Journalism (or perhaps just ‘the media business’ – remains toxic – left, right or center – which is why I’ve left. I hope someone is left to cover all this stuff, meantime, inside baseball – and out.

I will actually agree with you there. Lacey went to bat for me when our publisher was trying to get me to meet with advertisers from nightclubs and online record companies, gently suggesting I should do stories on them. This was less than a week after the takeover, and I mentioned it to him, and he was infuriated. I have respect for Lacey in that area at the very least.

I had the “pleasure” of riding in an elevator at City Hall with Zuma Dogg the morning after the primary last year. He felt the need to say to us in the car that “you probably saw me on KCAL’s political coverage last night…” and boasted about the ratings they got. Clearly desperate for attention.

No one is going to give him a bad time if he were to say something like: I work there so I’m staying out of it. Case closed.

On the other hand, courageous journalism is all about taking risks. Hearing a statement of solidarity with all those who have been shaved from the New Times staff in the last few months from someone with the stature of Gustavo would be extremely important. Beating his chest about how great the coverage is of his own paper while the rest of the chain’s writers are marched off the cliff isn’t very convincing either.

By the way, I saw this week’s L.A. Weekly yesterday. Perused it in about 5 seconds and noticed the page count was down 104. Isn’t that like a recent record for the paper? Someone inside, do tell. It’s almost as small nowadays as Gustavo’s beloved OC Weekly, I think.

Gustavo sent in a letter that sure reads to me like he’s DEFENDING those who do, in fact, sign his paychecks. A reasonable position, but one that should be clearly stated. Here’s what Gustavo wrote at the time. You read it and decide: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070827/letter

Here’s the text:

“Gracias to Jon Wiener for the kind words he said about my column. That said, many of the conclusions he reached about Village Voice Media and its subsequent meaning for my employer, OC Weekly, are ludicrous.

Wiener begins by claiming that the new owners of VVM–the barbarians from Phoenix previously known as the New Times–strip papers of a commitment to their communities and care only about profits. His proof? That LA Weekly and OC Weekly no longer print endorsements. I am personally for newspaper endorsements, but refusing to print them doesn’t translate into a dereliction of duty. Many lively independent papers and blogs don’t offer endorsements; does this mean they’re captains of avarice?

Wiener’s thesis clashes with his own description of VVM’s owners as focusing on hyper-local stories targeting the elite. How is hyper-local coverage not a civic service, especially at a time when dailies are more interested in layoffs, consolidations and the shaved cooters of movie vixens?

Wiener’s analysis implicitly dings OC Weekly, so let’s go to the tape: In June alone, it trashed anti-immigrant wack job Tom Tancredo, cast a critical eye on media accounts of imprisoned Vietnam War relic Vang Pao, exposed white supremacists and other criminals who prey on Orange County’s defenseless, profiled a man who breaks up international slave rings, praised Vietnam’s Communist president and called for legalizing our illegal immigrants. Hardly the stuff of neocons, ¿qué no?

Finally, I’m curious as to why Wiener didn’t talk to the half-dozen staffers who remained at OC Weekly instead of joining Will Swaim at his new paper–especially to the news staff Wiener praised, all of whom stayed. Wiener would’ve found folks who believe that the ideals that made the OC Weekly such an important part of Orange County for the better part of a decade remain safely in place. We old-timers from the ancien régime know a mediocre newspaper chain when we see it, and the new Village Voice Media frankly isn’t one.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO
Staff writer, OC Weekly”

This much is for sure, hardly anyone left standing would call The New Times chain mediocre– that’s far too kind of a description.

It is not an accident, though, that not one writer or editor has ever become a national figure of the magnitude that dozens and dozens of Voice and Weekly writers have achieved – no Wolcott, no Christgau, no Carson, no Hentoff, no Goldstein, no Ventura, no Dargis, no Coll, no Gilmore, no Malan, no Giddens, no Cooper. (Even the hapless L.A. Reader launched the careers of Matt Groening, Robbie Baitz and Steve Erickson among many others.)

Just one minor correction, though: it’s “Arellano,” not “Arrellano.” I know, I know: us Mexicans and that wacky double r!

At any rate, it’s been wild to sit here on the sidelines and watch. Thanks to all the participants for the entertainment, as well as the education.

If, in the not so distant future, someone writes a final obit for the entire print media industry before the last one out turns out the lights, this series of posts on the L A Weekly wouldn’t be a bad place to begin.

And, what Robert Fiore said.