Patterico on the LA Times

It made waves yesterday when Andres Martinez ,the editor of the Los Angeles Times resigned, and accused his own paper of having an "agenda", but Patterico, who's been watching the paper for a long time, says here are some real improprieties the paper has been involved in in recent days:

"It creates an appearance of impropriety when one of the fired U.S. Attorneys directly contradicts the major premise of an L.A. Times article published about him - and five days later, there is still no correction.

It creates an appearance of impropriety when the paper splashes on the front page the fact that rationales for firing the U.S. Attorneys were "detailed after the fact" - and saves for the 27th paragraph the fact that they were detailed before the fact as well.

It creates an appearance of impropriety when the paper tells readers that Carol Lam was targeted after she prosecuted Randy "Duke" Cunningham - and fails to tell readers that she was initially targeted several months before the Cunningham scandal saw the light of day.

These distortions, taken together, form a pattern. Misleading stories like these constitute a real appearance of impropriety on the part of the Los Angeles Times - one far worse than any "appearance of impropriety" caused by today's non-scandal. Such stories create the overwhelming impression that (to use former editor Martinez's words) the newsroom's "ostensibly objective news reporters and editors" have an "agenda" - namely, to keep the U.S. Attorney "scandal" alive for as long as possible.

And the facts, and basic concepts of fundamental fairness, can go to hell."

http://patterico.com/2007/03/22/6014/martinez-blasts-la-times-newsrooms-agenda-and-ostensibly-objective-news-reporters-and-editors/