The Times was two hours later in even mentioning that there was any violence at McArthur Park last night, and even then got all their facts wrong which did not get corrected for another two or three hours. And this morning's article seem to mainly rely upon interviewing the press which was their - and quoting what they had seen on the evening news, along with quoting police sources.
And yet they have numerous photos from a Rick Loomis/LAT - so once assumes he is a staff photographer - showing the first outbreak of the violence when it was still bright day light.
So why no story until longer after everyone else had it? And why was it so wrong when when it first came out?
The LA Times is a different newspaper today than it was a few years ago as owners, editors, editorial policy, writers, and advertisers have changed dramatically. It is now part of a national corporate empire and advertisers do not look kindly on a negative press soiling thier fishing waters. This is the modern American media at work. Newspapers, Televison and Radio stations, have shamelessly become nothing more than advertising platforms with a sideline of cultivating certain helpful consumer and political views. Worse they are integrating thier venues of print and electronic media to reinforce their message to specifically targeted audiences which in term allows them the ability to leverage their ad revenue. They can't do this in isolation as they have to package it in a waveform of culturally acceptable pablum with various eyecatchers based on specific hot buttons. It makes no sense for the LA Times of today to highlight anything that may negatively impact its add revenue or the local economy. There is no reason for it to engage in anything controversal that is system wide. I will never forget the televison pictures of the black uniformed visor and helmeted LAPD formations snaking menacingly in a spiral tandem with peaceful but annoying antiglobalist demonstrators in pure police state fashion. I honestly was amazed at the intensity of the twisted imagery. But it effectively shut down any message the antiglobalist groups had other than they were being annoying and a police problem that required firm handling. Thier message never got out to anybody. How good is that? It squealches whatever they were trying to say in the name of law and order and made them look like ignorant troublemakers. This is what you can expect from the modern media- no truely new information. Democracy goes when the bank makes it "seem" affordable to lease a high end car, but totally controls the media-tainments editorial policy through ad revenue. Personally I am open-minded as to whether it started with hard core aggressive incitement by some professional agitators pushing the envelop purposely into a meelee. This would be good to know, but we never will, so by default it falls on LAPD. With this kind of press how can we sensibly govern ourselves? A nice auto lease is not a substitute for good governance. Nor is outside agitation. Here our free press failed us. What I really noticed in the limited tv footage released was both parties, demonstrators and police seemed totally unhappy with even being there. The grounds around them looked dirty like a cross between an unkept parking lot and prison exercise yard rather than a city park. It was like watching two groups fighting over a dirty dirt mound and sadly to say that is our city. That even a people would choose to picket or defend such a place says a lot about our current state of city affairs. I am not sure if LA ever was a fun city, but its certainly not now. Maybe that is why our mayor is out of town so much championing other causes. Maybe that is why a lot of good businesses and people looking for a more humane and tolerable lifestyle move out. Sooner or later it seems anybody who can afford it is getting out and anybody who can't is moving in. And too many of their kids finding no economy to grow into are simply creating their own with all its citywide problems including early jail time and early mortality. Its just so sadly unfunny how the media simply doesn't cover the "hugeness" of this story in which the very archetypal mindset of a city has so radically changed in less than 40 years. How a city's main moniker newspaper can simply "choose" to ignore this is beyond me. And hollywood is never going to tell you what goes on when the curtain is down.
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