How is the L.A. Times like 'The Wire'?

Kevin Roderick • January 21 2008 3:34 PM

Scene from The Wire That seems to be a popular theme, pegged to the coincidence that yesterday's news about yet another high-level exit from the Times broke on the same day that HBO's popular series debuted a story line on newsroom cuts at the Baltimore Sun — another Tribune newspaper. Here are takes by Greg Mitchell, the editor of Editor & Publisher, and by veteran Los Angeles media observer Joe Scott. Plus, former Sun reporter David Simon, executive producer of "The Wire," talks about news and newspapers in a Washington Post essay written before the LAT news broke, via Mark Lacter at LA Biz Observed. Missed: Witness LA, Stuart Levine at Variety.com, Salon

WWLA logo Programming note: I will be on the news segment at the start of "Which Way, L.A.?" tonight at 7 pm on KCRW analyzing the latest Times turmoil with Warren Olney. If you add it up, as I did, the Los Angeles Times in less than a year has lost in abrupt fashion its editor, managing editor, opinion editor, Metro editor, lead designer, top political columnist in Ron Brownstein, top science writer in Robert Lee Hotz, top black columnist in J.A. Adande, and it's two most effective bloggers in Bob Sipchen and Bob Salladay. Plus much more. And that was supposed to be the year when the paper returned to making news for its journalism, not its drama.

Pics: That's a scene from "The Wire" above. For a look at grim faces today in the LAT newsroom, click below:

LAT newsroom

Photo: Bryan Chan / Los Angeles Times at LATimes.com

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