Why The Los Angeles Times Has No Street Cred!

The headline on the morning version of the LAT website was:

2 found dead in burned building in Windsor Square

Now why would it use the term 'building' when Windsor Square is 100% single family homes. Then came the headline:

2 charred bodies found at Windsor Square fire scene
More than 100 Los Angeles city firefighters worked to control the blaze at a skin-care business on Western Avenue.

Western Avenue is in Windsor Square?? Then the story:

By Jia-Rui Chong, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
11:23 AM PDT, August 16, 2008
Two charred bodies were found early today after a fire in a skin-care business in the Windsor Square area, Los Angeles Fire Department officials said. The cause of the blaze is under investigation.
The fire broke about 2:30 a.m. on the 400 block of South Western Avenue, said department spokeswoman d'Lisa Davies. Authorities were alerted to the blaze by a 911 call from a nearby building, she said. More than 100 firefighters worked for 38 minutes to bring the fire under control.

Now as anyone in this city knows - or should know - 400 S. Western is in the heart of Koreatown. It also used to be called Mid-Wilshire and it has had a couple other names since then. The area between this neighborhood and Windsor Square has also had several names of its own.

But until this moment in time no one has ever claimed that South Western is in Windsor Square - which both headlines do - nor has South Western ever been described as being even in the Windsor Square area. And the only way I can imagine it being called that is if someone picked up a Thomas Guide and looked for the coolest name anywhere near this site and said - well, that works for me!

Now what makes this particular error so embarrassing for the Times is that just two nights ago at a panel discussion on the Times I sat on - the civic tragedy that the reporters and editors of the Times don't even know the streets or the neighborhoods of the city they are supposedly covering was the single most shameful problem at the Times.

And this proves - if anything - we considerably understated the problem.