THEY say that everything is bigger in America, and this was certainly true at the Los Angeles Times last week.
Declining newspaper sales might be raising tensions between journalists and corporate owners all over the place, but they have reached unprecedented levels on LA’s most famous newspaper.
Having refused to make new staff cuts on the back of over 200 redundancies over the past five years, editor Dean Baquet has astonished the industry by running a story where he was quoted restating his position.
The story, ostensibly about civic leaders sending a protest letter to LA Times owner Tribune Company, quoted Baquet saying: “I am not averse to making cuts, but you can go too far, and I don’t plan to do that … To make substantial reductions would significantly damage the quality of the newspaper.”
The story reported that Tribune Publishing division president Scott C Smith had asked the paper’s management to come up with a new plan for cuts. But when he visited LA, Baquet made it clear that no plan had been produced and that there was no need for further discussion.
The request from Tribune had followed a drop in sales of around a quarter over the past 15 years, down to 851,500 in the six months to March.
While cuts have led to strikes or widespread anger at media owners like Trinity Mirror, the Telegraph Group and the BBC in the UK in recent months, editors have generally kept their heads well below the parapet in public.
It was not clear whether Baquet had increased his chances of keeping his job by going public. A spokesman would only say that the paper would let the story speak for itself.
A Tribune spokesman would not comment on Baquet’s future. He said: “In this rapidly changing media environment, we are all working together to best serve our communities, customers, and shareholders. And we’re confident we succeed in doing so.”
