• As long as the Tribune Company had been contemplating Jeffrey Johnson's and Dean Baquet's ouster for some time, couldn't it at least have been carried out before they had the chance to foist that hideous front page on us?

Nick Faitos

***

• Like most of the alumni of the Los Angeles Times newsroom staff in the exciting and gratifying era of Otis Chandler, I am disappointed and sad to have had to watch the downward spiral of our newspaper ever since Otis' departure and untimely death. And now the owners in Chicago have only hastened the plunge of The Times from one of the leading newspapers in the world to one sinking into oblivion by firing its publisher and editor, who wouldn't preside over the staff cuts decreed by Chicago.

What Los Angeles needs is a return to local ownership of this once great newspaper by a management that understands the community and the principals of good journalism.

Paul Weeks
ex-L.A. Times
Oceanside

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• Baquet’s departure was inevitable once he stood up publicly to management. It seems L.A. could do a lot worse. O’Shea is a news guy and has a good relationship with Hiller. I still think the paper is in better hands with Tribune than with the three frequently named buyers from Los Angeles. I, for one, will reserve judgment to see if the quality of the news product declines.

David M. Marcus