I’ve been reading the L.A. Times for practically as long as I could read. With the exception of various protest cancellations ranging from a few weeks to several months, I’ve been a subscriber to the L.A. Times all my adult life. I can’t break that habit, and probably won’t. I read it everyday — even if it’s already old news by the time it’s getting my hands dirty.

There are a couple of interesting threads on that very topic elsewhere in the city. The latest round of papers to get hit is here in the SGV.
It was reported on a local blog I follow. http://thefcblog.com/2008/03/07/cutbacks-at-the-sgvn/

Anyway I commented earlier that I think newspapers are dying for alot of reasons. First is they haven’t stayed with the times and can’t compete with the instant like the net can. Especially with bloggers out there who don’t have to run it through and editor first before hitting an enter key for the whole wide world to see.

On a more personal level I have 5 spots I hit for news every day and 3 of them are from the same news group. Daily News, Pasadena Star and SGV Trib for the hyperlocal and state. AFter that I use the NYTimes. Why..simple they don’t make me register and log in to read their news. The final spot I hit is BBC for their take on world news and our politics. The latter is a lot less biased and more entertaining that the reporters here do.

So there…now you know why I haven’t bothered with the LA Times delivery in some 4 years now.

The only reason, literally, I have a subscription to the Times is for the crosswords, and the annual Festival of Book schedule grid. Besides that, I get everything online. Even for online news I rarely check LATimes – its usually via blogs, Drudge, Huff Po, etc… but, to be fair, a lot of the content from blogs relies on LA Times original content. So, yes – for me the Times is very relevent, but as more of a brand and wire service than anything else.

I subscribe to the weekend plus edition, although I don’t read it much.. I mostly read it online. I probably read one paper article / week if something catches my eye.. my wife uses it mostly for the coupons/ads.

I read the NY Times. I want to read the LA Times, but for some odd reason the blogs have more local information and their national coverage is pretty amusing.

The LA Times Calendar, well the LA Weekly is way better in that regards and if something very good that I should be doing is going on it will actually be in the NY Times with a vastly superior write up.

I love Erykah Badu the LA Times has a little blurb of nothingness and the NY Times gave her a full spread.

Look at the NY Times Art and Culture section and look at the LA Times? It’s embarrassing. The only things that are viewed as art in LA are movie and TV things and hobbies of people who are in movies and TV. The art world in LA always has a Hollywood connection, which probably explains why we have so much bad art, but we have good parties if you don’t actually talk to people.

The LA Times is relevant, sort of like how your grandmother is relevant. It is very relevant and needed during special occasions like holidays and Sunday brunch (when it is not too cold.)

People spend alot of time hating the LA Weekly (i guess because most writers over 40 have been fired from them at some point) when to me the LA Weekly does a very good job doing what it does and the LA Times does a very bad job at doing what it does.

Maybe enough people will get fired from the LA Times for people to start openly talking about the horror that is the LA Times and maybe that will make it a better paper or maybe they will just keep hiring bloggers that drive traffic and turn it into a mixture of the NY Post, Daily Mail, and TMZ.

Browne