{"id":723,"date":"2007-12-26T14:09:10","date_gmt":"2007-12-26T22:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=723"},"modified":"2007-12-26T14:36:35","modified_gmt":"2007-12-26T22:36:35","slug":"l-a-times-promotes-tim-rutten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=723","title":{"rendered":"L. A. Times Promotes Tim Rutten"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Times is moving Tim Rutten<\/a> 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 paper employs – particularly since they traded the brilliant Robert Scheer for the brain-dead Jonah Goldberg.<\/p>\n

Rutten is unafraid of taking on the powerful, even if that means his own bosses. His last “Regarding Media”<\/em> column for Calendar is a good example of this. While he has a much more optimistic view of the Times’ future under new owner Sam Zell than I do, he is also unambiguous in his contempt for corporate media:<\/p>\n

“The era of corporate accumulation has been an unmitigated disaster for American journalism. Money has flowed like a fiscal Mississippi into the pockets of investors and fund managers, draining one newspaper and TV station after another of the resources necessary to serve their communities’ common good.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are a couple of unanswered questions surrounding Rutten’s promotion. Is some other progressive opinion columnist being let go to make room for Rutten’s op-eds? Will a less courageous writer, or a worse, a Big Media apologist, replace Rutten as author of “Regarding Media”<\/em>? Time will tell. But all in all, I will be looking forward to Rutten’s work in the section of the paper where it really belongs. Two years ago I wrote an article praising Rutten’s criticism<\/a> of a speech by Dick Cheney. I closed by noting the difference between Rutten’s substantive analysis and the relative intellectual vacancy of the Times’ Opinion writers:<\/p>\n

“Perhaps I should turn first to the Calendar for insight into the news, then pick up the opinion pages for entertainment, where their newest columnist, Jonah Goldberg, is best known for his fiction.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Beginning next year, it may be safe to read the Opinion section again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[118,61,142,155,41,63],"class_list":["post-723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-media","category-general","tag-jonah-goldberg","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-robert-scheer","tag-sam-zell","tag-tim-rutten","tag-tribune"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-bF","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":87,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=87","url_meta":{"origin":723,"position":0},"title":"Burying The Lede","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/27\/2005","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":245,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=245","url_meta":{"origin":723,"position":1},"title":"Let My Newspapers Go","author":"Mark NC","date":"10\/2\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"\"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Media"","block_context":{"text":"Big Media","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":316,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=316","url_meta":{"origin":723,"position":2},"title":"A Declaration Of Independence From The Los Angeles Times","author":"Mark NC","date":"4\/3\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Media"","block_context":{"text":"Big Media","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":668,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=668","url_meta":{"origin":723,"position":3},"title":"Falling For The Myth Of The Liberal Media","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/19\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Media"","block_context":{"text":"Big Media","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":88,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=88","url_meta":{"origin":723,"position":4},"title":"Sneaking Up On Journalism","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/29\/2005","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":81,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=81","url_meta":{"origin":723,"position":5},"title":"L. A. Times Trades Scheer For Goldberg","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/18\/2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The Los Angeles Times has announced that they have jettisoned their long-time liberal columnist, Robert Scheer. At the same time, they announced that they will begin carrying conservative hack, Jonah Goldberg. This may be the worst trade since the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees. And we don't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Media"","block_context":{"text":"Big Media","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}