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January 08, 2004 OVERRATED?....OR JUST BAD?....Robert Tagorda is annoyed at RealClear Politics for awarding the Los Angeles Times only second place in their "Most Overrated Editorial Page (Large Market)" competition. He thinks they probably should have come in first. I disagree. I think it's true that the Times' editorial page is pretty weak, but as near as I can tell practically everyone else thinks it's pretty weak too. So it might be bad, but it's not overrated. My own pet peeve with the editorial page, in addition to its general flabbiness, is its longtime habit of running three editorials, the third of which is some kind of jokey, Andy Rooney-ish observation about something in the news. They mostly read as if they were written by a third-rate student newspaper and literally make me cringe when I come across them. If they can't think of three subjects a day to write serious editorials about, they really ought to just give up and turn the space over to the letter writers. Posted by Kevin Drum at January 8, 2004 03:29 PM | TrackBackComments
You're right; how can something be overrated if people already think it's pretty bad? I usually find myself reading 1 of the 3 editorials on a good day; the 2nd editorial usually doesn't say that much of value either; I mainly look past those 3 onto the letters to the editor and the other opinion columns; usually those are pretty good. The intense right-wing slant of the cartoonist always drives me nuts thoguh. I swear they ran anti-Dean cartoons at least 3 or 4 days in a Row at the end of December. It'd be wonderful if they balanced those out, even 50-50. Posted by: Balta at January 8, 2004 03:40 PM | PERMALINKUm, the RealClear wingnuts put the Wall Street Journal and Mark Steyn down as Best Editorial Page and Best Columnist. So we should care about their opinion why? Posted by: Social Scientist at January 8, 2004 03:42 PM | PERMALINKI gave up on the Times over Scheer last spring. When I cancelled, the telephone person laughed and commented that they were flooded with cancellations. Then I resubscribed for football season. Then cancelled again after a couple of weeks. I read the sports page online during the season. They are really poor. The Arnold camapign, the reason for the second toilet flush, was the last straw. I mean the anti-Arnold campaign. At least the NY Times has some news in it. Just pitiful. Posted by: Mike K at January 8, 2004 03:42 PM | PERMALINKWell, I wouldn't cancel my subscription because I thought their editorial page was weak. After all, it's the news I'm really after. And while I know that newspapers are favorite targets of mockery by bloggers, the LAT's news coverage is actually pretty damn good and they often have good stuff that the NYT and WaPo don't. And oddly enough, I agree with Balta about the letters. They're often a pretty amusing assortment. Posted by: Kevin Drum at January 8, 2004 03:49 PM | PERMALINKI have to agree on the news coverage - it's way better for news and especially features than for instance the Chicago Trib, which if I'm not mistaken is a sister paper. I've only started reading it this year (I'm from the Midwest) but I've been amazed at the arts and culture coverage it has, along with detailed news stories. Did you read that terrific series on WalMart around the holidays? Posted by: paul goyette at January 8, 2004 04:05 PM | PERMALINKI just had to laugh at their considering Fareed Zakaria, the New Republic and William Saletan as the best leftists. I'd say Zakaria is as centrist as they come, and the other two are center right at best. Shows they are coming from a pretty far right wing view (as does thinking the homophobic and immigrant-bashing Al Knight is the only good thing about the Denver Post editorial page). Posted by: Luis at January 8, 2004 04:22 PM | PERMALINKMy only exposure to the LAT is via the web, but it's got to be pretty bad to match the all-around awfulness of the Boston Globe. I mean, the NYT can get me all riled up, but the Globe is just plain boring from end to end: dull layout, silly editorials (I'm not familiar with Derrick Jackson but he has to be terrible for RCP to put him above James Carroll), a sports page that is both unreadable and full of mean, bitter writers, even a lousy entertainment section . . . I lived in Mass. for seven years in college and law school and never once saw anything in the Globe that was worth reading, and every time I go back it looks the same. Probably the nation's most underrated paper (although its editorial page is weak) is USAToday, which consistently delivers the nuts and bolts. Besides the country's best sports section, I've found that it consistently has excellent coverage of legal issues and the Supreme Court, which is rare. Posted by: Crank at January 8, 2004 04:24 PM | PERMALINKMore amusing, I thought, was the description of cartoonist Michael Ramirez as the "bright spot" of the page. Ramirez has all the subtlety and wit of a cartoonist for Pravda, and appears to be employed just so the Times can claim they have at least one far right voice, even if it embarrasses other conservatives. The other picks, all in all, were a disappointment; RCP usually does a classier job trumpeting its conservative viewpoint. Posted by: Steve Smith at January 8, 2004 04:30 PM | PERMALINKSo what IS a good editorial page? I cancelled my subscription to the Times when they hired the rightwing editorial nut-cake cartoonist... Posted by: Jeffreyf111 at January 8, 2004 05:03 PM | PERMALINKKevin, if nominated, will you run? If elected, will you serve? Posted by: praktike at January 8, 2004 05:23 PM | PERMALINKKevin, if you don't like Maureen Dowd, just don't read her. Posted by: NohoMissives at January 8, 2004 06:12 PM | PERMALINKNow, the beauty of Ramirez, whose talents seem underappreciated in these parts, is PRECISELY that he's a right-wing hack. Other than Oliphant (who just rips 'em all, bless him), the Op-Ed doodlers seem to range on the political spectrum from Molly Ivins to Robert Scheer. Or is it just that they all were (and remain) the kids who sat in the back of the classroom and mocked authority, which since Jan. 01 has meant Bush? Posted by: Bruce at January 8, 2004 06:15 PM | PERMALINKKrauthammer? The dude who spews dumbed-down and vitriolic false and
misleading assertions as absolute truth with nary a sense of shame? I
mean, Krauthammer, Perle, etc - what's the difference?? Somebody needs
to stay off the crack... PG, the Chicago Tribune is the *parent* paper of the L.A. Times, which makes the far better news coverage in the LAT downright embarrassing to this Chicago area resident and former Angeleno. What's interesting to me about Ramirez is that he clearly doesn't match the LAT editorial point of view. The Chicago Tribune has reportedly had trouble hiring a new in-house cartoonist in part because it can't find the right person to complement (not offset) its editorials. I found the RCP definition of editorial page odd--apparently referring both to the editorials and columnists. I'm not sure newspapers see it that way (which is why columnists appear on the op-ed page, or OPposite the EDitorial page). Posted by: Flyby reader at January 8, 2004 09:46 PM | PERMALINKI certainly hope you're not suggesting that the viewpoint of the maniacs at "Real Clear Politics" is entitled to any weight whatsoever. Posted by: Frederick at January 8, 2004 11:49 PM | PERMALINKYour comment made me think about how I read the op-ed pages of the LA Times -- by which I mean, the order in which I read those pages. By habit, I always read the opinion/cartoon page first, scanning the headlines and first paragraphs to determine which will be interesting enough to actually read. Sometimes I read opinion pieces all the way to the end; usually I stop after the first two or three paragraphs, mentally saying something like either "who cares?" or "well duh." I never read Scheer; the guy's ideological glasses are so thick he has lost the capacity for rational thought and analysis. Then I go to the editorials/letters page, where I first scan the signatures to see if anyone from Topanga has had a letter published and, if so, whether I know him or her. Then I read the letters. Then I check the weather in St. Louis, where my daughter lives, and in Boston, where my son will be going to college next year. Then I move on to the Calendar section. I don't think I've read one of the actual editorials in years. Posted by: bob at January 9, 2004 09:37 AM | PERMALINKHey, try reading the editorial page in my state's newspaper (The Daily Oklahoman) sometime. Named "The Worst Newspaper in America" by the Columbia Journalism Review in 1999 (read about it at http://archives.cjr.org/year/99/1/worst.asp), it's truly pathetic. Imagine Ronald Reagan running a newspaper and the Oklahoman is what you'd get. Actually, the paper's Reagan, its billionaire owner/publisher Edward L. Gaylord, died last year - so maybe the paper will improve. But the Gaylord family still runs it, and the editorials are still about as bad as the CJR article suggests. And it's the only paper in the Oklahoma City area. No one else has pockets deep enough to compete. So I feel your pain, Kevin. Posted by: Silence Dogood at January 9, 2004 09:45 AM | PERMALINKDidn't the guy who writes those wacky third editorials get some kind of journalism award? I hate those too. But I think Ramirez is a great cartoonist -- clear evil genius. His points are never very intelligent and almost always party-line right-wing, but his artistic command is great. I think he'll go down with Der Sturmer in the annals of Evil Cartooning. The LA Times left-wing alternative, Paul Conrad, is just really washed-up and lame. Posted by: josh at January 9, 2004 11:26 AM | PERMALINKI never really read the LA Times opeds, but I've always assumed that Scheer must be pretty good, on the theory that anyone who pisses off Bill O'Reilly as much as he does must be doing something right. Posted by: DJW at January 9, 2004 01:46 PM | PERMALINKWow, Josh, I'd completely forgotten about Conrad (as you said, washed up and lame). 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