-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=126175&thesection=news&thesubsection=world 20/03/00 - <i>LA Times</i> succumbs to whims of owners <br> LOS ANGELES - If you have seen the movie Chinatown then you know at least a little about the Chandler family, which last week stunned their hometown - not to mention the head of their flagship company - by selling the Los Angeles Times for $US8.4 billion ($17.2 billion). The news came so suddenly that reeling reporters even felt a fleeting twinge of sympathy for the newspaper chain's detested chairman Mark Willse, who was sobbing as he announced the paper's purchase by the Chicago Tribune's media empire. Like the flabbergasted newsroom, and LA as a whole, Willse had no idea his masters were bailing out. He was just one more dupe in what history will regard as the final act of devious treachery by the family that have controlled the paper since its birth 115 years ago. The Chandlers' ink-stained thumbprint is all over modern Los Angeles. After the First World War, their paper was a prime inspiration for a frenzy of xenophobic paranoia that launched the federal agency soon to be known as the FBI on a national rampage against radicals, Communists, Wobblies and suspicious foreigners. It was a campaign that served as a precedent for the McCarthy witch-hunts of 30 years later, which the paper also endorsed and defended long after Tailgunner Joe's other allies had lapsed into an embarrassed silence. In the 1930s, in the incident that inspired Chinatown, the Chandlers bought, bribed, browbeat and blackmailed their way to take control of all the water flowing through the agricultural Owens Valley, 400km from the parched City of Angels. One day the small farmers could irrigate their fields; the next, their water was gone, their crops dying and their families ruined. Meanwhile, the liquid gold was diverted to the parched San Fernando Valley, all of which the Chandlers owned. In the 1950s, the Chandlers put their paper at the disposal of up-and-coming redbaiter Richard Nixon. And in the sixties, they launched Ronald Reagan's political career by energetically endorsing his bid to become Governor of California. Five years ago, in a move that reflected how the most recent generation of Chandlers had lost their appetite for hands-on management, the family trust that controls the paper hired Willes to boost profits any way he chose. Formerly the chairman of a breakfast-food company, his first move was to sack 7000 employees and shut a money-losing paper in New York - corporate carnage that saw him dubbed The Cereal Killer. His next move was to populate the business side of the operation with executives who not only knew nothing about journalism but also held its ethical traditions in open disdain. The timing of the whiz kids' arrival was truly ironic since, without the Chandlers' active meddling, a succession of editors had transformed the paper from a right-wing joke into one of America's greatest and most reputable news organs. Willse, who began his tenure on an alarming note by urging editors not to run stories critical of advertisers, did not seem to care a jot about the paper's hard-won integrity. Profits were booming and the stock price quadrupled. This approach reached its nadir late last year when Willse's handpicked corporate heir, publisher Kathryn Downing, cut a secret deal with LA's new Staples Centre sports stadium, agreeing to split the profits from a glossy magazine in the top-selling Sunday edition that commemorated the arena's opening. When the editorial staff found out about the secret pact, their resulting protests over the breach of the "Chinese Wall" separating advertising and editorial sparked a rancorous internal investigation that remains an open sore with editors and reporters alike. "There wouldn't be an LA Times if the Chandlers hadn't created it," said author and former reporter John Gregory Dunne, who also pointed out that the upcoming Academy Awards will be presented in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. "But for them to cut and run like this, it's like being gut-shot. I still can't believe they're cutting the cord." Other staffers, particularly those who have worked for papers controlled by the Chicago Tribune, saw their wonder at the Chandlers' sudden departure tinged with no small degree of fear. Where the Chandlers have been merely mercenary in their approach to the news business, the boys from Chicago have made bloody ruthlessness a corporate motif. With the LA Times' chain of media outlets in its pocket, the Tribune's braintrust will soon control 11 daily papers, four radio stations, 22 television stations and the Chicago Cubs baseball team. A sparkling roster of properties in itself, the Tribune sees the melded empire as a springboard to a huge Internet presence that will tap the traditional media outlets for content to fill a wide range of Websites and e-commerce ventures. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soap-boxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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