PONTEFICATIONS

A CITY WITH ONLY ONE MAJOR NEWSPAPER is like a state with only one political party: monopoly inevitably opens the door to corruption. And when a monopoly newspaper becomes co-conspirator with a ruling political monopoly, democracy itself is put in peril.  Who is left to defend the people?  

 Los Angeles has only one major newspaper, The L.A. Times, whose partisan leftist slant became obvious to all during the final days leading up to yesterday’s recall vote.

Slightly less obvious, but even more frightening, is that this once-great newspaper did worse than tilt its reporting to the Left.  This newspaper betrayed its most fundamental role: to be an honest watchdog that warns the people of government wrongdoing. Instead, the Los Angeles Times reportedly became an attack dog working in conjunction with corrupt Democratic Party bosses who dominate both houses of the state legislature and control every statewide office in California.

“Senior Democratic strategists knew the particulars of last Thursday’s L.A. Times (alleged harassment of women) expose on Arnold Schwarzenegger well in advance of the story’s publication,” writes well-connected Bill Bradley in the leftist L.A. Weekly newspaper. By “well in advance,” Bradley told Slate Magazine’s Mickey Kaus, he meant that “the Democrats had it at least a day in advance, perhaps longer.”

“This knowledge came,” Bradley continued, “not only in advance of publication but also before anyone outside a close circle at the Times knew of the story’s timing and particulars…Advance knowledge of the story was very helpful to Governor Gray Davis’ efforts to retain his office in the recall election.

“I had been very impressed with the alacrity with which Davis and the Democrats seized on the Times story and swiftly pivoted into all-out attack mode,” Bradley continued. “A flurry of press statements and highly coordinated events and advertising involving politicians across the state and in Washington, D.C., ensued. It was remarkably efficient. But if you know what is coming in the news flow and when it is coming, it is much easier to design the close of your campaign.”

But the Democrats had more than mere advance knowledge from deep inside the Los Angeles Times, Bradley’s evidence suggests.  Democratic operatives apparently had a hand in concocting the L.A. Times’ smear attack. The Los Angeles Times on Monday, notes Bradley, “backed off its previous contention” that none of the women in subsequent stories came forward at the urging of Schwarzenegger’s opponents. 

One of the three women in the Times’ Saturday raw sewage dump against Schwarzenegger was brought forward by Jodie Evans, described by the Los Angeles Times as a peace activist and “co-founder of the women’s peace group Code Pink.”

“At best,” writes Bradley, “this is an incomplete, misleading description.” Jodie Evans, he continues, “is actually a former close colleague of Gov. Gray Davis, a longtime Democratic operative and a friend of noted Democratic hit man Bob Mulholland. Evans is also the ex-wife of Westside financier Max Palevsky, the man who gave Gray Davis his first job in politics as the fund-raiser in Tom Bradley’s 1973 mayoral campaign….

“Evans,” he continued, “worked closely with Davis in the administration of Gov. Jerry Brown. While Davis served as Brown’s chief of staff, Evans was Brown’s chief fundraiser and director of administration in the governor’s office.

“Why didn’t the Times give an accurate description of Evans,” asked Bradley, “who has pushed at least one woman to come forward with last-minute charges? …I asked veteran Times columnist George Skeleton, who acknowledges the reality of Evans’ deep ties to Davis and the Democrats, why the Times described her so disingenously.

“’Maybe the reporters and editors just didn’t know,’ he says.

“The [Los Angeles] Times is presenting itself authoritatively on these matters,” Bradley continued.  “If the Times doesn’t know where the stories are coming from, what else does it not know? If the Times is not ignorant about these connections, that is a whole different kettle of fish.” And those rotten fish stink to high heavens. 

What Bradley could have added is that if the Times did not know, then it should immediately upon publication of Bradley’s story have apologized publicly and in print to its readers and Arnold Schwarzenegger.  But with the election pending and its editorial support having gone to the Democrats, the Los Angeles Times let the deception it had published stand uncorrected.

Of the first Los Angeles Times “He groped me” smear last Thursday, the honorable Susan Estrich – expert on sex laws, professor of law at the University of Southern California, and a prominent Democrat who was national campaign manager for Democrat Michael Dukakis’ 1988 presidential run – was outraged that this newspaper only days before an election would hunt down uncomplaining women to create this loathsome attack based mostly on anonymous sources.

“What this story accomplishes,” wrote Professor Estrich, “is less an attack on Schwarzenegger than a smear on the press.  It reaffirms everything that’s wrong with the political process. Anonymous charges from years ago made in the closing days of a campaign undermine fair politics.

“This attack,” veteran Democratic Party worker Estrich continued, “coming as late as it does, from a newspaper that has been acting more like a cheerleader for Gray Davis than an objective source of information, will be dismissed by most people as more Davis-like dirty politics. Is this the worst they could come up with?”

The Los Angeles Times had assigned three veteran reporters and given them seven weeks to find dirt, women willing to claim Schwarzenegger had ever touched them inappropriately or said anything dirty to them. By any account, the first Times smear failed to provide credible evidence.

This smear did, however, use an anonymous source to allege that Schwarzenegger had used vile language – and this leftist newspaper quoted these purported words, words that as one radio talk host noted the Politically Correct Los Angeles Times would never have quoted if attributed  by multiple named witnesses to a convicted child molester.

And the first Los Angeles Times hit piece did something familiar in Hollywood. It created what producers refer to as “an open casting call,” signaling aspiring actresses that the newspaper would be happy to publish anything nasty they could say to accuse Arnold. Whatever they said would be believed and published, and no scrutiny would be given to any ulterior motives the accusers might have. 

(Even if quoted anonymously, an actress might have been promised a job or role. Hollywood is full of leftist producers and directors who might reward those who helped to destroy Republican Schwarzenegger.)

Democrats, meanwhile, were being given a pass.  No troika of reporters were assigned to track down evidence of candidate and Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante’s racist and corrupt past.

And as veteran California political reporter Jill Stewart has brought to light, the Los Angeles Times did no story about well-documented instances of Governor Gray Davis’ violent and obscene behavior, including violence against women, one of whom had to be hospitalized after Davis attacked her.  According to Stewart, the Los Angeles Times interviewed this woman, a 62-year-old secretary and longtime veteran on Davis’ staff. But somehow the Times was unwilling to let its readers know this very, very dark side of the Democrat it was actively helping to defeat the recall.

Outraged by the Los Angeles Times’ sins of commission and omission, as of Saturday more than 1,000 readers (according to the Times itself) had cancelled their subscriptions to the newspaper in protest. “In addition,” it reported, “the newspaper had received as many as 400 phone calls critical of its coverage – many angry, some profane.” 

In talk radio we use as one gauge of public feeling a concept called the Trendex Rule of Thumb. It holds that for every one person who calls, 1,000 others were listening and probably felt the same way but were not motivated to call. By this standard, one could say that 1,400,000 Los Angeles Times readers felt some degree of disgust with its dishonest coverage tilted to help Democrats win the October 7 election.

Under our First Amendment, a newspaper has every right to be biased. Indeed, early in our Republic newspapers wore their prejudice proudly in names such as the Springfield Republican or St. Louis Globe-Democrat. 

Somewhere around a century ago newspapers decided that they would at least attempt to appear fair and objective.  Journalism evolved from that into “Interpretative Reporting,” in which the reporter would tell you what a politician meant, or what he was evading, when he made a statement.

And since the 1960s the wheel has come full circle with universities teaching “Advocacy Journalism,” in which the reporter sets out deliberately to slant his reporting to advance an ideological agenda.  In the interest of truth-in-labeling, we should simply rename the monopoly newspaper in America’s second largest city the Los Angeles Socialist Daily.

(Some on its staff, such as longtime Marxist and National Correspondent Robert Scheer, with whom I used to work on a weekly public television show in Los Angeles, might object that socialist is too pale a label for the ideological change he aims to impose.)

The remedy to this unholy alliance between unethical Los Angeles Times journalists and editors and the corrupt Democratic Party, of course, is to bring together moderates, Republicans, conservatives and libertarians to create a competing newspaper that gives readers in the City of Angels an alternative.

Strong newspapers exist nearby.  To the north the Los Angeles Daily News serves the San Fernando Valley, with its strong secessionist movement and population so large that if it were a separate city it all by itself would be the sixth largest city in America. But the Daily News’ editorial focus is on being the local newspaper to Valley readers.

To the south, Southern California’s second largest newspaper is the editorially libertarian, pro-capitalist Orange County Register. (Full disclosure: for years I was a thrice-weekly columnist for its Freedom Newspapers chain.)  But the Register is heavily focused on Orange County and under dynastic pressure from some owning Hoiles family members to be sold off.

Even so, the Register if re-named, might be an asset worthy of purchase that could be expanded into the honest newspaper for Los Angeles.  It already has a successful base from which to build.

Former Los Angeles Republican Mayor Richard Riordan, 72, has taken steps towards creating a competiting newspaper to the Los Angeles Times from scratch.  Trouble is, despite Riordan’s many millions of dollars, it could take a lot of scratch – by some estimates $100 to $200 million – to launch such a new newspaper successfully. 

Unlike New York City, home of Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post and the new conservative New York Sun, which appears to have found a niche and staying power, Los Angeles is less of a city of passionate committed readers.  Many subscribe to the Los Angeles Times just for its coupons, sale ads, weekly television guide and entertainment reporting in this Entertainment Industry town.

But Los Angeles has a history of fascinating newspapers dating back to the 1850s, when Angelenos could read about local politicos and scandals in both English and Spanish in both the Los Angeles Star (originally La Estrella de Los Angeles) and El Clamor Publico. (“The Public Clamor”?)  With such heritage, Los Angeles could have a great newspaper in its future.  But newspapers have been struggling to survive across America for decades. Most cities have seen their local newspapers shrink, merge or disappear. This is not necessarily a growth industry whose future enthuses venture capitalists.

Americans now get up to 85 percent of their news via television, both broadcast and the cable news channels.  News junkies can get information faster via the internet and more sophisticated analysis from sites such as FrontPageMagazine.com.  The voice of the people can be heard in the democratic feedback of talk radio, which as the Wall Street Journal’s John Fund pointed out, played a major role along with the internet in driving the recall.

The days are passing when the advice among politicians was “never pick a fight with a man who buys ink by the barrel.”  The Los Angeles Times tried to manipulate the outcome of the October 7 election by concealing some information and instigating negative stories, apparently in cooperation with leaders of the Democratic Party. The new media let smart citizens do an end-run around this disreputable manipulation.

But until newspapers become obsolete, this is a battlefield of information the allies of truth must either bypass with alternative media or occupy with newspapers of our own. And a pre-made market exists in hundreds of thousands of people who never again will believe anything they read in the Los Angeles Times but who want to replace it with a newspaper they can trust.

Why fight on this front?  Because America needs to reclaim California as U.S. territory, pushing back the socialists who have stolen its media and government wherever possible. Because California is worth saving for the red-white-and-blue.