LA Times in Chaos

My latest column, Baquet's Billionaire Boys' Club, examines whether the Los Angeles Times editor, "Dean of Arc", is playing a dangerous game with the newspaper's integrity. Here's how it begins:

"Not long after Dean Baquet became editor of the Los Angeles Times, influential entertainment mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg sought a meet-and-greet. It was during this lunch that Katzenberg purposefully let slip big news: His DreamWorks partner David Geffen really wanted to buy the newspaper. Baquet was shocked. “How’s he going to feel the first time we review a movie or music produced by a friend of his?” Baquet asked. Katzenberg just laughed. That was a year ago, and, since then, Geffen’s pursuit of the Tribune Co.’s troubled outpost not only hasn’t flagged, it has fired up, and not just because the paper’s 20 percent profit margin is so much better than the 6 percent earned on bonds. I’m told he’s “very serious” and “pretty confident” about purchasing it someday soon. “He believes that he’s going to be the owner,” an insider explains. That, even though there’s a growing list of fat-cat Angelenos lining up, including Eli Broad and Ron Burkle. But anyone familiar with Hollywood knows how relentless Geffen can be: What David wants, David gets. Says another source: “He has never stopped doing anything until he’s done.” ... Baquet, meanwhile, has never met Geffen. “But if David Geffen called me up tomorrow and said, ‘I want to have lunch,’ I’d probably have lunch with him,” Baquet was overheard saying. “After all, I’m the editor of the L.A. Times.” That’s exactly why this is all such an ethical dilemma, too.

...The Times’ most pressing problem isn’t whether Geffen or someone else buys it, or Tribune sells it, or Baquet gets fired. Instead, the widespread media coverage has ignored the dangerous game being played with the paper’s integrity between this billionaire boys’ club and Baquet or his surrogates behind closed doors. I’ve even looked into accusations that the Times buried an investigation into one of the potential buyers. It’s all so unseemly: There, in August, was the Times’ own West magazine’s Power Issue giving high placement to every past and present rich guy who’s ever expressed interest in owning the paper: Eli Broad (No. 2, fortune valued at $5.6 billion, photo right), Philip Anschutz (No. 6, $6.4 billion), Haim Saban (No. 10, $3.1 billion), Ron Burkle (“who just missed our Top 10,” $2.5 billion), David Geffen (“another enormous name who barely fell out of our Top 10 list,” $4.6 billion) and even Peter Ueberroth (the poorest of the bunch, worth only $50 million). To top it off, Baquet’s name was included on that exclusive roster, thus giving the disturbing impression that he’s playing on their polo field. Yet it’s a fact that he’s hanging with them at their exclusive business clubs...

...Even more troubling has been what are described to me as ongoing “secret” talks between rich-and-powerful Angelenos and one of Baquet’s two handpicked managing editors, Leo Wolinsky. True, his duties include the thankless task of outreach to the readership to stop the newspaper’s circulation nosedive. But I’m told that Wolinsky increasingly has acted as Baquet’s surrogate to drum up local support for a local buyer of the Times. That was certainly the deliberate topic of Wolinsky’s recent meeting with Richard Riordan, the ex-mayor (worth $100 million), who has expressed interest over the years in owning an L.A. newspaper (not just the Times, but even one started from scratch that never got off the ground). Yet here’s Riordan being quoted prominently, and often, in the Times’ own accounts of the Showdown on Spring Street: “It would be in the best interests of Tribune and the best interests of Los Angeles if a sale was completed.” The Times’ newsroom is abuzz with other boldface names supposedly being courted by Wolinsky, including many who signed that letter of protest. But Wolinsky himself refused to confirm or deny or even discuss the meetings with me. Not only is it strange that while Baquet is making such a big deal about recusing himself from such discussions, Wolinsky isn’t. But also it’s bizarre that they’re both so blind to the obvious need for transparency here. Wolinsky has been overheard saying there’s no reason for him to “put up a red flag” when his conversations turn toward the Times’ purchase. But my info shows that he’s the one playing Twister....

...Inside and outside the paper, Baquet has been renamed Dean of Arc, and he’s clearly enjoying the meaning behind that moniker as well as his newly national reputation for standing up against editorial cuts. Even if it’s only partially true that he and his surrogates are playing a tawdry game of footsie with the power elite in Los Angeles, then he’s putting himself and the paper in the terrible position of owing favors to the most thin-skinned men on Earth. A lot of people in the Times newsroom don’t want to believe it. They think Baquet and his cause are righteous. But even if innocent in this matter, he’s laid himself open to criticism anytime a billionaire on that list of past or present would-be buyers gets a break from the Times. Case in point: A Times investigation of grocery magnate and gossip magnet Ron Burkle that began in April, shortly after his involvement in that Page Six scandal became known. (The feds were brought in when Burkle -- left corner photo above -- accused print gossip Jared Paul Stern of trying to shake him down. No charges have yet been filed.) It ended up back-burnered — coincidentally? — after Burkle’s name surfaced as one of the paper’s billionaire suitors. I’ve obtained some of the e-mail exchanges between the staff writer, veteran investigative reporter Ted Rohrlich, and one of his sources... Read column

LA Times Cover-Up? New LA Times Publisher Part Of Controversial Reagan Admin Immigration Policy Call For 'Concentration Camps'

UPDATED THROUGHOUT: OK, so now Dean Baquet is supposed to be staying put. What an incredible gutless wonder! Shame on him. Really, Baquet's seeming decision just shows he cares only about his own ass. Because clearly he's still going to have fire all those staff asses. Unless, of course, he's looking to stage some dramatic "pang of conscience" moment in the very near future for maximum publicity value. At least now journalism can stop characterizing him as "Dean of Arc" and start referring to him as he really is: "Cover-Your-Backside Baquet". (Updates at LAObserved.com. See my Baquet's Billionaire Boys Club.) First, the Chicago-based Tribune Co. this morning axed Los Angeles Times publisher Jeff Johnson and replaced him with Tribune toadie David Hiller, who's long been tipped as the rising star/heir apparent of the Chicago-based media company. (To be fair, Hiller, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, is a great guy personally. But also very much of a company guy.) Now Baquet is reluctant to follow Johnson out the door. Where's the loyalty? After all, "Dean of Arc" is in a pickle: if he doesn't quit in solidarity with Johnson, who risked his job to support editor/exec v-p Baquet's refusal to make those deep staff cuts, then Dean looks like a backstabbing weasel. If he does quit, then he's unemployed, which is never any fun and especially not now given the lousy state of the newspaper industry. Situations where big papers need big editors simply don't come along every day, as Baquet knows -- though I've been hearing on the rumor mill that the rival NYT company would find him a high-profile post at a high-profile paper. Mentioned most frequently is the Boston Globe, but what about LAT alumnus Marty Baron? But this would keep Dean on ice until NYT exec editor Bill Keller is ready to retire. But then there's Jill Abramson waiting in the wings... Ugh, this all makes my head hurt. The LAT own story says this today: "Hiller was expected to ask Times editor Dean Baquet to stay on the job, despite the editor's sharp protests against further job cuts by the Chicago-based parent corporation. Friends of Baquet said the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist had not yet decided to remain with the paper." And remember what I reported last month: that if Baquet leaves, then his trusted senior lieutenants — Doug Frantz, John Montorio and Leo Wolinsky — had agreed to quit on the spot. The trio had what’s being called a “suicide pact.” They felt that they owe Baquet this rather extreme display of their loyalty because he promoted them all in October 2005. (Frantz reportedly claimed today he won't quit. Guess that means there's more than one management gutless wonder on Spring Street.) I know that Baquet, before Johnson's firing, had been seriously contemplating what he'd do if he left voluntarily or involuntarily. He'd said privately that, after working in journalism for 19 years, he'd take a little time, smoke some cigars, and finish reading a couple of books. But then he'd get right back in the saddle and find another newsroom job. Explained Baquet: "I had worked in my father's restaurant in New Orleans, but I know they won't take me back. That place doesn't even exist anymore. Though my older brother does own a restaurant." Sounds like a good honest move to me -- but then so would Baquet loyally following Johnson out the door.

UPDATED: There is no bigger 'hot button' issue than the U.S. immigration policy, especially in California. But the Los Angeles Times appears to be covering up new publisher David Hiller's past role in helping formulate that policy during the Reagan administration. Today's LA Times profile of Hiller mentions only his "two years at the Reagan Justice Department (where his colleagues included current Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani)" without providing any background. But I have some DOJ document copies and old news articles revealing details about Hiller's work back then, especially regarding immigration since at the time the Reagan administration was in the thick of detention issues stemming from a sudden crisis of Haitian and Southeast Asian refugees as well as the fallout from Cuba's Mariel boatlift. Let's start with this: a June 12, 1981 Washington Post story detailing the "drastic action" which a Reagan presidential task force on immigration and refugee policy suggested to deal with the influx into the United States. Written by Charles R. Babcock, the article reports that "a presidential task force has decided to recommend that the Reagan administration take drastic action to prevent any new flood of Cuban and Haitian refugees into Florida by stopping boats on the high seas and detaining the newcomers in what they recognize could be called 'concentration camps.'" The article goes on, "the task force option paper [was] prepared by David Hiller, a special assistant to Attorney General William French Smith." I'm told that Hiller was in charge of the task force on immigration for the Justice Department and was instrumental in dealing with all sorts of policy initiatives including plans for mass deportations back to Mexico of Mexicans in the U.S., illegal alien internment camp proposals, calls for indefinite imprisonment for Cuban boatlift refugees, national ID cards. Not all the proposals met with conservative favor, however: one major play of the Reagan immigration tenets included what many termed an amnesty, which was an anathema to that administration's traditional base. But all this tested the waters for the Reagan administration and eventually laid the legal framework for not only the Bush administration's present-day immigration policy but also its Guantánamo policy. (One specific forerunner was the legal brief Hiller helped write to keep a Cuban in the Mariel boatlift imprisoned in a U.S. federal penitentiary in perpetuity.) "The political sensitivity of the Cuban-Haitian refugee problem is candidly described in the task force option paper prepared by David Hiller, a special assistant to Attorney General William French Smith," the Washington Post article said. "It notes, for instance, that a policy of stopping boats leaving Haiti 'could set an international precedent for turning away 'boat people' seeking asylum in Southeast Asia.' The State Department has tried to talk foreign governments such as Thailand and Malaysia into accepting thousands fleeing Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos. Indefinite detention of newly arrived aliens would create a political problem in the communities near camps, and the 'appearance of 'concentration camps' which, at the present time, would be filled largely by blacks, may be publicly unacceptable,' the report said." In other areas, too, Hiller, along with now Supreme Court Judge John Roberts and Clinton/Whitewater special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, helped serve as funnels for the right-wing think tanks to shape Reagan Administration social agenda. Some of that, like national ID cards, would be considered progressive by today's conservatives, whom the paper has been trying to win back. It was under Hiller's LA Times predecessor Jeff Johnson that the newspaper's opinion and editorial sections were moved out of the editor's domain and into the publisher's purview. I have written extensively on the right-versus-left political maelstrom that’s sucking subscribers out of the newspaper, and the continuing push-pull of conservative vs progressive ideas espoused and embraced in those sections of the paper. (See my The Michael Kinsley Experiment Ends and The Andres Martinez Mystery.) Day in and day out, ever since the 2003 California gubernatorial-recall campaign, when the paper published its election-eve Schwarzenegger groping allegations, right-wing media and bloggers have ganged up to savage the paper’s politics, all the while persuading conservatives to flee the LAT subscriber base in anecdotal droves. The flight did not go unnoticed at Tribune Co., and it has continued to obsess management even now. Now Hiller, the Tribune toadie, comes to the LAT in the midst of its editorial crisis. So, I ask, why was the LAT reporting on him so shallow? From what I can see, Hiller wasn't just a legal behind-the-scenes policymaker re the Reagan administration's U.S. immigration policy but also a spokesman. For instance, in 1982 when leaders of Roman Catholic, Protestant and Jewish organizations joined with civil rights, human rights and Haitian groups in a national coalition demanded the immediate release of Haitian refugees under the Reagan administration's new detention policy, Hiller, as associate deputy U.S. attorney general, presented the Reagan administration's position to the media. Also, by 1985, Hiller was recommended for the Reagan-appointed post of U.S. Attorney for northern Illinois by those with close ties to then Attorney General-designate Edwin J. Meese, the Reagan crony. Just as interesting is that Hiller has ties to Donald Rumsfed, currently the Bush administration's embattled Defense Secretary. A 2001 Chicago Tribune story about Rumsfeld notes that he was a director at Tribune Co. and "friend" of Hiller, then president of Tribune Interactive. Talking about Rumsfeld's career, the paper penned, "Along the way, Rumsfeld acquired a reputation as a tough customer, if a charming one. His squash game is a testament to that. 'I played with him a lot,' recalls his friend, David Hiller, president of Tribune Interactive. 'He is one of the most competitive son-of-a-guns I have ever stepped on the court with: quick, great court strategy and riflelike aim. And he did take pleasure in beating me, his junior by 23 years.'" Again, this wasn't included in today's LA Times profile of Hiller even though Rumsfeld's Pentagon policies, especially the Iraq War, is a mainstay of any newspaper's editorial and opinion pages which Hiller, as publisher, now controls at the LAT. It would be foolish for anyone to assume that Hiller's own political positions have not morphed after 25 years, and it's unlikely he'll publicly reveal them. Then again, Los Angeles has a liberal majority. Finally, the LA Times' own coverage of its publisher swap-out also covered up the circumstances surrounding Jeff Johnson's ouster which wound up being reported by other media e.g. the Washington Post. Because the news needed to be delivered to him in person by Tribune Co. brass, there was a 24-hour delay since Johnson was taking off Wednesday after learning that his wife had been diagnosed with cancer, and he wanted to be with her and their three sons. No mention of this unclass act by Tribune Co. in the LAT. (See my LA TIMES CHAOS)