Free Republic

As the parent company of the Los Angeles Times, Tribune, filed for bankruptcy last week, I was wondering what happened to the holdings of that newspaper's founding family, the Chandlers, who received a hefty bloc of Tribune stock as part of the deal. As a loyal and faithful reader of the LAT for nearly a quarter of a century, I must say I wasn't surprised. When I began reading the paper on a regular basis in the early 1980s,it was not nearly as partisan and liberal as it is today. Back then it did endorse an equal number of Democrats...

"Conga the LA Times" Monday, November 3, 2008 9AM – NOON FreedomMarch.org is continuing the LA Times protest to inspire the newspaper to finally release its Khalidi-Obama video. Senator Obama was allegedly taped toasting former PLO spokesperson, Rashid Khalidi. Please join us for an hour, or all three, to demand that the LA Times fully disclose all information regarding presidential candidate Barack Obama. "Conga the LA Times" Monday, Nov 3, 2008 9AM - NOON. Bring your own flags, cameras, and signs. Travel via Metrolink is recommended. LA Times HQ 202 West 1st St. Los Angeles, CA 90012 The Los...

This is a memo from a Los Angeles Times staffer to eight colleagues. At the source's request, I've deleted names Sent: Fri 10/31/2008 2:29 PM From: [Name removed] To: [Names removed] Subject: The worst yet: Tea with Doyle [McManus, LAT DC bureau chief] Gang, Well, let’s just say it's bad in every way it can be bad. Basically, the LAT no longer has a Washington bureau and we will be under the control of the Tribune Co., much like McClatchy is run. The much-touted 3-man committee was basically used to vote the LAT down 2-1 every time. The formal announcement...

We're off to visit the LA Times. Keep the Picket in the media. Los Angeles Times 202 W. 1st St. Los Angeles, CA 90012 Phone: (213) 237-5000 Fax: (213) 237-7679 Bring Video Cameras!

The Bookworm Room has put together a list of contact addresses for the Los Angeles Times’ advertisers and owners, to ask them to demand that the Times release the video of Barack Obama being praised by former PLO spokesman Rashid Khalidi at a party attended by Obama, radical Palestinian activists, and Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn: Contact information for companies that advertise in the LA Times. 8

Gateway Pundit avers that Peter Wallsten of the Los Angeles Times confirmed to him in a telephone call that his newspaper has a videotape of Barack Obama at an event with Rashid Khalidi at which Israel-bashing takes place. According to Wallsten the evening not surprisingly turned into a classic Jew-bash: "During the dinner a young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. If Palestinians cannot secure their own land, she said, "then you will never see a day of peace." One speaker likened "Zionist...

Let's see. ACORN has been submitting thousands of fraudulent voter registrations and is being investigated by the FBI. However, if you are John McCain you should just keep your mouth shut and not complain about it. That is the absurd assertion of an editorial in today's Los Angeles Times (emphasis mine): John McCain committed a malicious misrepresentation in the last presidential debate when he claimed that ACORN, the liberal activist group, "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." As ACORN acknowledges, it...

On an earlier thread (Laura Bush: Palin lacks foreign policy experience (AP spin and not even close to accurate)), Freeper nuvista revealed that the Associated Press took a Laura Bush/CNN interview and deliberately distorted it to make a hitpiece they could spread all over the Net. Unfortunately, YouTube has a copy of the very same interview, proving beyond a doubt that the interview was distorted to make Laura Bush "say" something she didn't say: YouTube: Laura Bush: "Thrilled" About Sarah Palin Upon searching for the anonymous AP author of the hitpiece, I discovered that Dan Eggen of The Washington Post...

Mark August 7, 2008 on your calendars. That was the day that the John Edwards scandal finally "pierced" the Los Angeles Times blogs following an earlier e-mail from Times editor Tony Pierce muzzling his staff (emphasis mine): Because the only source has been the National Enquirer we have decided not to cover the rumors or salacious speculations. So I am asking you all not to blog about this topic until further notified. The historic occasion for this Edwards scandal to "pierce" the LAT blogs was the looming Democratic convention in which Edwards role there could prove very embarrassing as noted in my...

A surrogate for John McCain made a leftward feint on a campaign conference call today, suggesting that the presumptive Republican nominee might pull troops out of Iraq sooner than Barack Obama. "He’d like troops to come home earlier than 16 months if the conditions allow it," Rep. Heather Wilson, (R-New Mexico), said of McCain.

Los Angeles Times Publisher David Hiller resigned Monday, just hours after the editor of the flagship Chicago Tribune, Ann Marie Lipinski, announced she was quitting. Hiller’s resignation brought an end to a tumultuous 21-month tenure at the paper in which two Los Angeles Times editors quit amid huge staff reductions, and his attempt to move the newspaper’s monthly magazine from the newsroom to the business side revived memories of the 1999 Staples Center “revenue-sharing” controversy. No successor was named. The resignation was reported on the Times Web site, which did not quote Hiller. He was not immediately available for comment....

Los Angeles Times Publisher David Hiller resigned today after a 21-month tenure that included the departure of two Times editors and plans for the sharpest staff and production cuts in the newspaper's history amid a continuing slide in advertising revenue. Tribune Co. -- which owns The Times and other media assets, including the Chicago Tribune and KTLA-TV Channel 5, and the Chicago Cubs baseball team -- named no successor to Hiller. Hiller was the third Times publisher named since the newspaper was acquired in 2000 by Chicago-based Tribune. He succeeded Jeffrey M. Johnson, who lost his job after publicly resisting...

I caught a bit of "The Factor" on TV. Dick Morris was talking about his new book (don't recall the title). In discussing the book, Morris mentioned the Society of Professional Journalists, which has established explicit guidelines for members - guidelines that affect the manner in which the "news" is presented to a largely unsuspecting public. For example, on this page http://spj.org/blog/blogs/diversity/archive/2008/06/23/20797.aspx the SPJ explains why one should not use the term "illegal immigrant". A sample: Both national and local media regularly refer to undocumented immigrants as illegal immigrants, or the most inflamatory phrase, illegal aliens (as if they came...

A well-known Republican research firm argues that the voter pool tapped for the new L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll was too skewed toward Democrats -- a challenge that causes the GOP strategists to question the double-digit lead the survey gave Barack Obama over John McCain. The case against the poll, laid out in a memo sent out today by Public Opinion Strategies, in turn sparked a response from survey director Susan Pinkus, who stood by its methodology and findings. (snip) Pinkus, like most nonpartisan pollsters, rejects that notion. Discussing the current survey, she says, "The poll was weighted slightly, where necessary, to...

Members of the radical group Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) are busy preparing to host a new “war crimes” conference next month in Washington. The event, billed as Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan, takes its title from the IVAW’s namesake and mentor, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). However, information has now come to light that profoundly undermines the VVAW’s original atrocity claims.

Departing L.A. Times editor Jim O'Shea addressed the newsroom this morning and reiterated that he was pushed out and did not quit. He also criticized Tribune's priorities, and said that — like every suit Tribune sent here before him except Publisher David Hiller, incidentally — he came to the conclusion while in L.A. that the best future strategy is to grow the Times not shrink it. From: OShea, James Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 10:53 AM To: yyeditall Subject: I made these farewell remarks in the newsroom today and I wanted to share them with everyone in case they took...

Perhaps the best response came from the Anti-Defamation League, which called Coulter's comments "outrageous, offensive and a throwback to the centuries-old teaching of contempt for Jews and Judaism. The notion that Jews are religiously inferior or imperfect because they do not accept Christian beliefs was the basis for 2,000 years of church-based anti-Semitism. While she is entitled to her beliefs, using mainstream media to espouse the idea that Judaism needs to be replaced with Christianity and that each individual Jew is somehow deficient and needs to be "perfected" is rank Christian supersessionism and has been rejected by the Catholic Church...

The concept of mercy spans testaments and faiths, and any system of justice requires the embrace of mercy for leavening and legitimacy. In this case, justice has been served by Lindh's time in prison. Now Bush is uniquely positioned to grant mercy, for while many will long argue over the effectiveness of his war on terror, none question his commitment to it. By giving Lindh a commutation, Bush could prove that his war is, as he often and properly asserts, not against Islam but against those who seek to harm America. Lindh never sought to harm his country; he has...

Managing Editor Doug Frantz will leave The Times, Editor James O'Shea announced this morning. Frantz's last day will be July 6. The former foreign correspondent served 20 months as one of the paper's top editors. "I felt like I had done as much as I could in this job," Frantz said. He does not have another position yet, but he would like to return to being a reporter. "My true love is reporting and writing," he said. Frantz did not offer an explanation for his resignation. "This is a great newspaper filled with great people," he said. "I'm sure it...

“Facts” disappearing without a trace from LAT bombshell on Fred’s abortion lobbying posted at 5:11 pm on July 9, 2007 by Allahpundit Send to a Friend | printer-friendly Jim Geraghty posted this more than two hours ago. How on earth is it not already all over the right-wing blogosphere? As luck would have it, I myself blockquoted that story at length and can confirm that Jim’s right. The original paragraph: At one of the meals, she recalled, Thompson re-enacted a cowboy death scene from one of his movies. She also remembered him telling her that Sununu had just given him...