Requiem for a Rag: The LA Times Implodes Over the

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At the tail end of 2020, the George Floyd riots and the wreckage they left were smoldering in the ruins. Those riots and the demands made by BLM grifters caused a reckoning of sorts – and not in a good way. Companies fell all over themselves to bend a knee and vow to “do better.” Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) led an assembly of Democrats and knelt for Floyd. Others “took a knee” as well. In 2021, the Los Angeles Times reported:

Under pressure, corporations have started to take concrete actions that can be measured. McDonald’s Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Boeing Co. have set hiring quotas. IBM Corp. has dropped degree requirements that had proved barriers to recruiting minorities. Eighty-one companies in the Bloomberg tracker have expanded their recruitment pool to historically Black colleges and universities.

Another company that “invested” in hiring and promoting minority employees was the LA Times itself. That effort started while the riots were roiling the U.S. Although all I did for the LA Times was freelance with a weekly sports cartoon, that followed years of doing the same for other newspapers. I had contacts at the LA Times, and I heard stories.

Even before Floyd, the Times was publishing stories by “less than seasoned” writers who were minorities. One contact told me that a new columnist was hired to write about being black in America. The first submission was so poorly written that it couldn’t pass the editor’s disdain. It had to be rewritten – in its entirety.

Also, in 2020, while America was still pulling out of the Floyd rubble, the LA Times faced a bit of a quandary. I was told meetings were highlighted by newly hired and unseasoned people yelling at editors and demanding that they get “page one” bylines. Why? Because they were minorities and there weren’t enough minorities in the newsroom or featured on page one. They demanded that they “jump the line” simply for “diversity” sake. That, as they say, is not how any of this works.

In my opinion, this soon was reflected in the type of product that the LA Times produced. For me, the LA Times became unreadable, not just because the paper’s politics had gone off a cliff, but because the quality of writing had also gone off a cliff.

There has always been a “system” in place at major publications. It requires new writers to start at the bottom – learn the craft and work their way up. Like an apprentice. If you’re very good, you move to better beats, better assignments. Apparently that system was trashed on the altar of “diversity.” And, it showed.

The LA Times is clearly on the left end of the political spectrum. As RedState’s Jennifer Van Laar pointed out, the LA Times endorsed George Gascon in his bid to return as district attorney. Gascon is a terrible DA. Many of his seasoned prosecutors have nothing but disdain for him. But the LA Times endorsed him. Why? Because the Editorial Board is left, of left.

Thus, it was expected that the LA Times would endorse Kamala Harris. She’s from California and her politics are round peg to the Times’ round hole. So, when it didn’t endorse Harris, it was a thunderbolt, not because the paper’s endorsement would have changed a single vote. It wouldn’t have. But a non-endorsement is like Tim Walz’s wife suddenly coming out as a voting agnostic.

The Times’ employee union (it calls it a “Guild”) is/was horrified by the apparent pressure of the owner not to endorse Harris. It wants answers. There is a very lengthy article by The Wrap detailing the internal turmoil and angst felt by faithful Trump haters. They are aghast that their paper won’t full-throatily endorse Harris.

“We are even more concerned that he is now unfairly assigning blame to Editorial Board members for his decision not to endorse,” the statement read. “We are still pressing for answers from newsroom management on behalf of our members.”

“Pressing for answers” means that management is getting yelled at. Bigly.

The Wrap article also reproduced a screenshot group of Slack messages that show the employees wailing and gnashing of teeth.

The editorial board editor, Sharon Waxman, has resigned because her paper’s editorial page wasn’t allowed to endorse Harris and (no doubt) detail how much they hate Trump. No doubt, more will resign in protest.

In part, she wrote:

It makes us look craven and hypocritical, maybe even a bit sexist and racist. How could we spend eight years railing against Trump and the danger his leadership poses to the country and then fail to endorse the perfectly decent Democrat challenger–who we previously endorsed for the US Senate? The non-endorsement undermines the integrity of the editorial board and every single endorsement we make, down to school board races. People will justifiably wonder if each endorsement was a decision made by a group of journalists after extensive research and discussion, or through decree by the owner. Seven years ago, the editorial board wrote this in its series about Donald Trump “Our Dishonest President”: “Men and women of conscience can no longer withhold judgment. Trump’s erratic nature and his impulsive, demagogic style endanger us all.”

I still believe that’s true.

In these dangerous times, staying silent isn’t just indifference, it is complicity. I’m standing up by stepping down from the editorial board. Please accept this as my formal resignation, effective immediately.

It is a slap in the face to Harris. The biggest paper in her home state didn’t endorse her.

I am a terrible person. Admittedly, I am enjoying the death rattle of the LA Times. Legacy media like the LA Times are dying. Like it or not, the LA Times is now a giant leftist editorial page, and for those reasons it is headed in the direction of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. If you ask – what is the “Herald Examiner?” My answer is – “Exactly.” The Herald is in the cemetery of dead newspapers. It died decades ago. It shriveled up and died, not over its politics – but a lack of readers.

The Times is hemorrhaging money. It is hemorrhaging readers. It cannot exist on the same plane as it exists today. It shuns half of its potential readership – calling them bigots and racists and climate deniers. It continues to lose money and readers, and soon, it will be but a memory.

Requiem of a Rag. Goodbye LA Times, I knew you well. Alas, poor Yorick… you did this to yourself