Michael Kinsley's old friend and Slate colleague Timothy Noah writes today that the L.A. Times should just do away with unsigned editorials. Excerpt:

If the newspaper editorial were, in itself, a compelling journalistic form, it might be worth going on pretending that editorials represent something more than the opinion of a few journalists assigned to the editorial page and their boss, the editorial page editor. But the genre has certain built-in defects. One is that editorials typically lack sufficient length to marshal evidence and lay out a satisfactory argument. Instead, they tend toward either timidity, at one extreme, or posturing, at the other. Almost every editorial I've ever read in my life has fallen into one of two categories: boring or irresponsible.

In today's New York Times, Stacy Schiff — one of the guest fill-ins for Maureen Dowd, who is on book leave — questions the LAT's move toward "wikitorials."

(Via Romenesko)

© 2003-2009   •  About LA Observed  •  Email the editor
LA Biz Observed
4:03 PM Fri | CBS and ABC have far bigger fish to fry - namely whether their stations can get back the auto and retail advertising that fell off a cliff in 2009.
Native Intelligence
Jenny Price | Recycling!
Veronique de Turenne | And there's still time to take part!
Phil Wallace | Searching for answers after a third loss this year.
Deanne Stillman | Jihad and cash offers meet American soldiers during the Gulf War, and beyond.
Iris Schneider | After a tough year financially, the Museum of Contemporary Art put on a gala party to celebrate with 1,000 of its closest friends.
Jenny Burman
Thinking more about buying less.
Here in Malibu
Seriously -- turn out the lights.
Sponsors
Jewish Journal logo
The California Wellness Foundation
Playa Vista ad
Blogads

Blogads Los Angeles network

Get RSS Feeds
of LA Observed
LA Observed publishes several Real Simple Syndication feeds for easy scanning of headlines. If you wish to subscribe to a feed, most popular RSS readers will do it for you. You can also enter the web address from the XML button below or click on a specific feed. For more help with RSS, try here or here.




Add to Google