Well, now they’ve done it. The newspaper bean counters have given me a darn good reason to stop buying the Los Angeles Times. Al Martinez has been made redundant, as the Brits would say.
The firing, let’s call it what it is, of 60 Times journalists last week, followed earlier purges that included some of the paper’s top talent, among them humorist Roy Rivenburg, Op-Ed page (then Outdoors section) columnist John Balzar, education columnist Bob Sipchen and so many other brilliant writers.
A few years back, around the time of the Chicago Tribune takeover, Martinez’s column was unceremoniously dumped from the California (nee Metro) section, ostensibly because it wasn’t newsy enough. Fortunately, it reappeared in the Calendar section, where a bit of whimsy, even a poetic turn of phrase, was tolerated.
Well, at least he was still in. So twice a week, I drove three miles to buy the paper (we have no home delivery), mostly to read Martinez’s column. It was usually about stuff that matters to me, but whatever the subject, it was always written with exceptional grace and humor. I laughed and cried along with all his many fans. And I hope I learned something about writing. What better teacher could a columnist have?
Granted any newspaper’s first priority is to stay in business. And if that means drastic staff cuts to control costs, to assure stockholders a profit, then so be it. Slash every foreign bureau and correspondents stationed in all the world’s hot spots, as many papers have had to do. To be fair, the highly regarded San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News have also made serious cuts to newsroom staff. To its credit, the Times remains the country’s second largest (after the New York Times) with 18 foreign bureaus. The most recent cuts will save $5 million from a $100 million newsroom budget.
Newspapers nationwide face declines in advertising and subscriptions though most are still profitable. The theory is that today’s readers more often face computer screens than folded newsprint. But what the money managers don’t seem to realize is that one reason people choose a certain paper over another, at least in areas where they still have a choice, is less likely to be news coverage, which can be read online, than opinion. Op-Ed page editors select certain columnists either on the political bias of publishers or, with any luck at all, to reach some balance on controversial issues.
In the days of my childhood, Southern California residents could choose between the Times and the Herald Examiner. My parents subscribed to both because each preferred different columnists: Walter Winchell, Luella Parsons, Hedda Hopper, and those were just the Hollywood gossips.
My preference for newspapers is that on the whole they’re more accurate, thanks to the diligence of editors, than information on the Web, which often appears to have avoided editorial scrutiny.
Martinez said what bothers him most is the manner in which he was told to leave. “It could have been better, gentler.” His editor simply called to say that his column, in its present form, was ending and that he was being given a buyout.
“No one asked if I wanted it,” he wrote in his final column. “I would have said no. I would have said I’m not ready yet. My prose is strong and my mind is clear. I’m still climbing upward. There is still a summit I haven’t reached, a sunrise I haven’t seen. But they didn’t ask.”
He writes of being suddenly adrift, like the others for whom newspapering has been a way of life.
“You meet a lot of people in 35 years. You watch lives begin and the young grow old. You watch old women die and losers win. You answer god only knows how many letters and respond to more telephone calls than you could ever remember. Questions, answers, comments, shouts, whispers.
“And then there’s e-mail. Never have readers been able to react so quickly to a journalist’s point of view. Praise comes flying out of cyberspace like the blast of a bugle, and rage like the thunder of drums. Critics rarely back off. Fans rarely abandon you.”
At a book signing last year, Martinez told actor and writer Paul Mantee that if he were no longer employed by the L.A. Times, he probably would write for the Topanga Messenger just to keep his hand in.
I’ve long since retired as editor of this paper, but if it were my decision to make, I would humbly offer Martinez a home for his column.
Come to think of it, Al, your prose is still strong and your mind clear (martinis not withstanding). How about I give you my space. You’d make much better use of it than I.