This is from Harold Meyerson, the Washington Post columnist and former political editor at LA Weekly.
To the Editor of LA Observed:
Mark Lacter is absolutely right to have characterized me as a "left-winger" in his indignant response to my Washington Post column about the problems attendant to the Koch Brothers buying the L.A. Times. But he's off the mark to characterize my colleague Steve Pearlstein that way in his ad hominen bid to dismiss Steve's suggestion for how Times employees might stave off a Koch purchase. Credibility follows from the merits of an argument, not from ideology, but in case anyone was put off by Lacter's labeling Pearlstein a lefty, let me assure them that Steve is a certifiable centrist, and a professor at George Mason University, which is on nobody's list of left-wing colleges. More relevantly, Pearlstein, who's won a Pulitzer for his work, is also widely regarded as the single best business columnist in the United States.
More relevantly still, Pearlstein's outline for what Tribune employees could do to impede the Kochs (and impede Tribune's board if they wish to sell to the Kochs) isn't the left-wing fantasy that Lacter says it is. Here are the key paragraphs of Pearlstein's piece:
This is a rare moment for Tribune's beleaguered journalists. For the first time in a long time, they actually have leverage. They'd be crazy not to use it.
All it would take would be a letter to Tribune's owners and investment bankers declaring that if the newspapers were sold to an owner who would not invest in quality, politically independent journalism, they will take their talent and experience elsewhere. A one-day strike or sick-out on the day the company is put up for sale would help to reinforce the threat.Under such circumstances, Tribune and bankers would have a legal obligation to disclose this substantial risk to any prospective buyers in its prospectus. The effect would be to lower the eventual sale price, no matter who eventually buys it. And there is a good chance it would scare off any buyers whose aim is to turn Tribune's news organizations into mouthpieces for ideological propaganda.
For any one journalist to make such a threat would be folly. For hundreds to do so collectively would be to lob a stink bomb into this carefully orchestrated sales effort.
Some might wonder what would happen if the threat fails and a hostile new owner takes over and promptly fires all the signatories. My guess is that if an owner has such little respect for value of knowledgeable and experienced journalists, then the chances are those journalists would wind up leaving or being fired for other reasons.
My guess is that readers of L.A. Observed don't share Lacter's indifference or resignation at the prospect of a Koch purchase of the Times. For them, and most especially for Times employees, Pearlstein's column can start a discussion of what, if anything, can be done about it.