Times Editorial Positions Partially Explain Loss In Circulation
Why does the L.A. Times continue to lose circulation, now down about 50% since the Tribune Co. took over in 2000, to less than 800,000 on some days?
To find the answer you need look no further than the editorial titled "Goodbye, Dubai," Friday, March 10. "Protectionists, Rejoice," this silly editorial begins, as Andres Martinez, the editorial page editor, plows ahead, taking a position that only 17% of the American people have endorsed in recent polls, that we should welcome Arabs to guard the security of U.S. ports.
Well, I happen to have visited Dubai, back in 2002, and I can testify from personal knowledge that it's no great ally or comrade of the United States.
When I was there, I learned that the great majority of Dubai's population were workers imported from Pakistan, India and the Philippines, and these poor souls were never allowed to become citizens, but instead were forced in retirement to return back to their home countries.
In short, this is a country that like Saudi Arabia lives off a quasi slave population.
But it is not as religious as Saudi Arabia. They sell liquor freely in the Dubai hotels. It is a secular paradise for anyone who wants to live that way.
It may have cooperated with the U.S in the various Gulf wars, but it has done so as an investment, for pecuniary reasons.
Such a country is not an ally. It is an associate of convenience and it would be dangerous to put its citizens in charge of U S. port security. Instinctively, the American people know that.
Globalization is not the panacea, the L.A. Times editorials dream it is. It has taken hundreds of thousands of jobs away from deserving Americans and transferred them to the Third World, where people work for peanuts. It has contributed to the trade deficit and sapped the American economy.
It has contributed, in fact, to world discord and lent itself to national bitterness.
And the Times in endorsing it has neglected the interests of the American people and is now being punished by circulation losses.
Under the circumstances, the L.A. Times needs home rule, an ouster of the Tribune Co., and new, local owners.
Then, we won't have editorials that fly in the face of the California and American electorates.
To find the answer you need look no further than the editorial titled "Goodbye, Dubai," Friday, March 10. "Protectionists, Rejoice," this silly editorial begins, as Andres Martinez, the editorial page editor, plows ahead, taking a position that only 17% of the American people have endorsed in recent polls, that we should welcome Arabs to guard the security of U.S. ports.
Well, I happen to have visited Dubai, back in 2002, and I can testify from personal knowledge that it's no great ally or comrade of the United States.
When I was there, I learned that the great majority of Dubai's population were workers imported from Pakistan, India and the Philippines, and these poor souls were never allowed to become citizens, but instead were forced in retirement to return back to their home countries.
In short, this is a country that like Saudi Arabia lives off a quasi slave population.
But it is not as religious as Saudi Arabia. They sell liquor freely in the Dubai hotels. It is a secular paradise for anyone who wants to live that way.
It may have cooperated with the U.S in the various Gulf wars, but it has done so as an investment, for pecuniary reasons.
Such a country is not an ally. It is an associate of convenience and it would be dangerous to put its citizens in charge of U S. port security. Instinctively, the American people know that.
Globalization is not the panacea, the L.A. Times editorials dream it is. It has taken hundreds of thousands of jobs away from deserving Americans and transferred them to the Third World, where people work for peanuts. It has contributed to the trade deficit and sapped the American economy.
It has contributed, in fact, to world discord and lent itself to national bitterness.
And the Times in endorsing it has neglected the interests of the American people and is now being punished by circulation losses.
Under the circumstances, the L.A. Times needs home rule, an ouster of the Tribune Co., and new, local owners.
Then, we won't have editorials that fly in the face of the California and American electorates.
posted by Ken Reich at 1:28 PM
2 Comments:
Yikes...midwest (Windy-City) virtues?
While very deplorable,the loss of 200,000 from 1,000,000, is not a 50% loss. Maybe McClatchy chain
could be the answer to your wish???
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