Ducks elicit yawns

Last week's soft L.A. Times story on duck liberators freeing four quackers from a foie gras shed in Sonoma didn't elicit much reaction, according to the most recent internal missive from the paper's Reader Representative. Only three complaints:

They seemed upset equally that the reporter seemed to break the law; seemed to witness the law being broken without telling authorities; and seemed to have written "an advocacy piece."

Sample:"Very disappointing ...I can understand reporting on it but not in a
first-person way.

Duck might have been on the menu last night when the paper's national correspondents got together with editors in New Orleans. Not that anyone would have complained either way. The dinner was at Zachary's Creole Cuisine, run by the family of managing editor Dean Baquet.