I write for the Los Angeles Times Dust-Up:
Dear Eric,
I want to make a difference. I want to give my readers something they can’t get elsewhere. As a blogger with no love, no life and no money, I must do that or die.
My life is humiliation alternating with desperation. Out-of-control narcissism leaves me with lots of time and a big chip on my shoulder. Writing is how I connect with others. Publishing scoops makes me feel important.
You’re already important. You’ve got the awards and the job to prove it. You have a life. You have a wife and kids.
I ain’t got none of those things.
And I resent it.
You’re a general assignment TV reporter. That is a cool gig unless you want to break stories.
If every TV news program in Los Angeles shut down, our understanding of our city would be essentially unchanged. Be it KTLA or KCBS or KNBC or KABC, local TV news is worthless (except as entertainment).
What is my proof? The paucity of important stories broken by local TV reporters.
Eric, if you had spent Tuesday in bed with Paris Hilton instead of chasing the Lindsay Lohan story, our knowledge of Lindsay Lohan and the issues her case raise would be undiminished. With all the reporters chasing her story, you can’t add much in your few minutes of air time. Only a print reporter or blogger can do something special.
This isn’t your fault. It’s the nature of the medium. TV appeals to the eye, and when people pursue eye candy, "they prostitute themselves" (Numbers 15:39).
If you want to be deep, you have to read. If you want to understand our town right now, you have to read the Los Angeles Times, which has more power (and more accomplished reporters) than every other news organization in L.A. put together.
The Times sets our agenda. Even those who hate the paper and proclaim they never read it are profoundly affected by it because the people who run our city read it and make decisions, in part, by what it publishes.
If a mover-and-shaker in Los Angeles has a story that he wants widely distributed by the most influential media, he won’t turn to me until he has been rejected by all the professional reporters.
I get the droppings. I get the crap that other media don’t want to touch.
Did I break the Villaraigosa story because I’m a great journalist? Was I first to publish about Anthony Pellicano’s troubles because I am so swell? No. I just happened to chitchat with real journalists who wanted to get their stories moving.
I generally hear from the losers of society, those with stories rejected by The Times and the Jewish Journal. I get phone calls at 2 a.m. from drunks and drug addicts. I listen for hours to women who were thrown out of their shul or marriage or university and want to get even.
In this muck, I make my home. But when I look up, I see stars like you, Eric, and I have hope.
Joe emails: "More often than not, there will be a breaking story on Fox or CNN about a news story in Los Angeles. I think the last one I recall was a fire breaking out….turned immediately to KTLA to see Gayle Anderson prattling on about something totally unrelated….they never even covered the story….never sent the KTLA Chopper to cover it, in fact no local news channel did…..you are correct….local television is utter crap if you want "breaking" news…..it’s just entertainment….what is frightening is how many people actually rely on local news for what they really think is going on in the world…I wouldn’t believe local news if they told me the sky was blue."
