Poor Los Angeles Times. It's getting hammered all over, from buyouts to force-outs to ever-shrinking page counts to perceived shoddy coverage of La Lindsey. Now they're getting criticized by conservative news watchers for running a positive review of my book, ¡Ask a Mexican!, without disclosing that I'm a contributing editor to the Times' op-ed pages.
Newsbuster.org contributor Dave Pierre claims this is just more proof of the Times gone amiss. "In other words, Arellano had about as much chance of receiving a negative review as it snowing in Santa Monica this week," Pierre writes. "Honesty and integrity at the Los Angeles Times? Not in this case, folks."
I agree with Pierre on one point: The book review (written by chingona author and Loyola Law School professor Yxta Maya Murray) should've stated I do write commentary for the Times. But Pierre is pendejo to think that my relationship with the Times guarantees me positive coverage for ¡Ask a Mexican!. Indeed, just the previous week before, the Times allowed Latino culture reporter Agustin Gurza to write a scathing attack on my column/book in which he called me the "Paris Hilton of the Latino journalism world" and compared me to Don Imus (he also disclosed my contributing editor gig for his paper). And the day after Murray's review, the Times published a letter by one Rene M. Castro of Long Beach in which he dismissed my "cheap satire" as "meant for Orange County clubgoers who don't mind reading an article bashing Mexicans between the breast enhancement and strip club ads of the OC Weekly."
So why didn't Pierre disclose the above facts to his readers? Quoth GOB: come on! It simply doesn't play into his LA Times-is-liberal raison d'etre. Honesty and integrity at Newsbusters.org? Not in this case, folks.
May 29, 2007 11:05
Paris Hilton of the Latino journalism world? Does this mean we're going to start seeing crotch shots?
May 29, 2007 13:05
Dave Pierre teaches at my mom's school in South Central, and used to do comedy with my ex-boyfriend Tom. Also, I used to work with you.
So you are two degrees from Dave Pierre. Be sure to tell him that!
May 30, 2007 08:05
While I do believe the "LA Times and Throwaway" as Sweet Dick Whittington used to refer to the paper is liberally biased, this is just another case of the paper allowing its own to say/do what they want as part of the "society of journalists."
We have been forced to endure in print two self-serving articles by sports columnists about their personal trials and sufferings that would never reach print if they were not LAT writers within the last few weeks. And of course the "self-important blowhard supreme" better known as T.J. Simers.
June 4, 2007 10:06
[...] Hewitt later spilled the beans while taking a swipe at us). Will he do come clean again? Will conservative bloggers froth at the mouth again about another instance of non-disclosures amongst media giants? Stay tuned… [...]