Sunday, March 25, 2007

For those who read the Los Angeles Times,

Rumsfeld is going to be involved with the paper:
....it's now Rumsfeldgate at the Los Angeles Times. I'm told that Donald Rumsfeld was asked to guest-edit the newspaper's "Current" opinion section which appears on Sundays. The ex-Defense Secretary is a long-time personal and professional friend of LA Times publisher David Hiller, who supervises the paper's editorial, Op-Ed and opinion pages. Rumsfeld also has strong ties to the LA Times' parent company since he was a member of Tribune Co.'s board of directors for years. Sources tell me that Rumsfeld's selection was suggested and approved by Hiller. The former Pentagon chief was expected to follow Hollywood producer Brian Grazer as a Current guest editor under the paper's new quarterly program. Grazer's special section was supposed to appear today but was killed by Hiller (photo below) on Thursday "to avoid even the appearance of conflict" after a newsroom uproar over editorial pages editor Andres Martinez dating a Hollywood publicist whose firm represents Grazer. Martinez resigned in protest. "I think it's fair to say that we got ourselves into a predicament and we should not have let it happen," Hiller said about Grazergate. "The trust our readers place in us, built over 125 years, is of the highest importance and we try never to do anything that would call that into question." But for the LA Times' editorial pages to even be talking to Rumsfeld about guest-editing Current much less offering him the gig, given the Hiller and Tribune Co. connections, is yet another wrinkle in this saga about journalism ethics: here's an even more clear impression of favoritism than Grazergate.
Update: John Amato at Crooks and Liars has more.

No comments: