea of “harvesting souls” creepy), photographer Jack Gould and I stopped by the public viewing for the corpse of dead lunatic Harold Ezell. While my boy and I waited outside by the car, our fearless photographer went in to sneak a snap of the dead man in his casket. Personally, I found the assignment in poor taste. But then, Proposition 187 was in poor taste, too. As were Ezell’s comments about “deep-frying” illegal aliens. Not a nice man! Gould, looking terribly conspicuous in his shorts and matted hair, came moseying out of the funeral chapel, so I figured there was no rush as I slowly made my way from the lawn to the car. Suddenly, five huge men came running out. “Excuse me! Excuse me!” the first one shouted. “What were you doing in there?” Jack was already in the car, but I was still buckling my baby up as the big off-duty-cop-lookin’ one shoved past me through the passenger door and grabbed Jack’s wallet so he couldn’t drive off. After a lot of arguing, Jack retrieved his camera from the trunk and gave it to the goons. They gleefully ripped the film out. “There are other cameras in there,” one guy noticed, but they sadly didn’t follow through. “Have a nice day,” they told us-and they didn’t mean it one bit. I was really sorry I hadn’t been in the car ready to go. What kind of getaway driver am I? Jack didn’t care. He’d given them a camera with an empty roll of film in it, and the dead lunatic photos were safe (see one on page 11). Good Jack

    http://www.ocweekly.com/columns/commie-girl/destination-unknown/18276/

    Crashing funerals and attacking dead people to sell papers. Nice work. Mysteriously, the photo of the dead former INS commissioner and the accompanying article has either been removed from the site or de-linked from the search engine. Talk about historic revisionism of Pol Pot-esque proportions! This event was obviously too tasteless even by the OC Weekly non-standards of journalism (not a single conservative commentator at either lefty fag rag, so watch whom you praise Pat).

    Then there is Gustavo’s constant reference to old white immigration reformers as “coffin dodgers” and his shameless promotion of the racist hate group MEChA as merely an organization out to encourage “latinos” to attend college on the Bill Handel program. What a crock of shitty racist pro-invasion pseudo-journalism.

    And by the way Gustavo, thanks (not) for answering any of my questions about your mexican government ties, namely the funding for the centro cultural de mexico (to which you serve as treasurer) and your family’s employment by the mexican gobierno in its office of mexicans abroad. I guess your readers don’t have the right to know about your shady anchor-baby ties to a hostile third-world cesspool like mexico. This is why I refuse to even line my birdcage with this crap, much less read any of it.

    In any event, I like how Patterico turns a blind eye to the LA Weekly’s bias yet finds plenty of energy to go after the dog trainer. Seriously misplaced priorities based on a personal “admiration” of a pinko commie yellow journalist. I guess we little people should listen to the elite who hobnob at Yamashiro because they know better than we do about journalistic integrity.

    Petty Bourgeois (d5b6de)

  15. If the Times doesn’t the read the Weekly, how did they know to hire him? And personally, I think Jeffrey Anderson is as good as any Times reporter. Too bad they don’t know that.

    Edward (8630c6)

  16. Somehow I’m glad I don’t live in California. We have our own bad papers–no less than three “alternative” papers, plus two mainstream papers of somewhat less than dubious quality (even if one of them has won several Pulitzers over the years–including one in the most recent batch).

    But the remark which noticed the general leftis nature of “indie” papers–and I agree with that characterization–made me wonder:
    Why are there no conservative independent papers? If the MSM is slanted left* one would have expected some conservatives to have established such papers over the years, since there would be a market for them.

    Comment 14: It seems that the leftist slant of the LAWeekly is more obvious, and its audience much less, than that of the LATimes. So it makes considerable sense for our esteemed host to focus on the errors of the LATimes. I don’t know what Yamashiro is, but P. shows no trace of elitism. If anything he’s anti-elitist.

    *Asterisked because I don’t believe it really is slanted left. It is slanted to uphold the powers that be. Those powers that be are socialistic, so it has, in general, a socialistic bent, but that applies to almost every American institution now. If it really were biased in favor of the political left, it would have reported (as an example) the lead up to the Iraq war in a fashion much less favorable to the Bush administration. I watch NBC Nightly News fairly consistently, and I think its coverage pre-war was often simply of a stenographic nature, that is, repeating White House assertions and not challenging any of the “reasons” for going to war. Until the anti-war movement became more powerful in 2005, the MSM (or at least as much of it as came under my less than thrilled eyes) served mostly as cheerleaders for the administration. Only when the anti-war movement began to get traction and publicity did coverage become skeptical.

    kishnevi (db1823)

  17. While I know that she’s written articles discussing the cost of incarcerating illegal aliens and supporting assimilation and such, I seem to vaguely recall Stewart going a bit soft on illegal immigration at some point, perhaps by supporting some form of amnesty. Can anyone corroborate that?

    Also, regarding the LA/OC Weeklies, I continue to be amazed at the low prices at the 99 Cents store on such staples as paper towels. They really are a great value, and they don’t rub off on your hands.

    TLB (0c89cb)

  18. Why are there no conservative independent papers? If the MSM is slanted left* one would have expected some conservatives to have established such papers over the years, since there would be a market for them.

    There aren’t any conservative “alternative” weekly papers because these types of ventures are rarely profitable. When they do manage to make a profit (if ever), it is because they have sold lots of advertisements for 1-900 sex numbers, “massage parlors,” and “escort services” which few conservatives would be willing to promote (libertarians, sure, but not conservatives). Also, there probably aren’t that many conservative journalists would would be willing to work for $125 per article plus a tofu burrito and a couple of bong hits.

    JVW (b44a2c)

  19. The Smell A Times will still be the liberal left-wing birdcage liner nothing will ever change about this worthless rag

    krazy kagu (557722)

  20. Here are some pre-Jill stories I wrote for the L.A. Weekly:

    http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/get-me-to-the-church-on-time-and-a-half-for-overtime/2223/

    http://www.laweekly.com/general/features/swallow-this-deep-throat/1763/

    http://www.laweeklywhile-black/1308/.com/art+books/books/breathing-

    Here’s the last piece I’ve written for the Weekly to date — just before Jill came on board.

    http://www.laweekly.com/general/features/the-uk-in-la/15047/

    I’m not sure what they want anymore and will think long and hard before even so much as proposing an article.

    David Ehrenstein (3c01ea)

  21. You go, kk!

    Another Drew (33c3dc)

  22. I had the pleasure, back when I lived in the Bay Area, of reading Ms. Stewart’s occasional opinion pieces in the San Francisco Chronicle and on its companion sfgate.com website. She even responded to emails from readers, or at least to the few that I sent her.

    She had the pleasant effect of making an absolutely unreadable newspaper and almost-unreadable website…well…readable.

    More power to her at the L.A. Weekly.

    patrick (716933)

  23. I heard Ms. Stewart was an Arnold supporter, which explains Patterico’s fondness.

    However, I am going to give him a break since he voted McClintock, which is a true test of personal convictions about conservatism. Pat is probably ashamed of his party, if not for his implicit support of the stupid party. I retract everything bad I said about Pat. But I am still left pondering why he does not bash Arnold like he should, and like the Angry Clam used to.

    Arnold called Bush “courageous” for attempted treason by permitting an invasion of millions. He should be called out on it, but everyone is too timid and meek to say so. No cojones amongst any of you conservatives to call it for what the inaction on the border is: treason by Arnold too.

    And Gustavo, whenever you are ready to disclose to your readers your ties to the mexicano gobierno, feel free to return and explain. We all appreciate Patterico’s willingness to accommodate all points of view by leaving the comments section open–perhaps the last bastion of civil discourses left on Al Gore’s internets.

    PB

    Petty Bourgeois (d5b6de)

  24. I heard Ms. Stewart was an Arnold supporter, which explains Patterico’s fondness.

    With all due respect, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.

    (I said “due.”)

    Despite your repeated suggestions to the contrary, I am not an Arnold supporter and never have been. I supported McClintock.

    Patterico (2a65a5)

  25. It would be well of you to take a position on the
    commutation of Libby’s sentence. I really don’t understand your reluctance to become immersed in this pivotal matter.

    Semanticleo,

    When you wrote that, I was at LAPD’s Southeast station interviewing police officers for an upcoming trial.

    That’s the second time you’ve gotten on my case for not posting/commenting when I’ve been at work. (And yes, sometimes I work into the evening hours, as I did the day Libby’s sentence was commuted.) Unless you want to finance my being a full-time blogger, I have to work and earn a living, and I can’t blog during that time. So please stop pretending I’m being deliberately silent about things that are happening while I’m working.

    Patterico (2a65a5)


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