About the changes in store at the LA Weekly...

• Up here in Seattle -- where the same process has been underway for two months with Seattle Weekly -- word for months has been that LA would be next, following NY and Seattle in Lacey's hit list of editorial departments to be eviscerated. Here, the editor-in-chief, managing editor, political editor, and I all left and/or were forced out in August; since, the arts editor has also left and staff hemorrhaging in all departments has continued. The respected news department of a highly profitable paper (with a strong alt weekly competitor) has effectively been dismantled, replaced by a much-shrunken editorial hole, a commitment to faux outrageousness, and the telling of quirky, entertaining (and journalistically and politically irrelevant) yarns.

Another wave of SW feces is in the process of hitting the fan here with yesterday's entirely fictional cover story (not identified as a parody) by the new managing editor, purportedly detailing a (nonexistent) business enterprise of the mayor.

I'm just saying. Get used to it; the changes at LA Weekly are just starting, reassurances (which I also got repeatedly and personally) notwithstanding. It won't be pretty.

Geov Parrish
Former political columnist, Seattle Weekly