Yes, we're battered by layoffs and yes, our new owners have shrunk the news hole, but have you seen The Times' coverage of the wildfires? It's first-class. My colleagues are working non-stop, writing about and photographing one of the most ferocious starts to the L.A. wildfire season in modern memory.

Check the web site, not just right now but throughout the day, and you'll see what I mean. It's being constantly updated, stories flying back and forth from reporters to editors to the web staff, updates and adds, new photos, new links, both inside the paper and, unlike most newspaper web sites, outside of The Times as well, so you can get the fullest news picture possible.

Maybe you read the comment by Kevin this morning about a newspaper blowing into the gutter. Comparing a mythic Sunday paper of decades ago to a traditionally-light Monday paper tossed about by these crazy, gusting winds is disingenuous and, well, silly.

To do it when dedicated journalists, who hate that their hometown paper is being diminished by out-of-town owners, who are working 18-hour shifts to cover these fires even as they themselves face fresh layoffs this month, to make that misleading comparison right now, during a crisis, that's just plain unkind.