Message from Easy Writer --subscriber of the LAT

You know, I can't pinpoint ALL the blame on David Hiller, the Tribune company or any number of other publishers in the US for the way news is being covered today. Yet, as Ed has written in an earlier post, The Good Old Days are gone. I don't want to slide away on the cliché that the LA Times is a great paper, because at one time, it truly was. It had more impact on my life than any local TV news program. It's not the fishwrap that some people like to pretend it is, there are still great people employed at the Times, the men and women who print it are among the very best. Yet, I can't help but notice that some of this 'hybridizing' is less than great.

I have noticed a blurring of editorial lines when the online edition features bloggers such as Tom O'Neil and Elizabeth Snead. Just recently, Snead's contribution to journalism was to show the unstraightened teeth of Johnny Depp's girlfriend. Her reaction was something akin to "yuck." This isn't even "soft news." This is nothing but... well....petty gossip.

And so I'm supposed to get excited about this? I'm supposed to believe that Johnny Depp's girlfriend's teeth are "relevant to our region?"

I hope not. I hope this isn't the dumbing down that we're expected to endure. The Travel Section and The Envelope are two things that are the most irrelevant things to my life, however, the contents of both are consistently overreported by every other news media outlet in the nation, indeed the world. Therefore, it seems relevant, but in actuality, it's clutter for the brain.

What does The LA Times have in common with the The Guardian, The Times of India, The NY Times, and The Sydney Morning Herald?

Each reported that Nicole Kidman wore a red dress with a red bow.

While it seems inevitable to some that the print edition might go down to tabloid size; to others that the editorial section will shrink; and the opinion of some that good writers will be laid off and turn to blogging, it's not necessarily a welcome change. It's more like a sad good-bye, and a hello to an increasing homogenization of the news.

While I enjoy the worldliness of the news, it's a sidenote to know the weather in London. Here's what I want to know: who is going to follow the local stories that affect this region? Is the Travel Section and The Envelope going to be given more resources than the reporters covering city hall, where taxpayer dollars are spent each day? Who is going to report Villagairosa's takeover of the schools? Who is going to report on the LAPD? The overdevelopment of desert lands? The critical water shortage facing us? The issue of overpopulation of this city and also the state? And what about this war in Iraq? How is it affecting the local economy? How are the medical needs of the soldiers being handled by the local VA? What's going on with the warfare on our own city streets?

Or maybe, as The Travel Section and The Envelope suggests, most people aren't just interested in these things anymore. The readers have simply stopped caring. I sure hope not.

RIP Rubén Salazar. Boy, would he have hated this watering down.