The Los Angeles Times is moving Tim Rutten from the Calendar section to the Op-Ed pages beginning in the new year. This is a promotion that is long overdue for one of the paper’s best columnists. While I’ve had a disagreement of two with Rutten, he is the most consistently honest and insightful writer the […]
Tim Rutten is the media columnist for the Los Angeles Times. He is rare bright light in a dark media sky. I have written approvingly of his insight on several occasions. That’s why I’m somewhat surprised at an article he published this weekend. Much of it accurately portrayed some of the media’s obtuse gyrations to […]
Human beings are creatures of habit. We find great comfort in familiar surroundings and established routines. That’s why, despite the abundance of persuasions, it is still difficult to break free from a decades long ritual of breakfast with the Los Angeles Times. Difficult, but not impossible. The time has now come when the negatives outweigh […]
Jon Healey, in an editorial for the Los Angeles Times, devotes the first 5 paragraphs of his October 14th column to a rambling conjecture that a vengeful Richard Nixon conspired with the FCC to bar newspapers from owning TV and radio stations in the same market. After this 250 word conspiracy theory on the inception […]
“American newspapers are passing through an era… in which a corporate ownership model seems increasingly unworkable.” Tim Rutten The Tribune Company is emblematic of the pitfalls of corporate ownership of media. It’s portfolio includes 11 daily newspapers, 25 television stations, and cable superstation WGN, as well as WGN-AM radio, the Chicago Cubs, and news, information […]
Let’s face it…The mainstream, corporate press is an insular confederation of stenographers in the newsroom and charlatans in the boardroom. Reporters who are obsessed with access and privilege cannot possibly be relied upon for balance and insight. That’s why what often passes for balance is just the presentation of falsehood as a response to truth. […]
The The Los Angeles Times should pay my doctor bills for the heart attack they gave me by publishing an insightful, well-reasoned, and hard-hitting opinion column yesterday. Tim Rutten’s article, Cheney’s History Needs A Revise, is one of the best deconstructions of the Vice President’s hysterical hypocrisy I’ve read to date. In case you missed […]