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Northern California media analyst Alan Mutter caused more than a little head scratching when he posited that the L.A. Times' move to earlier deadlines has led to smarter front pages. One of those in disbelief is Noel Greenwood, the paper's retired Senior Editor who for many years oversaw all local, state and specialty coverage (and hiring) at the Times. He posted a comment that challenges Mutter's conclusion.
The paper for years has prided itself on developing enterprise stories worthy of page 1. But they do not suddenly flourish because somebody decided to jerk around the page 1 deadline to make some extra bucks printing the Wall St. Journal (I don't buy the contrary spin from your "insiders"). Such stories are the result of intelligent assignments being made, and talented and experienced reporters being given enough time and resources to execute them. Despite your sunny outlook, the continued existence of enterprise stories is imperiled by the Times' grim strategy of steadily decimating its editing and reporting staff.
More over there. By the way, I heard more bad reaction over what the weekend's LAT Sports section had to leave out because of the new deadlines. From LA Observed reader Jeff Prescott:
My Times Sunday home-delivered edition failed to include the Kings and Ducks stories/scores !!!!!!! This has NEVER happened for hockey games that started at 7 or 7:30...How much can this paper shoot itself in the foot????...This will wreak havoc when the Dodgers and Angels start to play.
Prescott lives in La Jolla, so he's outside the Times' main circulation area. But last weekend, the Clippers home game at Staples Center was left out of even some local Los Angeles print editions. After that advance warning to readers about the future, a Sports section insider told me how the deadlines work:
Our first deadline is 9:35 p.m, obviously way to early for any night basketball, hockey and soon to be baseball games. We have a replate deadline at 10:30 which the higher-ups claim makes 90% of the press run, so if we can get the late scores and stories into the paper by then, presumably most of the readers will get the Clips, Dodgers etc.After the 10:30 replate, we have another replate time of 11:30 to get in any real late important stuff, such as the Dodgers and Angels. But that replate would not get to many readers.
Baseball season, and playoff time in the NBA and NHL, will be the real test of the new L.A. Times approach to sports. A newspaper without game stories or box scores?