LOS ANGELES TIMES: THE EDITORS REBELLION

Tim Rutten writes in the Entertainment (!) page of Los Angeles Times a column about the internal fight between the editors of the paper and the Tribune directors.

Bertrand Pecquerie selects in the editors weblog the key quotes:

In Los Angeles, Jeffrey M. Johnson, this newspaper's publisher, and Dean Baquet, its editor, told one of their own reporters that they have rejected demands by the Tribune Co. to further cut The LA Times' staff. Since taking control of the paper six years ago, the Chicago-based Tribune has laid off or bought out about 20% of the paper's then-1,200 person staff."

"Make no mistake, the Los Angeles Times — like most other American newspapers — is more than profitable. The newspaper you're currently holding generates a 20% profit margin, a figure that would give most Fortune 500 chief financial officers a spontaneous orgasm."

"There's a simple truth at work here: A newspaper that is indifferent to its bottom line goes out of business; a newspaper that thinks only of its bottom line has a business that isn't worth saving."

The column ends with this strong and realistic words:

"American newspapers are passing through an era not only of technological change but also one in which a corporate ownership model seems increasingly unworkable. If the Tribune Co. does not feel able or willing to resist its investors' unreasonable demands on behalf of the public's interest, then it should put The Times into the hands of somebody who will."

Well, this is my take:

1. The editors will resign.

2. The Tribune will sell the paper.

My feeling is that the Tribune group is going to be the next Knight-Ridder.

Very soon.

Said all that let me add that Los Angeles Times needs a lot of editorial changes.

This kind of multi-section broadsheet metropolitan newspaper is a model in crisis.