Cancelled column brings reaction

Peter Dreier, the Occidental College politics and policy professor, is not happy with the LAT's decision to dump Rick Wartzman's biz section column. You might recall that Wartzman had been the Times business editor before moving to West magazine for a while and then resigning to be a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. However, he cut a deal with then biz editor Russ Stanton to pen a weekly column as an independent contractor. That arrangement lasted just a few months (final column was last Sunday). Here's the LAO account. Dreier says Wartzman was one of the few voices who paid special attention to economic issues impacting working class Agelenos. He sent off a letter to the LAT business page that's been picked up by CJR's Dean Starkman.

Rick Wartzman's column has helped fill the vacuum and bring a new slant to the paper's coverage of these issues. His column has been a wonderful breath of fresh air. It is well-written, insightful, unpredictable, and provocative. Even when I don't agree with Wartzman's views, I believe I am better-informed for having read his column. I have assigned some of his columns in my courses at Occidental. He has covered issues and stories that are missing in the rest of the paper, and he has developed a growing and loyal following of readers. The loss of Wartzman's column would be one more example of the Times' seeming unwillingness to expand its journalistic horizons beyond a narrow demographic of readers.

[CUT]

The Times has a daily "business" section that seems to be written for a very narrow demographic of people in management and the upper tiers of the professions. But it needn't focus narrowly on the corporate culture. It should, rather, focus on the way business and the economy shapes our lives, and look at things from the bottom up as well as from the top down. The Times seems to be tilting its news coverage toward the trivial, celebrity-oriented culture. Why waste all that talent at the paper on such trivia when there are important issues and problems that readers need to know about, issues and problems that can be humanized, as Wartzman does, so that they are no abstractions but stories about real people?

Here's how Business Editor Davan Maharaj responded to Starkman:

The Los Angeles Times remains devoted to covering workers and issues involving working families. Rick's departure does not in any way diminish our commitment to this. We are encouraging reporters on every beat to think more about how business practices affect the lives of working families. In the coming weeks and months, you'll see new bylines and features in the Business section that I am confident you will find tackle these important matters.