Christ on a cracker, is the LA times a rightwing rag now, or what?

[smoogatz]

I'm out here with my wife and son, visiting our inlaws for Hannukmas, and every morning a Mexican guy flings the LAT into the driveway, so I read it. Cripers. Nothing but happy talk about Iraq and W and Arnold on the front page--any negative stories are buried on page G32. The editorial and op-ed sections are entirely devoted to rightwing voices--yesterday there was an op-ed by Bill Frist, of all people, explaining why we should think about invading Iran (same reasons it was "necessary" to invade Iraq, as it turns out). It's a damned shame. The LAT used to be a pretty good paper, and some of their investigative work was first rate. And of course there was Robert Scheer, the brilliant progressive columnist that was fired by Tribune Corp.'s hard-right bean counters. It's one thing not to have a professional football team in a city of ten million people--it's another thing entirely that a city this size no longer has a real newspaper.

[tatertop]

What kind of wine is best with Christ on a Cracker?

[Maat]

2. HeeHee.

;)

Stop that, now.

[tatertop]

9. I love that phrase. I'll try it out today.

[KitchenWitch]

15. I am partial to

Christ on the half shell or Christ on a raft.

[tatertop]

22. I like on the half shell

[yella_dawg]

27. My favorite one is...

Jesus Christ on a shiny red bicycle!

Say it out loud. The alliteration is great.

[smoogatz]

28. There's no alliteration there, I'm afraid.

Alliteration is the repetition of initial vowel or consonant sounds.

[yella_dawg]

29. Brain seizure

sorry. Still can't think of the word.

[smoogatz]

30. Consonance?

Repetition of internal consonant sounds? Lots of s's going on there...

[KitchenWitch]

14. A crisp white chardonnay!

[tatertop]

24. I prefer reds myself. What would Christ serve with Himself?

WWCSWH?

(It just ocurred to me this might irritate someone.
Certainly not our intention to be sure.)

[MissMarple]

26. Communion wine.

;)

[Maat]

1. I, a Californian of 47 years (my entire life) ..

believe that the "Los Angeles Times" has taken a hardright turn during the last couple of years. I cancelled it a couple of years ago, and no longer purchase it.

The local "Californian" might be a rightwing rag (affiliated with the North County Times), but, believe it or not, it actually publishes letters from both sides of the equation.

I believe that, about the time Sheer and the Times parted ways, the editorial board drove the the editorial page rightward like a bus out-of-control going 100 mph, careening over Mt. RightwingShills.

[Raine]

35. The Chandlers sold it and

now it's not even a local paper. It wasn't great before but now it's even worse. x(

[tularetom]

3. Yeah but

It has 2 pages of funnies (even if one of them is that piece o'shit Mallard Fillmore) and the puzzles are pretty good. Other than that I agree it's pretty much worthless except it has a lot of classified ads which you can use to start fires in your fireplace.

[Junkdrawer]

4. Didn't they fire a liberal reporter recently...

:shrug:

[smoogatz]

5. Robert Scheer. An excellent progressive columnist

who's had Bushco and the Iraq war pegged from the get-go. They fired him ecause he was "out of the mainstream"--never mind that the majority of Americans disapprove of Bush and the war.

[question everything]

16. But to "balance" they also fired that rabid cartoonist

Ramirez, was it?

[smoogatz]

17. Ramirez is still around.

He had a cartoon on yesterday's op-ed page, I believe.

[BrotherBuzz]

18. a liberal reporter?

I understand they cleaned house last month of all liberal voices...

[Junkdrawer]

21. In Pittsburgh, I've notice the Post-Gazette has turned to the Right...

perhaps someone believes Dubya's drop in the polls can be fixed with an even tighter grip on the media. :shrug:

[Initech]

6. LA Times has become a total rightwing paper

I cant read the editorial section without wanting to put it through my paper shredder and then setting the shreds on fire.

[Hubris Heaver]

7. LA Times has

been a right wing rag a long time. thats why I cancelled my subscription ( and told them why)

[puerco-bellies]

8. When they fired Scheer they said they would fire Ramirez too.

They kept the RW shill, big surprise. I don't get the times anymore. All we can do in LA is hope for the Herald Examiner to come back from the grave.

[smoogatz]

11. Yep. Ramirez is still around.

Big surprise.

[Cleita]

25. I didn't think Ramirez would go.

It was a cheap trick to keep their left wing subscribers around. They knew letting Scheer go would cause an uproar, so they made it look like they were cutting back. You know that the righties will lie for their own benefit.

[blm]

10. LAT and NYT worked to destroy Gary Webb's credibility on the

CIA drugrunning story.

CIA's own documents proved some years later Webb had his facts correct . His career was destroyed.

No way did LAT and NYT act on their own - they could only have done it complicit WITH Bush1.

[Cleita]

23. Yep, one of the greatest newspapers in our country has

become the voice of the Reich Wing. I am very, very sad. I won't buy it anymore.

[Greyhound]

12. Ever since Tribune bought it in 98(?) n/t

[blm]

31. You got it. But, even before that they attacked Gary Webb and

tried to paint him as a charlatan, when his work was truly deserving of its Pulitzer.

[question everything]

13. Interesting. Got an email from a conservative friend

"The Times is getting terrible. Their front page is little more than an
editorial section against the current administration. I know you are very
anti-Bush. Still, I hope you agree that the News section is supposed to be
for straight reporting and the Opinion section is for partisan articles."

[smoogatz]

19. He's loony. Look at today's front page on-line, if you get a chance. n/t

[yankeedem]

20. I'm going to try to find the article

but about 1997 the LA Times announced that the advertising department now runs the paper- in other words if the advertising department thinks a report would "offend" their advertisers, they can kill the article.

Now I'm sure that this practice is winked at at 1000 papers, but it struck me at the time as being rather blatant. We can see what happens when the editorial department reports to the advertising department.

[ellisonz]

32. My take:

I'm an LA resident so I read the LA Times. It really started to go downhill last year when they changed the op-ed editor...not that the op-ed section was anything really special. Some of the investigative reporting is still really good and Steve Lopez (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-columnist-slopez,1,5658204.columnist?coll=la-mininav-california) is awesome. Local coverage, entertainment and classifieds etc is still good. But yeah...it's been getting worse over the years.

[Kansas Wyatt]

33. The LA Times was conducting push polls for George W. Bush before..

Bush ever got the Republican nomination to run in 2000.

How do I know?

Because I received one of their Shrub prop-up polls, and the lady conducting the poll was totally pissed at me, because I refused to ever select George W. Bush. She asked me if I would ever select Shrub under any circumstance, and I said never. She asked why, and I said that he was full of shit in a polite way, but she still didn't have a clue about why I would never select Shrub. At that point, she finally ended her LA Times Shrub prop-up poll.

[blm]

34. Thanks for speaking up about this - I never heard about their pushpolls.

Focking pathetic newsmedia we have in this country.