LOS ANGELES TIMES' MANAGING EDITOR'S MISCONDUCT INFURIATES
THE COMMUNITY
03-05-2007 20:50:00 | USA | Articles and Analyses
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
Last week's column on the actions of Douglas Frantz, the
Managing Editor of the Los Angeles Times, who has been accused
of discriminatory practices against reporter Mark Arax, sent
shock waves throughout the community. Frantz had blocked the
publication of an article written by veteran reporter Arax on
the Armenian Genocide resolution in the U.S. Congress.
My previous column was posted on scores of websites and
quoted or commented upon by the L.A. Weekly, Hurriyet, one of
the largest newspapers in Turkey, several wire services, and
many other newspapers around the world in various languages.
This writer was also interviewed by Larry Mantle on KPCC radio
in Southern California and appeared on the Larry Zarian TV show
which covers Glendale, Burbank, La Crescenta, Montrose and La
Canada.
Within days of the release of that column, as hundreds of
critical e-mails poured into the newsroom, several top
executives of the Los Angeles Times began issuing public
statements in response to the complaints.
The e-mail sent by David Hiller, the Publisher of The
Times, was both fair and sensible. He assured the readers that
he takes accusations of discrimination at the newspaper "most
seriously." Hiller said that he "will never tolerate anybody
being discriminated against based on ethnicity, race, religion,
or any other ground. This includes how reporters are assigned
stories and how stories are handled in the editing process.
=80¦I am proud of the reporting that The Times does on the
Armenian genocide, and also the positions we have taken on our
editorial pages. I am also proud and grateful for the welcome
and support my new friends in the Southern California Armenian
communities have shown me since my arrival here six months ago.
I look forward to continuing that fine relationship and the
strong and open communications on which it is based."
The second reaction came from Jim O'Shea, the top editor of
the L.A. Times. In a memo to the staff, he said he was
responding to complaints from many staffers and readers who had
written to him in recent days. He stated that he recognized "the
gravity of this issue" and took "these complaints seriously."
Although O'Shea announced that an internal investigation was
being completed, he nevertheless jumped the gun and proceeded
dutifully to defend his colleagueFrantz without waiting for the
completion of that process. While saying that he wanted to "set
the record straight because much of the publicity surrounding
this issue is inaccurate," he proceeded to make several faulty
and misleading statements himself.
In his memo, O'Shea reiterated Frantz's earlier unfounded
accusation of bias on the part of Mark Arax, impugning yet again
the integrity of this professional reporter. O'Shea hid the fact
that a subsequent investigation proved that the so-called
"petition" that Arax and five other reporters were accused of
signing was not a petition, but a letter that simply informed
the editors and the staff of their deviation from the
newspaper's established policy of referring to the Armenian
Genocide as genocide. O'Shea's repetition of such accusations
against Arax serves only to compound the newspaper's potential
legal problems and exposes The Times to possibly more damaging
lawsuits.
Moreover, O'Shea's memo contained several inaccurate
statements:
-- He claimed that The Times simply placed a "hold " on
Arax's story for one week. In fact, the story was put on hold
for two weeks before it was killed and eventually replaced by a
much weaker story on the Armenian Genocide resolution written by
Richard Simon;
-- O'Shea claimed that Simon, the new reporter assigned to
the story, "uncovered additional material involving the position
on the resolution of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi," was false. In
fact, there was nothing new or important in that story. Pelosi
did not even talk to Simon;
-- O'Shea bragged that The Times had done a thorough job
covering the Armenian community and cited 67 stories over the
past two years that mentioned Armenia or Armenians. But he
failed to state that many of these articles had mischaracterized
the Armenian Genocide and only after repeated complaints, a
correction was grudgingly published. Could it be that the editor
was including some of these corrections in his count of 67
stories? Furthermore, even in the midst of the current
controversy, while covering an Armenian Genocide protest rally
in Hollywood, The Times published in its April 25 issue a photo
and caption that read: "=80¦the annual genocide protest marking
the day in 1915 that Armenians say Turkey began mass
deportations, arrests and executions."
Fortunately, O'Shea ended his missive on a positive note by
stating that he would "never tolerate anyone on the staff making
decisions on a story out of a bias or because of the ethnicity
of the writer." Yet he undermined his own credibility when he
added: "In this case, that did not happen," thereby pre-judging
the outcome of the newspaper's internal investigation.
The crudest public statement of all was made by Simon K.C.
Li, the newspaper's Assistant Managing Editor, who rushed
blindly to defend his boss, Douglas Frantz. In a letter to the
L.A. Weekly, Li chided writer Daniel Hernandez for repeating "a
nasty innuendo from Harut Sassounian's piece" and provided a
lengthy and convoluted explanation as to how Frantz ended up
being the moderator of a panel in a conference to be held in
Istanbul in May in which genocide denialist Andrew Mango is to
participate.
Li explained that Frantz was initially supposed to
interview Orhan Pamuk and Elif Shafak at that conference. When
that fell through - Li says he does not know why - Frantz was
assigned to a second panel that also did not materialize and he
ended up on a third panel with denialist Mango "through a series
of accidents." Li could not explain why Frantz did not resign
from the panel, after discovering the names of its participants.
Li unabashedly said he did not know "whether Sassounian's
description of Mango is fair or widely accepted." It is amazing
that the Assistant Managing Editor of the Los Angeles Times
could not type the name Mango into his google search and find
out his identity and position on the Armenian Genocide.
Nevertheless, Li went on to insult L.A. Weekly's readers by
calling them "biased, unthinking, [and] credulous." One would
hope that when Frantz goes, he would take Li with him.
Finally, the Readers' Representative Office at The Times,
acting more like the representative of the management, sent a
reply to those who complained to the newspaper, telling them
that they do not have "the full context of the issue," and
releasing yet another offensive statement from Frantz. The
problem with this statement is that it repeats Frantz's
unfounded accusation against Arax, thus compounding his
discriminatory misconduct against the Armenian American reporter
and getting himself in more legal hot water.
Arax, in an open letter he sent to his colleagues at The
Times on April 30, exposed the details of Frantz's actions and
demanded a public apology from him - which is not asking very
much in view of the gravity of Frantz' misconduct.
It behooves the top management of the L.A. Times to resolve
their Douglas Frantz problem as soon possible, before the
reputation of this venerable newspaper is further tarnished.