Shiny New Ornaments For The Titanic! Pulitzers For The Times! Or - Why The King-Drew Pulitzer Is The Ultimate Indictment Of The LA Times!

I'll start with the Pulitzer for - yawn - foreign reporting (snore). Kim Murphy's name didn't ring a bell with me - which is no great surprise, as names are not my strong suit. Plus when it comes to foreign stories, I read so many papers and magazines covering the same events, that I just kind of glaze over them each day.

So I - dutifully - began to plow through the first submitted story. But, to my surprise, I recognized the first line. And I also recalled the first paragraph -- and the last one, and quite a bit that was in-between. And the same was true of all three articles.

It wasn't so much that I recalled her writing style, good as it is; rather, I remembered the people she wrote about and the lives she brought to life. And what more can you ask for from a reporter?

As for the second award, on the day the King-Drew series began, I heard groans all over town as people reached down to pick-up their morning paper only to find his year's pre-packaged Pulitzer Prize submission - with five chapters ready to assault them.

Except this series was actually about... Los Angeles. And it was good. Actually, it was great. But rather than me telling you this - just over to the Times website (honest, it won't kill you... just this one time; I promise I'll never ask you this again) and re-read it. Tracy Weber, Charles Ornstein, Mitchell Landsberg and Steve Hymon - along with photographer, Robert Gauthier, all did a superb job

But... after they exposed how cowardly politicians have allowed countless people to unnecessarily die at Killer King to protect corrupt and incompetent hospital administrators and staff, the editorial staff then took this information... and betrayed the people of this city.

Instead of a demand for specific reforms, and instead of offering political cover to the elected officials who have allowed this outrage to go on for 30 years so they could implement these desperately needed reforms - the editorial page said...absolutely nothing. See below:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-kingdrew121204_latpul,1,879918.story?coll=la-home-headlines

That was later followed up by a summing up article which clearly implied that the best possible option was to suspend civil service rules, shut down the hospital (briefly) to regroup and to then only hire back those who can prove they can meet the highest standards. But these obvious solutions were not only not demanded by the Times, but this article all but stated that it was politically impossible for politicians to do what actually needs to be done, and then accepted that it will not be done. See below:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-me-solutions23dec23,1,2745979.story?coll=la-home-headlines

So the LA Times - after exposing what the conspiracy of silence and cowardice has created, has joined those politically correct politicians too afraid to demand the measures necessary to fix this problem. So instead of becoming the solution to the problem of Killer King - the LA Times has become apart of the problem.

But at least they have a shiny new Pulitzer...