Patterico's Pontifications

6/14/2015

Former L.A. Times Editor John Carroll Dies

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 3:00 pm

I was, obviously, not happy with the Los Angeles Times under John Carroll’s leadership. I thought their hit piece on Arnold Schwarzenegger was atrociously timed (though a pretty good piece), and believed that Carroll was blind to the concerns over the timing. He was also the man who made the famous claim that outlets like Fox News were engaged in “pseudo-journalism” — a term that I had some fun mocking over the years.

But the paper established the “Outside the Tent” series under Carroll, which provided a forum for critics of the paper (including myself) to criticize the paper in its pages. And although this was hardly Carroll’s idea (it was Michael Kinsley’s), his support for Kinsley made this possible.

And I know a few people I respect who respected Carroll. (Of course, some others didn’t.)

73 is too young.

R.I.P.

Comments (40)

40 Responses to “Former L.A. Times Editor John Carroll Dies”

Ding.
Patterico (3cc0c1) — 6/14/2015 @ 3:00 pm
Here’s an interesting tidbit from an AP article about his death on the NBC News site (the added emphasis is mine):

Carroll’s departure came amid increasing tensions over newsroom budget cuts and the paper’s direction with its corporate owner, the Tribune Co.

He received a standing ovation from the staff when he announced his resignation, and the Times’ then-publisher, Jeff Johnson, told The Associated Press that Carroll left behind an “extraordinary legacy of journalistic excellence.”

Uh, perhaps the AP’s writer could have done a little bit more to place that standing ovation in context. One is left wondering if the standing ovation was in recognition of a job well done or just relief that the old man was at last leaving. But then again, sloppy writing in the fishwraps was elevated to an art form during Carroll’s years in the business. R.I.P.
JVW (8278a3) — 6/14/2015 @ 3:25 pm
Some weird brain disease as I understand. Cannot have been pleasant.
Gazzer (be559b) — 6/14/2015 @ 3:50 pm
Since I’ll be 72 in six months, I agree that 73 is too young.
But whether under John Carroll or a few of his predecessors–and under every successor, the Los Angeles Times long ago ceased to be a serious “news” paper. They haven’t delivered straight news in years. All of their “reporters’ swing from the left side of the plate when they write–or they don’t get published.

The paper and its staffing get skinnier every year.
Comanche Voter (1d5c8b) — 6/14/2015 @ 5:01 pm
Some weird brain disease as I understand. Cannot have been pleasant.

Gazzer (be559b) — 6/14/2015 @ 3:50 pm

a terminal case of Contemporary Liberalism.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/14/2015 @ 5:26 pm
My uncle died at 74. He wanted to go. He had lost his wife to cancer, his mom had died the day after her 100th birthday, he had no children. I was probably the closest to him, as I had shared a duck blind with him since I was 11. I remember the last time. I could smell the whiskey in his coffee from six feet away. He was on oxygen from emphysema but he still smoked.

He had a massive heart attack waiting for friends to pick him up to take him to a casino.

Let no one think less of him for what I’ve said. He was a good man. He was a Battalion Chief in the Oakland Fire Department. He crawled around the wreckage of the Bay Bridge when it collapsed following the ’89 earthquake, pulling bodies out.

He wanted to go. But I miss him.
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/14/2015 @ 5:41 pm
Actually 11 is when I passed the Hunter Safety course and had my own shotgun. Or, borrowed.

My early memories are of my uncle carrying me on his back to the duck blind, so I wouldn’t get wet. I wish he had stuck around so I could return the favor. He would have been 85 this year. I

I guess he didn’t want that.
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/14/2015 @ 5:51 pm
Condolences, Steve. I had an uncle who passed away from emphysema at the same age and that is not an easy way to go.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/14/2015 @ 5:59 pm
He didn’t live long enough, coronello, to die of emphysema.

He gave the big F- U- to life and died of a heart attack.

His choice, I suppose. I knew it was coming. I wish I had confronted him. I wouldn’t have stopped him from destroying himself. Just to let him know I could see what he was doing, and I didn’t like it. But, dammit man, there was somebody here on this Earth for him.
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/14/2015 @ 6:15 pm
Understood, Steve. Dying slowly by suffocation is tough, all’s I’m saying.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/14/2015 @ 6:59 pm
L’chaim, coronello.
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/14/2015 @ 7:02 pm
The paper and its staffing get skinnier every year.

But somehow such publications, in spite of their leftist anorexia, manage to survive year after year. It’s probably analogous to the way that certain families in America pass down monies made by previous generations and therefore allow a succeeding generation to tap into and live off that original pool of funds. Hence the phenomenon of so-called trust-fund babies (hello, all you folks in Manhattan and SF, etc!), who can therefore afford to be mindlessly idealistic and foolishly liberal.

His choice, I suppose. I knew it was coming.

In general, and beyond such a sad story, this period of time — at least to me — is taking on an increasingly strange, unsettling quality. Odd glints of life and death here and there, stories along the lines of Ferguson, etc, Greece, etc, and, well, the former Bruce Jenner.

Of course, human history is full of ups and downs, but there’s something more disquieting about this particular moment compared with moments over the past 50-plus years. I’m not sure how much of that is due to the pathetic socio-political-economic trends lying below the surface of this and other nations. For instance, it wasn’t all that long ago that I believed Americans had enough good sense to never allow someone like Obama into the White House. Wrong!

Even that notwithstanding, there does seem something strangely “end times-ish” about this segment of the early 21st century.
Mark (a11af2) — 6/14/2015 @ 7:14 pm
I disagree with every word you say but will defend to the death your right to say it. Voltaire. How many have you banned or censored?
banned and censored (0b39a1) — 6/14/2015 @ 7:24 pm
People have gotten tired of living for centuries, Mark. Ain’t nothing new or Ends Time-ish about it.
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/14/2015 @ 7:29 pm
“Condolences, Steve. I had an uncle who passed away from emphysema at the same age and that is not an easy way to go.”

My father died of emphysema at 66. It feels odd to be 11 years older than he was.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 6/14/2015 @ 7:47 pm
“Who gives a crap what some long-dead French pervert said?” — Barack Obama

If anybody has a problem with this comment, please see Perry about it. But let me warn you, he’ll fight to the death for my right to post it.
nk (dbc370) — 6/14/2015 @ 8:11 pm
Perry wears his idiot privilege like a badge of honor.
JD (3b5483) — 6/14/2015 @ 8:18 pm
Back to front?
Gazzer (be559b) — 6/14/2015 @ 8:23 pm
Well, anyway, 73 is too young.
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/14/2015 @ 8:28 pm
If you’re so inclined, hoist one and give a toast to life.
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/14/2015 @ 8:30 pm
I do Steve57. Every day!
Gazzer (be559b) — 6/14/2015 @ 8:55 pm
Ain’t nothing new or Ends Time-ish about it.

FWIW, Steve57, I was alluding to the strangely downbeat tone of the times in general — beyond each and every human’s own personal tragedies — best symbolized by opinion polls that show many Americans continue to say the country is headed in the wrong direction.

As for various people becoming tired of living, how come that dynamic doesn’t seem quite so common in the dystopias of America? For instance, the suicide rate is known to be lower in places like the swamp known as the city of Detroit, etc. Why?
Mark (a11af2) — 6/14/2015 @ 10:19 pm
Tomorrow is just one carjacking away?
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/14/2015 @ 10:30 pm
You ever hear of the Wiemar Republic, Mark? That was like 90 years ago.
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/14/2015 @ 10:32 pm
Coincidentally and ironically — and running counter to my generalization above — this report came out recently.

nytimes.com, May 18, 2015:

The suicide rate among black children has nearly doubled since the early 1990s, while the rate for white children has declined, a new study has found, an unusual pattern that seemed to suggest something troubling was happening among some of the nation’s most vulnerable citizens.

Suicide among children ages 5 to 11, the age range the study measured, is rare, and researchers had to blend several years of data to get reliable results. The findings, which measured the period from 1993 to 2012, were so surprising that researchers waited for an additional year of data to check them. The trend did not change.

Suicide rates are almost always lower among blacks than among whites of any age. But the study, published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics on Monday, found that the rate had risen so steeply among black children — to 2.54 from 1.36 per one million children — that it was substantially above the rate among white children by the end of the period. The rate for white children fell to 0.77 per million from 1.14.

It was the first time a national study found a higher suicide rate for blacks than for whites of any age group, researchers noted.

Sean Joe, a professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis, who has studied suicide among black youth and did not take part in the new research, pointed out that suicide had long been one of the few negative health outcomes that have affected blacks less than whites.

A departure from that trend happened from the mid-1980s to the 1990s, when rising suicide rates among black teenagers narrowed the gap with white teenagers. One hypothesis was that the rate was driven up by easier access to guns; another was that there had been a cultural shift, in which young blacks were not as religiously observant as older blacks. In that thinking, religious faith had conferred a protective quality that had made older blacks less vulnerable to suicide.

[Dr. Christine Moutier, chief medical officer for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention] said the traditionally lower rates for blacks had often been attributed to strong social networks and family support, religious faith and other cultural factors. “That makes me wonder whether there is something in those protective factors that may have shifted in the wrong direction over those two decades,” she said.

^ I’d question Moutier’s assertion that a strong family setting throughout the black populace of the US not only exists but that it’s the reason for the different statistics. For instance, and by contrast, Japan, suffering from less of a breakdown of the family unit, nonetheless is known to have a high suicide rate.
Mark (a11af2) — 6/14/2015 @ 10:48 pm
From what I can glean from the commentings, Mark, I’d rather hang out with Gazzer than you. You, are kind of depressing.
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/14/2015 @ 10:59 pm
If anybody had a reason to be downbeat, to worry about the next day, it was these guys.

http://northstargallery.com/Aircraft/noseart/index.htm

WWII War Bird Nose Art

I hope none of the ladies are offended. But these 20 somethings expressed themselves as 20 somethings are wont to do, and decorated their aircraft in the hope of better days, or to ward off death with visions of life. I won’t apologize for them, as there’s nothing to apologize fore.
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/14/2015 @ 11:10 pm
fore = for.
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/14/2015 @ 11:10 pm
^ I’d question Moutier’s assertion that a strong family setting throughout the black populace of the US not only exists but that it’s the reason for the different statistics. For instance, and by contrast, Japan, suffering from less of a breakdown of the family unit, nonetheless is known to have a high suicide rate.

Mark, you are welcome to question Moutier’s assertion and you should. But I think the assertion is not that “a strong family setting throughout the black populace of the US” exists, but rather one did exist but has deteriorated. And that, my friend, is observable if you’re my age. When I was a kid in Philly every back kid I knew had a mother and father at home and they both worked. Can you say that today? And we weren’t from the Main Line, we were working South Philly. Any kid without a father at home almost always meant he died in Korea. Now they die on the streers or in prison. I’d call that in itself proof of a deteriorating family setting.

For instance, and by contrast, Japan, suffering from less of a breakdown of the family unit, nonetheless is known to have a high suicide rate.

Furthermore, the above adds nothing to the discussion. The Japanese (for instance and by contrast) are one race. There are no black-Japanese, Irish-Japanese, Hispanic-Japanese etc., etc. IOW they are indigenous and all one people as contrasted by our society. There can really be no honest comparison of people all with the identical DNA, social norms and constructs, heritage, social experience and history to the hodge-podge we call America.

Peace!
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27) — 6/15/2015 @ 3:40 am
For instance, the suicide rate is known to be lower in places like the swamp known as the city of Detroit, etc. Why?

Perhaps because the murder rate more than makes up for it?

Solidarity!
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27) — 6/15/2015 @ 3:44 am
Japan, suffering from less of a breakdown of the family unit, nonetheless is known to have a high suicide rate.

Japan has a strong cultural tradition of suicide so I think your analysis is off. Black suicide may well be related to the loss of religious values or it may be related to the hellish atmosphere in black majority schools as teachers back off all discipline.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 6/15/2015 @ 7:15 am
You, are kind of depressing.

Hey, Steve57, you are the one who, after all, did bring up the issue of having an uncle who was tired of life and apparently did things quite consciously to (or did nothing to not) shorten it.

but rather one did exist but has deteriorated

Hoagie, I totally agree that the culture of not just black America but this nation in general has deteriorated over the past 60 years. That’s why if such negative trends referred to by Moutier were of the recent past instead of long ago (ie, if the higher suicide rates for young black children were starting to show up back in the 1970s or even 1960s) I’d think her conclusion was correct.

Moreover, her theorizing a more stable culture will discourage such statistics runs counter to what occurs in — and is why I pointed it out — a society like Japan or, for that matter, certain northern European nations (ie, at least the latter being less bogged down by excessive dysfunction). BTW, higher suicide rates exist among the white populace of South Africa compared with the people trapped in the hardscrabble townships of that same nation.
Mark (a11af2) — 6/15/2015 @ 7:18 am
well Charles Murray, chronicled this in the lower middle class, in his previous book, Falling Apart,
narciso (ee1f88) — 6/15/2015 @ 7:20 am
Perhaps because the murder rate more than makes up for it?

I agree, but not perhaps for your implied reason.

I would suggest that violent nihilistic aggression is directed outward, leading to killing others instead of self or killing of self by others.
kishnevi (9c4b9c) — 6/15/2015 @ 7:21 am
kudos to nk for teaching his daughter about the spey blade.

I would add the sheepsfoot blade is a useful tool. And easy to sharpen.

It’s probably the blade I use most on my Case Stockman.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.mosquitocreekoutdoors.com/images/uploads/CK00079_600.jpg

So is the wharncliffe blade. But that’s more a fighting knife.

http://www.crkt.com/Crawford-Kasper-Dragon-Fixed-Blade-Fighter

Unlike a sheepsfoot blade, it’s got a point.
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/15/2015 @ 7:28 am
There I was talking up the benefits to the straight edge of the sheepsfoot or the wharncliffe blade and I realized I was missing my sharpener.

http://www.atlantacutlery.com/p-957-accusharp-worlds-fastest-sharpener.aspx

I have two. Somewhere.

But for cutting boxes or line nothing beats a sheepsfoot. And when it comes to keeping an edge nothing is easier. A couple of strokes. If you can keep track of your sharpener.
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/15/2015 @ 7:38 am
Hey, Steve57, you are the one who, after all, did bring up the issue of having an uncle who was tired of life and apparently did things quite consciously to (or did nothing to not) shorten it.

Mark, I recovered.
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/15/2015 @ 7:40 am
That’s what we got, Steve. Medium stockman with white bone scales marked Winchester. But my father spayed our hogs with a razor. (The males did not need to be sewed back up, the females did.) And my EDC is a 30-year old Gerber Bolt Action drop point.
nk (dbc370) — 6/15/2015 @ 7:45 am
Great minds and all. My white bone handled stockman has the 3 and a quarter inch spear point blade. Laws vary. In Tejas your less likely to run afoul of the law with a fixec blade knife. I’m reluctant to say what my EDC is but the K-Bar Becker Necker is never a bad choice. Or Columbia River Knife and Tool. Or, a Skean Dhu if you’re a traditionalist.
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/15/2015 @ 8:16 am
http://www.amazon.com/Ka-Bar-BK11-Becker-Necker-Knife/dp/B001N1CBB6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1434381537&sr=8-1&keywords=ka-bar+becker+necker

Good enough for the Marines, good enough for me. I do a paracord wrap around the handle.
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/15/2015 @ 8:21 am

6/14/2015

Former L.A. Times Editor John Carroll Dies

40 Responses to “Former L.A. Times Editor John Carroll Dies”

Favorite Sites

Links

Patterico Sells Out