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Bob Scheer's dis-invite from the Times op-ed page resonated all day:
⇒ Email from ex-Timeser David Crook: "Re this line in Scheer's au revoir: 'My only regret is that my pen was not sharper and my words tougher.' Hasn't that always been the problem with the entire Times opinion crowd? When, since the days of Norman Chandler and Kyle Palmer, has anything on the editorial or op-ed pages been famously sharp and tough? Certainly nothing in the last 30 years."
⇒ Email from regular reader Jared: "I just got off the phone with the Times, canceling my subscription, and decided that since I read your website so often, I would email you $25 from PayPal to help keep LA Observed going. Bringing in Goldberg, politics aside, is an insult – a desperate grab for the lowest common denominator. What a precipitous drop in quality of composition that will be. And I’m supposed to pay for that?"
⇒ Mickey Kaus: "I would have kept Robert Scheer, though. He's an annoying egomaniac, certain of his own authority even when he's wackily wrong...Publisher Jeffrey Johnson, who controls the editorial page, is doing a good job of giving everyone the impression he was sent from Chicago by the Tribune Company to make the paper less controversial."
⇒ Matt Welch blogs:"I don't agree at all with ditching Bob. He has a real local following and represents a tangible & not-unimportant segment of Los Angeles; and he writes with a sense of passion too often lacking on any op-ed page. He's frequently been the lone voice agitating against particular outrages, and as often as not he was right while being out on that limb. The right-wing caricature of Scheer has rarely resembled the guy I've known for nearly 20 years, and few pundits have as rich backgrounds in actual reporting than Bob brings to the table."
⇒ Scheer's syndicated column begins in the Huffington Post on Wednesday, he posted there.
More moves at the L.A. Times:
⇒ Deputy Weekend Editor Joe Eckdahl has been promoted to Senior Editor/Nights, making him the go-to guy on front page decisions at night, and Assistant Managing Editor Melissa McCoy has been promoted to Deputy Managing Editor overseeing the design desk, graphics department and news operations group.
PEN Center board member Celeste Fremon and a staff member wade into the comments fray and call Sandra Tsing Loh on the facts in her rant about elitism or whatever it was over the high cost of this week's PEN fundraiser.
The aforementioned Matt Welch also reports that blogger Luke Ford was announced as a member of the new Pajamas Media blog venture, then ex-communicated soon after—possibly because of his porn connection.