— Once you fall prey to a group with a death wish, like California Republicans, you know one when you see one, and Dick Riordan sees one at the L. A. Times:
“I don’t think any paper should have a monopoly, and The Times has a death wish for Los Angeles,” he said. “It would like to see the city destroyed, and 99% of the local news it prints is negative, and that hurts the city. “I’m not suggesting that The Times ought to engage in boosterism or dishonest reporting,” said the lawyer and venture capitalist, whose personal worth is thought to exceed $100 million. “I’m just against the paper’s intellectual dishonesty and political correctness.”
The Times must be worried, given the belated and snarky nature of their coverage of the biggest media story to hit LA since the Chicago Tribune bought the Times. And that’s good; the Times is the closest thing we have to a real newspaper in California, and it’s not near close enough. They’ve been skating by for years thanks to a monopoly in the local market and no serious competition at the state level. There are some good regional papers here — the San Diego Union-Trib and the Sac Bee (on state politics,) but they aren’t read outside their local market. Nothing builds a fire under the ass of a fat. sloppy monopoly like a little competition.