Six Reporters!! And The LA Times Still Can't Honestly Cover The Special Order 40 Story!

Or -- is it the six reporters that keeps the LA Times from actually covering the story?

First the 'good news'. After every other media outlet in Western Civilization has printed the fact, the LA Times - with six reporters as opposed to the NY Times' one man wrecking crew - Charlie LeDuff - has finally - FINALLY! - discovered there are 30,000 criminals who are illegal aliens walking the streets of LA County.

As for the bad news - let's start with the blatantly dishonest - and I mean, embarrassing dishonest - headline reading 'Officers Back New Vision of Sanctuary'.

Now I know a lot of cops - and I talk to them every day on the streets of LA - and they are overwhelming against the concept of allowing sanctuary for illegal aliens who are criminals, even with the 'new vision' part added. So making the lede of the story the claim that cops support this new concept of sanctuary is inexcusably dishonest, no matter how one modifies the statement. Cops are angry and frustrated over the concept. While on one hand, they do not want to be (and should not be) immigration police, they DO want the right to be able to use immigration status to get serious criminals off of the streets.

But since the LA Times' position is in favor of sancuary, that is what both the headline and the start of the story reflect.

Eventually, the LA Times does get around to interviewing cops who are opposed to the concept of sanctuary (cops whose 'vision' is, of course, totally ignored in the headline of the story). But the damage is already done by then. It is often the headline and the start of the story that people just skim when they read a newspaper.

But the most serious damage done by the six reporters, and the god knows how many editors involved in the LA Times version of the 'truth' is, the damage done to the art of journalism. Read below first the LA Times version of the story, and then read Charlie LeDuff's article on the same subject. In one story you get great writing, a visceral sense of what it is like to be a cop in LA and some harsh, unedited truths. In the other version, you find out why the LA Times is daily hemorrhaging readers.

So once again, if you want to know what it is like to live in this city - you have to go to the NY Times and not the LA Times.


http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lapd9apr09,1,5546337.story?coll=la-headlines-california&ctrack=2&cset=true

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/07/national/07crime.html?