LA Times Fires Publisher

By dianeravitch

September 8, 2015 //

Los Angeles Times publisher Austin Beutner was fired. Was it something he said? Something he published?

But here’s one speculation.

Categories Media

15 Comments Post your own or leave a trackback: Trackback URL

Karen Wolfe says:

September 8, 2015 at 9:02 pm

It’s hard to know whether to be disappointed that Beutner was fired for trying (and by most accounts, succeeding) in making the LA Times a local newspaper again, or if public education advocates should be relieved. Beutner and Eli Broad are more than cozy. Their partnership threatened to skew education coverage in our city toward Broad’s vision even more than the LA Times has already demonstrated.

Reply
- Ellen Lubic says:
  
  September 9, 2015 at 2:27 am
  
  Karen et al…I believe that hedge fund billionaire Beutner may have overstepped with his full page diatribe a week or so ago regarding his new reporting on LAUSD and supporting of the Eli Broad charter school takeover. Eli is using Deasy (and probably the elusive Ben Austin formerly of Parent Rev) as hatchet men, yet again.
  
  The last few days of articles featuring Deasy with soft fluff reporting making him just seem a bad boy, but a genius at LAUSD turnaround, was a plan of action to perhaps get him in as Supt again….or to prepare the community for Eli’s inauguration of Thelma Melendez, a classmate grad with Deasy from the Broad Academy. Thelma is a Deasy clone.
  
  The new CEO/publisher Ryan is actually a real newspaperman and may sharpen up this slanted editorial group which favors Broad, Riordan, and Villaraigosa…and the charter schools they want for all of the district. Read Tuesday’s Sandy Banks column which drools over Deasy and charters. They again use a stock photo making him look strong and determined. It is all a put up job to erase from the public’s mind all the damage he did as Supt.
  
  Reply
Laura H.Chapman says:

September 8, 2015 at 9:18 pm

A case study in disruptive innovation?

Reply
- Karen Wolfe says:
  
  September 8, 2015 at 9:27 pm
  
  Maybe. I’ll be interested in Ellen Lubic’s take on this.
  
  Reply
Kim Kaufman says:

September 8, 2015 at 9:55 pm

Beutner’s “sudden” dismissal was not at all surprising, really. He used the LA Times’s dime to beef up on-line and other things which are probably good. He convinced the Tribute Co. to buy the San Diego paper in May. Then in September he tries to get the Chicago Tribune to sell the LA Times and San Diego paper to his good friend Eli Broad with him to run it.. What Board of Directors wouldn’t have a problem with an employee doing this?

Reply
LeftCoastTeacher says:

September 8, 2015 at 11:35 pm

I’m wondering if all Tribune Company publications are as ruthlessly favorable toward free market education as its largest, the LA Times, is. Is the Chicago Trib always wishing for a flood to wash away all the public schools, or was that an isolated meltdown? What is the Baltimore Sun like? The next Times publisher might be the Sun’s Tim Ryan. Anyone read Baltimore news?

Whatever may be, any shakeup of the LA Times deep ties to Eli Broad has to be good for genuine public education in Los Angeles. I sure would welcome Broad education columnists Banks and Resmovits moving on in a shakeup. I cannot believe Jason Song of VAM publishing infamy still works there. This could be good? Baltimore?

Reply
- Dienne says:
  
  September 9, 2015 at 6:17 am
  
  That was most definitely not an isolated meltdown (but probably the most honest the Trib has ever been). The Trib is definitely neo-liberal, anti-public anything, especially schools.
  
  Reply
- Chiara says:
  
  September 9, 2015 at 8:02 am
  
  Public schools would be dead without newspapers in Ohio. The only critical ed reform analysis has come from newspaper reporters. The charter school score-fixing scandal in this state was revealed by a single newspaper reporter. The one and only reason the auditor started looking at charter schools is the Akron paper dumped the information they gathered in his lap. He couldn’t NOT look at charter schools after their investigative series.
  
  I think it’s helped by the fact that we have 4 (or 5) larger newspapers rather than one dominant newspaper so it’s harder for a lock-step ed reform narrative to take hold. We have one house organ for ed reform, The Columbus Dispatch, but they have competitors across the state on issues that matter to the whole state so they can’t big-foot.
  
  Reply
Paula says:

September 8, 2015 at 11:50 pm

I support local ownership of our Los Angeles paper but an employee can not serve two masters. It’s either the Tribune management or Eli Broad. Just look at what happened with John Deast, who chose Broad over LAUSD interest. This employee needed to go since he seemed to be aligned with the Broad interests. Managing a local paper with an out of town person will not work. I bet there is someone at the Times who could do the job better than this guy or soneone from out of town,it could benefit educational coverage, who knows. As for digital development of the paper, yes, by all means.

Reply
Karen Wolfe says:

September 9, 2015 at 1:39 am

Politico weighed in, too. http://www.capitalnewyork.com/node/8576155

Reply
George N. Schmidt says:

September 9, 2015 at 3:49 am

Are you sure Sam Zell still owns the Los Angeles Times?

Reply
- Ellen Lubic says:
  
  September 9, 2015 at 9:15 am
  
  Griffin now runs the Trib.
  
  Reply
  - Ellen Lubic says:
    
    September 9, 2015 at 9:16 am
    
    And Broad is once again trying to buy the LA Times…according to the LA Times.
- buermann says:
  
  September 9, 2015 at 1:44 pm
  
  Sam Zell hasn’t been at the Tribune since he drove it into bankruptcy in 2010. A consortium of banks took over, it went public again in 2012.
  
  Reply
Richard Holsworth says:

September 9, 2015 at 9:53 am

With Common Core Scores coming out today, the Times will be spinning their yarn and burying this:

California’s Common Core ‘death panel’ – with the power to shut schools or whole districts with bad scores.

“…as a last resort, the agency could take over a district for academic failure. Low test scores will likely be just one of many factors justifying outside intervention. However, the agency is just getting going, and its executive director Carl Cohn was just appointed to the post on Sept. 1”
http://edsource.org/2015/california-smarter-balanced-math-english-results-common-core-faq/86181

Reply