Ace, on the rumors floating about that the Koch brothers are considering buying the L.A. Times:
If they buy this thing, I’d suggest they ask Mickey Kaus and Patrick Frey for some critiques of the paper as it currently stands.
Thanks for the mention. I’ll get to my critique, but let me clear my throat and have a sip of water first.
Ahem. OK, I’m ready.
My critique is as follows: take a wrecking ball to the place.
You’re welcome.
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I Represent the Inexpressible Joy of Ridiculing Crap Newspapers.
Patterico (9c670f) — 3/18/2013 @ 8:33 pmUnfit to line a birdcage.
Colonel Haiku (eb4f5f) — 3/18/2013 @ 8:39 pmit would be neat to be able to read stories about stuff what’s going on in los angeles
nobody tells me anything
happyfeet (8ce051) — 3/18/2013 @ 8:40 pmHow about Patterico and Kaus as co-editors.
AZ Bob (c11d35) — 3/18/2013 @ 8:42 pmLeftists heads worldwide would absolutely assplode.
JD (b63a52) — 3/18/2013 @ 8:47 pmtake a wrecking ball to the place.
That rag (aka LA Times) at least once had a fantastic, very gifted political cartoonist by the name Michael Ramirez. And, yea, Ramirez was of the right, but his artistic skill combined with great sense of humor/satire ran circles around his replacement, a hokey, far less sophisticated cartoonist. Or a guy who’s a ho-hum garden-variety liberal—and hardly as deft as another former cartoonist at the LA Times, the late Paul Conrad, who while also of the left at least wasn’t a yahoo like his successor is.
Mark (f1ea74) — 3/18/2013 @ 9:00 pmIf it’s true, I hope they would read my resume.
Ag80 (b2c81f) — 3/18/2013 @ 9:00 pmHave a Koch and a smile !
Elephant Stone (1be49d) — 3/18/2013 @ 9:08 pmthe building has great potential as a real estate development site, with lofts, etc.
assuming, of course, that anyone will be able to find a j*b that would allow them to pay their bills, which is getting harder & harder here in Failifornia.
redc1c4 (403dff) — 3/18/2013 @ 10:30 pmMy critique is as follows: take a wrecking ball to the place.
Naw, come on, the paper can be salvageable. Here is what I would do if I owned it:
1. Fire the editorial board. Don’t even hire a new one. Only run editorials a couple of times per week.
2. Fire pretty much all of the columnists. Very few of them have interesting opinions on anything.
3. Stop with the pretensions that you are a national newspaper and embrace your role as a regional one. Close your Washington bureau and devote more resources to Sacramento and City Hall.
4. Discover areas of Los Angeles County like the South Bay, Long Beach, and the eastern part out to Pomona and Whittier. The whole damn region doesn’t revolve around the west side and Santa Monica.
5. Devote more resources to high school and college sports, and quit with the steady diet of Lakers, Dodgers, and whatever poor sucker NFL team is dumb enough to relocate here. See point 2 above and fire pretty much all of the sports columnists.
Former mayor Richard Riordian once talked about starting up a rival daily newspaper in Los Angeles that would have, he said, provided more coverage of the Valley and other areas that the Times often ignores. I’m kind of surprised that we never hear about him being a potential buyer. Perhaps he now thinks that newspapers are a poor investment.
JVW (4826a9) — 3/18/2013 @ 10:41 pmI drove past the New York Times building today. Very impressive. Just think what it could be if they fixed the editorial pages.
carlitos (2ae3a6) — 3/18/2013 @ 11:44 pmJVW, you forgot “hire Beldar as managing editor.”
carlitos (2ae3a6) — 3/18/2013 @ 11:45 pmWhy buy the LAT and be stuck with all of thier legacy debt and union hangovers? I would love to see guys like the Kochs start small conservative newspapers in LA & Chicago and cover the issues ignored or buried by the MSM. In addition to those cited above, one other area they could cover is how in bed the left wing media at the LAT, Chicago Tribune, Sun times, etc,. are with the D party and judiciary. Keep you investments small and focused. Thyen let you ad revenues drive any additional growth.
Ipso Fatso (1e3278) — 3/19/2013 @ 1:21 amSome day I will learn how to spelll. (:
Ipso Fatso (1e3278) — 3/19/2013 @ 1:21 amIt would make a lot more sense, if someone really wanted to acquire it, to wait until the bankruptcy sale; that’s how The Philadelphia Inquirer changed hands.
But I’d never buy a newspaper, not even The New York Times, to attempt to do anything really radical like make money. Their day is done, and if they haven’t gone extinct quite as fast as keypunch operators or filling stations with mechanics on duty, they are on the same path, because the technology and culture is simply moving beyond them.
If I want to read The Los Angeles Times, up here in the Poconos, I can do it, for free, just by going to their website. Even the Kochs can’t make money giving stuff away.
The economist Dana (3e4784) — 3/19/2013 @ 4:14 amCarlitos wrote:
Really? It’s right across the street from the bus terminal, and the architecture is lousy.
The Dana who doesn't live in Manhattan (3e4784) — 3/19/2013 @ 4:16 amThe Kochs might by the Times,
The Limerick Avenger (3e4784) — 3/19/2013 @ 4:19 amThe left are consumed with their whines,
But if you ask me,
I cannot see
How this makes any reason or rhymes.
Uhhh, that’s buy, not by.
The Spelling Avenger (3e4784) — 3/19/2013 @ 4:20 amEl Jezzero will by the l.a. times.
mg (31009b) — 3/19/2013 @ 4:20 amIf Kochs buy the Times
The Senryu Avenger (3e4784) — 3/19/2013 @ 4:22 amIt is still going to fail;
Their time has gone by.
There might be a way
The Senryu Avenger (3e4784) — 3/19/2013 @ 4:25 amTo save newspapers today:
Do Kindle only.
The Senryu Avenger, whomever he may be, has a point. I cannot recall where I saw it, but it was noted that it would cost The New York Times less money to provide every one of their subscribers with a Kindle than it does to print and deliver the dead trees edition.
If there is a model for paid content, it has to match up with modern delivery systems, and the print edition just isn’t going to be able to keep up. You would need a corporation which partnered with Amazon or Barnes & Noble or some outfit like that, which provided a comfortable reader and a subscription plan that covered both the newspaper and book/ magazine/ etc content delivery.
If I were going to pay for such a subscription, I’d want the national news from The New York Times, the state news from The Philadelphia Inquirer, the business news from The Wall Street Journal, the local news from the Times-News, and the sports section from the Lexington Herald-Leader.
Someone could make a lot of money by a bundled subscription package like that.
The economist Dana (3e4784) — 3/19/2013 @ 4:35 amThe NY Post is a precedent for converting a liberal paper into a conservative one. Of course Rupert Murdoch who bought it already understood how to run a paper. Also the Post is, as it was then, only number 3 in NYC circulation, and isn’t significant nationally, so it wasn’t considered that big of a deal.
Gerald A (7d960d) — 3/19/2013 @ 6:00 amThat news would feel good, but would it change anything? Like Current TV being sold, and all the “assets” leaving?
ParisParamus (96e3db) — 3/19/2013 @ 6:13 amI know I’m chronically negative, but it would appear we have lots of purchases for the Koch Bro. to make:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/343286/dropping-gop-s-green-eyeshades-james-pethokoukis
PermaBull Jimmy, buy the dips, thinks we’re right as rain.
Don’t know much about finance do we Jimbo?
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 3/19/2013 @ 7:24 amA good, commonsense, modern conservative newspaper could do wonders for LA, set the right tone, and provide the intellectual and cultural leadership necessary to turn that place around.
It would take real journalists and wise leadership from top to bottom to make it work, but it could be done. Will it? No way.
ropelight (1f49c0) — 3/19/2013 @ 7:31 amThe WaPo is instituting a paywall. I had to change internet providers to get away from their spam.
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 3/19/2013 @ 7:54 amIt isn’t an either/or proposition, of course one can graduate from college and continue learning throughout life, or skip college and self-educate. There’s much to recommend both approaches, after all, it’s the results that count.
Recall the wisdom of Tom Jones: It’s better to have not gone to school and know something, that to have gone to school and know nothing.
But, it’s also true that one of the recognized goals of a good college education is to prepare one for a lifetime informed and enriched by continual learning, and there’s no better foundation for continued learning than a broad liberal arts education whether it’s acquired in the academy or in the public library.
Today with the outrageously high cost of college tuition and with the lack of inte and with the ready availability of the Internet
BTW, the only people impressed with college degrees are the ones who don’t have them.
ropelight (1f49c0) — 3/19/2013 @ 8:38 amMy #28 was posted in error. Ignore it.
ropelight (1f49c0) — 3/19/2013 @ 8:39 amIt seems that the Koch brothers are generally successful at what they do, we need another foot in the door of mass media if we can find one that works, and just the rumor must give many people reason to go apoplectic.
And I’m with Ag80.
Besides, much better news that poison gas? in Syria, confiscating money from bank accounts in Europe, and a minister in charge of media in Britain.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 3/19/2013 @ 8:39 amR.I.P. Frank Thornton, 92, a British actor best known as Captain Peacock in the long-running television comedy “Are You Being Served?”
Mentioned here because if The Dog Trainer remains good for anything . . .
Icy (09fb49) — 3/19/2013 @ 9:17 amWell maybe the Kochs will buy it; there was also a rumor that Rupert Murdoch would buy. Either deal would set a cat amongst the pigeons in the Hollywood West Side dovecote. I imagine Alec Baldwin would announce that he would move to Canada if either deal were consummated.
Only problem with the LA Times is that it ceased to be a serious newspaper a very long time ago. As a lefty opinion rag, and as a Hollywood suckup sheet, it’s not bad. But those tow things do not a newspaper make. And BTW either today’s WSJ or the Dog Trainer announced that Variety was ceasing its print edition. That may give the Dog Trainer a bit of a circulation boost–but it’s like a drowning man coming up for a breath of air three miles off shore in a riptide.
Comanche Voter (29e1a6) — 3/19/2013 @ 9:27 amParisParamus wrote:
I never knew that Al Gore was considered an asset.
The amused Dana (3e4784) — 3/19/2013 @ 9:28 amI never knew that Al Gore was considered an asset.
Um, Dana, I think it is “ass-hat” you are thinking of.
JVW (4826a9) — 3/19/2013 @ 10:18 amComanche Voter beat me to it, but it raises the question as to whether there would be a bidding war between Rupert and the Koch’s….
and why would any sensible Billionaire do that over the LAT?
Beldar as Managing Editor???
Perhaps as Editor of the Opinion Page,
with the Gentleman-of-the-Press from N.San Diego Co. as Managing Editor
(my apologies for forgetting the handle of the Good Brother)?
Comment by The amused Dana (3e4784) — 3/19/2013 @ 9:28 am
askeptic (b8ab92) — 3/19/2013 @ 10:25 amOnly when he’s not in motion!
Can we bring back Ramirez?
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 3/19/2013 @ 10:39 amAnd then there’s that Obama ❤ PLO terrorists tape
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 3/19/2013 @ 10:47 am#35, That would be Brother Bradley J Fikes, BioTech reporter for the San Diego Union-Tribune, and sometimes commenter here.
ropelight (1f49c0) — 3/19/2013 @ 11:02 amI agree with Ipso; small local newspapers would fill a niche not covered. Who needs this chorus of (liberal) voices on national news across the country?
And I agree with Patrick: LAT delenda est.
And “that tape” and all other secret info will be destroyed before anyone else takes possession.
Patricia (be0117) — 3/19/2013 @ 11:05 amComment by Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 3/19/2013 @ 10:39 am
Only if you can pry him out of the cold, dead hands of IBD.
askeptic (b8ab92) — 3/19/2013 @ 12:16 pmLike. 🙂
NeoCon_1 (9dccdd) — 3/19/2013 @ 1:57 pmI hope the Kochs buy Tribune and correct the left-leaning stance its media outlets take for granted. I also hope they make some money doing it.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 3/19/2013 @ 2:43 pmWow! great the rumors are already spreading up so fast… How much the deal would cost man…???
Lucille L. Roque (89d7c9) — 3/19/2013 @ 9:44 pmI hope the Koch brothers buy it, and immediately lock everyone out of all archives (so that nothing can be destroyed). I wonder how much stuff is in there, that would be really damaging if publicized.
Q: why not have well-respected bloggers (Patterico, LegalInsurrection, et al) write Editorials and take the News section from other bloggers, and pay them something for it? It gives the nLAT (new LA Times) a new source of material (at very low cost) plus supports the blogosphere. And those bloggers can now call themselves bona-fide reporters That’ll irk the liberal bloggers no end 🙂
Ken (1c90a1) — 3/22/2013 @ 12:24 pm