What's all this about 'dat'?

 “ ‘Who dat’ rejoicing?” The Times’ front page headline asked Monday, with an article about fans’ reaction to the New Orleans Saints’ Super Bowl win.

And the headline on Monday’s Sports cover, in 92-point type, reads: “DAT’S INCREDIBLE”.

So what’s up with “dat,” anyway?

Reader R. Chandler from La Puente said he was “outraged” by the headlines “couched in minstrel show dialect.” 

However, the usage is far from racist. As the front-page story by Richard Fausset story says, ‘Who dat’ has become Saints’ fans rallying cry: “Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints?” And a photo of fans watching the game from a New Orleans church includes a man in a “Who dat” T-shirt.

In December, after the team finished the regular season 13-0, Fausset wrote about the mood in New Orleans:

All across New Orleans, businesses, cars and people are adorned with the words "Who Dat?"

The Saints include the phrase on the team’s official website (“Show your ‘Who dat’ spirit!”). Even the NFL has gotten in on the action, claiming ownership of the phrase, as the Wall Street Journal reported last month.

It’s ubiquitous in New Orleans, Jacques Berry, the spokesman for Louisiana's secretary of state, told the Journal. “People start their calls on the radio saying ‘who dat,' they end their calls on the radio that way. You walk down the street and say ‘Who dat!' and people you don't even know say ‘Who dat' back.”

New Orleans’ newspaper, the Times-Picayune, looked into the origins of the phrase, which does go back to minstrelsy:

A popular "Who dat?" routine -- one character says "Who dat?" then another says "Who dat says who dat?" -- was pervasive in black stage entertainment throughout the early and middle 20th century.

However its connection with sports teams appears to have started in the 1970s and was brought to the Saints in the mid-1980s.

It’s been “Who dat” ever since. Got dat?

-- Deirdre Edgar

Twitter: @LATreadersrep

Changes coming to Sunday Comics

This weekend, The Times is introducing a redesign of the Sunday Comics sections.

Comics I and Comics II will continue to include a strong lineup of cartoonists, in addition to the Kids’ Reading Room and children's book reviews. Comics I will include more “adult” fare, such as Doonesbury and Dilbert. Comics II will be more family-oriented, with strips that include Mutts, Marmaduke and FoxTrot.

Comments are welcome at comics@latimes.com.

New editing, online assignments

New duties for several staffers in print and online were announced this week:

PRINT:

Monte Morin will become Metro’s weekend editor, responsible for shaping the Sunday California section, working with the rest of the desk and the A1 editors on our weekend page-one offers and directing coverage on Saturdays. Monte first started writing for The Times in 1999 as a stringer and became a staff writer the next year. In 2005, he took a job with Stars and Stripes, and worked a two-year tour of the battlefields of Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia before returning to The Times as our night editor.

Jill Jones will become Metro’s night editor, responsible for keeping the nightly chaos at bay, handling our late-breaking stories, managing the production process and coordinating with the A1 and AA1 editors. This is a re-up for Jill, who did a previous stint as night editor from 2004 to 2007. Jill started here as a reporter in the Orange County edition. In 1998, Jill became an assignment editor in Orange County. Most recently, she has been the O.C. city editor.

ONLINE:

Lori Kozlowski, senior producer for mobile platforms, will focus on The Times’ mobile efforts, including the mobile website (mobile.latimes.com), iPhone apps, mobile-only content and other digital innovation that surrounds smart phones and how people consume news on the go. Lori came to The Times in 2007 and has worked on multiple Web-only projects and Web components to large stories -- such as the Olympics and the 2008 presidential election. Before The Times, Lori worked for the city of Los Angeles, ramping up its digital efforts, and was the editor of its internal publications

Jason La, senior producer in features, will oversee the features Web team to build out our Travel, Home, Image, Health and Books sites and will work closely with Alice Short to develop new site features and content. Jason has worked for The Times’ website since 2007, starting as an associate travel and homepage producer. He has had his hands in other parts of the website as well, working on projects in Features, Metro and Opinion. Before joining The Times, Jason worked for Yahoo! News.

Stephanie Ferrell, art director-online, will focus on the visual display of our report through latimes.com and associated efforts. Stephanie brought a decade of graphic and Web design experience to L.A. Times Interactive when she joined the team as senior Web designer in 2005. She was the lead online designer on “Altered Oceans,” a 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning series. She also shared in the Online Journalism Award for the same series from the Overseas Press Club. Stephanie has continued to collaborate across the interdepartmental landscape on many major editorial projects since then, including the Sigma Delta Chi and Scripps Howard honors for “Mexico Under Siege.”  

Feedback on The Times' changes

Good news, crossword fans: The layout of the puzzle in the daily Calendar section is being changed so that the puzzle no longer falls across the fold. You once again will be able to fold your newspaper into quarters to do the puzzle.

The Times has heard from dozens of readers about changes to the paper that began Tuesday. A good number of their comments regarded the placement of the crossword.

Jan Warshaw wrote: Apparently no one there does crossword puzzles. If someone did, he/she would realize the utterly awkward and uncomfortable layout that was in today's paper. Please place the ENTIRE puzzle (grid & all clues) either entirely above the fold or entirely below the fold. 

Stephen Brandt of Pasadena wrote: I have a question/suggestion about the new layout in the Calendar section. Specifically, they changed the layout the crossword puzzle, so that you can no longer fold the page into half, and half again to work on it. I realize that this might seem to be a less than serious concern, but I really hope you will take me seriously.

And Nancy Minnick, who described herself as a longtime subscriber, wrote: Just wanted to register my discontent with the appearance of the crossword puzzle today. You've really messed it up.... The worst offense is that now the fold lands in the middle of the crossword puzzle.  So instead of a nice neat quarter-page, it's long and cumbersome.

Jan, Stephen, Nancy and all the others who wrote, look for the new layout starting Monday.

Cuts to the Daily Market Roundup in the Business section have drawn a number of calls and e-mails as well. One specific source of puzzlement was the elimination of the British pound in the foreign currencies list.

Claudia Albert called to say, “In your new Business section, I’m not sure why you don’t think the British pound is important in the currencies."

And Sara Lafare wrote, “How can you possibly have a section on currencies and leave out pound sterling?? Only one of the most important currencies in the world. (I'm not British.)”

That omission is being fixed, and the pound will again be listed starting Friday.

Another feature that has been restored thanks to reader feedback is the Calendar section listing of daytime movies on TV. That returned in Thursday’s newspaper.

The new LATExtra section has been received mostly well by readers, although there was some confusion over its content.

Stephen Manes of Santa Monica spoke for several readers when he wrote to ask, “Please help me understand how this new section (LATExtra) that started this morning is in any major way different from the (daily) "California" section, which was eliminated a few months back.”

LATExtra is intended to include both the California report and late-breaking news stories, as well as obituaries and the weather page. The mix of stories will change daily, based on news events.

George Mitrovich of San Diego wrote, “LATEXTRA is a great addition to the Times. When California was folded into the main section of the Times and appeared only on Sundays, the newspaper took a serious hit in quality. For the Times to add a new section when major newspapers across the nation are doing the opposite (think Washington Post) is huge.”

If you have comments on the changes to the paper, you may leave them here or submit them to latimes.com/contact, or you can call 800-88-TIMES.

-- Deirdre Edgar

Twitter: @LATreadersrep

Chat with reporter Joe Mozingo about Haiti

Times reporter Joe Mozingo, one of the first journalists to arrive in Haiti after the quake, chatted with readers about his experiences there. Click "replay" in the gray box below to read the transcript of the chat.

Photo: Mozingo in Haiti. Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

Coming Thursday: Reader chat with Joe Mozingo

Join us here at 11 a.m. Thursday for a live chat with Times reporter Joe Mozingo. He was one of the first reporters to arrive in Haiti after the devastating earthquake and will answer reader questions about his experiences there.

A driven pursuit of a story

Southern California is known for its car culture, so it’s fitting that an investigation into what has become a massive worldwide recall of Toyota vehicles has been pursued by reporters at the Los Angeles Times.

Reporters Ken Bensinger and Martin Zimmerman first wrote about an upcoming recall by Toyota on Sept. 30 that blamed floor mats for causing a gas pedal to stick. This came in the wake of a horrific crash near San Diego in August that killed an off-duty California Highway Patrol officer and three members of his family after his Lexus sped out of control.

In the months since that initial recall, Bensinger and colleague Ralph Vartabedian have delved into the automaker’s safety record, possible engineering faults that may have led to some vehicles’ sudden acceleration, and the company’s handling of complaints. Their work has been comprehensive, drawing credit in a Wall Street Journal editorial Saturday about Toyota’s third and most recent recall related to sudden acceleration:

In its most recent recall, Toyota further proposes a software change to allow a foot on the brake to close the throttle of runaway cars. Here the company creeps closer to the allegation made by trial lawyers and several investigative pieces in the Los Angeles Times, namely that an unidentified circuitry or software glitch is to blame for a rash of runaway Toyotas and Lexuses.

Bensinger and Vartabedian have found that sudden acceleration incidents involving Toyota-made cars and trucks have claimed 19 lives since the 2002 model year, which federal officials say is more than all other manufacturers combined.

Though Toyota’s initial recall was focused on floor mats, Bensinger and Vartabedian were skeptical that mats alone could be the cause. As they reported Oct. 18:

The tragedy Aug. 28 was at least the fifth fatal crash in the U.S. over the last two years involving runaway Toyota and Lexus vehicles made by Toyota Motor Corp. It is also among hundreds of incidents of sudden acceleration involving the company's vehicles that have been reported to Toyota or the federal government, according to an examination of public records by The Times.

“Toyota has blamed the incidents -- apart from those caused by driver error -- on its floor mats, asserting that if they are improperly installed they can jam open the accelerator pedal. A month after the [August]  crash, Toyota issued its biggest recall in company history, affecting 3.8 million vehicles in model years as far back as 2004. But auto safety experts believe there may be a bigger problem with Toyota vehicles than simply the floor mats.

On Nov. 8, Bensinger and Vartabedian took federal safety investigators to task. Their review of federal records found that investigators had excluded or dismissed the majority of complaints of Toyota and Lexus owners that their vehicles had suddenly accelerated.

Toyota’s recall was expanded on Nov. 27 to include the gas pedals on 4.2 million vehicles.

Another investigation by Bensinger and Vartabedian was published Nov. 29, pointing to a potential cause for the sudden acceleration:

The Times found that complaints of sudden acceleration in many Toyota and Lexus vehicles shot up almost immediately after the automaker adopted the so-called drive-by-wire system over the last decade. That system uses sensors, microprocessors and electric motors -- rather than a traditional link such as a steel cable -- to connect the driver's foot to the engine.

For some Toyota models, reports of unintended acceleration increased more than fivefold after drive-by-wire systems were adopted, according to the review of thousands of consumer complaints filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The [August] crash and others like it across the country, they say, point to a troubling possibility: that Toyota's ignition, transmission and braking systems may make it difficult for drivers to combat sudden or unintended accelerations and safely recover, regardless of their cause.

The two reporters were back in December with a number of reports, including a look at how Toyota has dealt with safety problems in recent years. Among their findings:

• The automaker knew of a dangerous steering defect in vehicles including the 4Runner sport utility vehicle for years before issuing a recall in Japan in 2004. But it told regulators no recall was necessary in the U.S. despite having received dozens of complaints from drivers. Toyota said a subsequent investigation led it to order a U.S. recall in 2005.
• Toyota has paid cash settlements to people who say their vehicles have raced out of control, sometimes causing serious accidents, according to consumers and their attorneys. Other motorists who complained of acceleration problems with their vehicles have received buybacks under lemon laws.
• Although the sudden acceleration issue erupted publicly only in recent months, it has been festering for nearly a decade. A computerized search of NHTSA records by The Times has found Toyota issued eight previous recalls related to unintended acceleration since 2000, more than any other automaker.

Toyota announced a third recall related to sudden acceleration on Jan. 21. In doing so, Bensinger noted:

Toyota has for the first time acknowledged that a mechanical problem could cause its vehicles to accelerate out of control.

On Jan. 26, Toyota ordered that sales and production of eight of its models be halted because of problems with gas pedals causing sudden acceleration. On Friday, Congress announced that it would hold hearings into the automakers’ handling of complaints. And Tuesday, federal officials announced new investigations of the electronic throttle system in Toyota and Lexus vehicles -- the possible culprit that Bensinger and Vartabedian identified in November.

Avanidhar Subrahmanyam of Los Angeles complimented the coverage: “Let me say what a pleasure and honor it is to live in this city with a newspaper that does such fearless, tenacious journalism that actually has a material impact on automobile safety (Toyota recalls).”

Reader Natalie Chang of Pasadena added, “Just want to commend you on your continuing investigation and coverage of the runaway Toyotas. You have not let up, and made Toyota finally take some action.”

-- Deirdre Edgar

Twitter: @LATreadersrep

Top photo: Toyota Matrix vehicles on a lot in Colorado. Credit: David Zalubowski / Associated Press. Bottom photo: An employee at Toyota of Hollywood marks a vehicle as not for sale. Credit: Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times.

RELATED:

Q&A: What to do if your vehicle suddenly accelerates

Q&A: What Toyota owners should know

NBC Nightly News interview with Ken Bensinger on the Toyota recalls

Fox Business News interview with Ken Bensinger on Toyota's repairs

CJR: Los Angeles Times was first and all alone on Toyota story

New reporting, editing assignments

Several reporting and editing moves have been announced in the last week:

Stephanie Chavez will become an assistant national editor Feb. 8. Stephanie is a 24-year veteran of the Metro staff. Since then she has been at the center of many of Metro's proudest and Pulitzer-winning moments. She was a founding member of the daily Valley Edition. As an education reporter, she won awards from statewide teacher and administrator groups. In 1987 she teamed up with another reporter for a groundbreaking story revealing that garages were being used as housing by more than 200,000 people throughout Southern California. She was a reporter during the 1992 riots and was honored for breaking news reporting for her stories on the Reginald Denny beating. She was a linchpin of the staff during the 1994 Northridge earthquake. As an editor, her many duties have included overseeing education coverage, shepherding Metro’s weekend report and offering graceful edits and guidance to columnist Sandy Banks.

Kate Linthicum will be moving to the Metro reporting ranks after a stint on the National staff. Kate came to The Times in the summer of 2008, working as an intern on the National desk. Kate’s eye for good stories and deft ear for phrasing has made her an excellent writer of telling features. We’ll now employ those skills on stories about the sprawling city in which we live, particularly the stretch that starts at Echo Park and heads west out toward the beach. Kate’s beat will include both features and news – she’ll be spending a significant number of evenings covering council meetings of some of the smaller cities west of downtown.

Gina McIntyre will become deputy film editor for the arts and entertainment group. For the last two years, Gina has efficiently guided our music coverage, resourcefully piecing together a network of writers inside and outside the newsroom to shore up our beat coverage. In her new role, she will report to Film Editor Tim Swanson, but she also will work closely with Elena Howe, The Envelope editor, to manage our expanding movie coverage online and in print. Gina joined The Times in late 2007 from the Hollywood Reporter, where her duties as managing editor/features included overseeing several special issues and industry reports. During her seven years at the Reporter, Gina also was part of the reporting team that covered major film festivals.  Earlier in her career, in Chicago, she edited the Official X-Files Magazine and launched a short-lived horror movie magazine called Wicked.

Alex Pham has joined the arts and entertainment group to cover digital entertainment and the cultural impact of new media. A technology reporter for Business for the last 10 years, Alex will continue to track the video game industry for Company Town, and her beat will expand to include the convergence of technology and entertainment, examining digital media from corporate, cultural and creative perspectives. How will reading and the publishing industry change as a result of electronic readers? Will the movie studios let Apple change their business like its iPod changed music? How will entertainment evolve if the device of choice for watching it is not much bigger than a phone? Alex joined The Times 10 years ago from the Boston Globe, where she spent six years on the healthcare beat and one year as the paper’s Silicon Valley reporter. Prior to that, she worked at USA Today, the Washington Post and for her hometown paper, the Oregonian. At The Times, she has covered everything from the consolidation within the video game business to stories about the cultural impact of gaming.

A new section in the paper, and other changes

You will notice some changes in Tuesday's newspaper.

Most notably, there’s a new section -- LATExtra. This includes local and California stories in addition to late-breaking entertainment, business, national and foreign news. LATExtra will run Monday through Saturday; Sunday will continue to have a California section.

“The changes to the paper give us the opportunity to expand and further showcase the terrific enterprise reporting of this newsroom, as well as produce the first new news section in many, many years,” Editor Russ Stanton told the staff. ...

‘Today’ is so last week

Starting Monday, The Times is no longer using “today” to reference the day of the week in print or online. You notice I didn’t say that this change starts “today,” even though that’s what I mean.

Well, that’s what I mean if you’re reading this on the day it was published -- Monday, Feb. 1. However, this being the Internet, perhaps you came across this post several days later, and in that case “today” would be inaccurate. And therein lies the reason for this change.

As Assistant Managing Editor Henry Fuhrmann, who oversees copy desks as well as style and usage, explained to the newsroom staff:

Our decision reflects the growing intersection of our online and print journalism and the problems caused by “today,” “this afternoon” and so forth, in particular when we move material between one medium and the next. A common example is when a blog post is published for print.

Our concerns are philosophical as well, given that readers come to us from all over the world: “Today” may invite confusion, whereas the day of the week should be unambiguous.

The day of the week will be used within a six-day period. Beyond that, the month and date will be used. So, this change is taking place Monday on latimes.com. It will appear in Tuesday’s newspaper. Feb. 8 will begin the second week of this change.

Talk to you tomorrow. Er, Tuesday.

— Deirdre Edgar

Twitter: @LATreaders rep

Portraits of a disaster

The photographic images from Haiti can be shocking: Street after street of flattened buildings; earthquake survivors living in vast tent cities; bodies piled up. But there also have been scenes of hope: Port-au-Prince residents digging through rubble in desperate rescue attempts; aid workers caring for the injured; signs of basic commerce returning.

News photography adds a dimension to a story such as the Haitian earthquake that words alone can’t convey. And readers are drawn to these images; in the last seven days, a gallery of Haiti photos on latimes.com has been viewed more than 1.4 million times.

As reader Judith Favor of Claremont wrote: “Skillful journalism by Tracy Wilkinson and Joe Mozingo reflect the resourcefulness of Haitian humanity, expanding my perspective. Artful photography by Carolyn Cole and Brian Vander Brug illuminates poignant moments, deepening my tenderness. Respectful kudos to the LA Times team as they work under incomprehensible challenges in Port-au-Prince.”

Times photographers who are in Haiti -- currently Cole and Vander Brug, and earlier Rick Loomis -- are filing dozens of photos apiece each day. So in choosing from among all those images for publication, editors try to accurately and fairly portray the story while maintaining standards of taste.

“It is really difficult to cover a story as devastating as the Haitian earthquake without showing tough images,” said Deputy Managing Editor Colin Crawford, who oversees the photography staff. “I don't believe that you can understand what is really happening over there without strong visuals.”

Readers don’t always agree with editors’ photo decisions.

Ambrose Terrence of Van Nuys was angered by what he saw as an unfair emphasis on looting: “What do we predominantly see pictures of? Not of the hundreds of thousands of Haitians who spent day after day, night after night digging through the rubble to find their loved ones or neighbors; not the scores of thousands of Haitians volunteering to medically aid and comfort the hundreds of thousands of injured; not the mothers and fathers in agony over the loss of their children or the hundreds of thousands of children who have lost their parents. … We get, mostly, pictures of ‘looters.’”

In response, Deputy Director of Photography Steve Stroud took a look at the first week of coverage. He found that as of the Jan. 18 edition, six days after the quake, 29 photos from Haiti had been published:

• Seven of destruction
• Six of displaced residents
• Five of rationing
• Three of rescuers
• Three of looting
• Two of dead victims
• Two of injured victims
• One of medical assistance

“Of the photos of injured, one shows a bandaged young girl receiving assistance from a Haitian medic,” Stroud said. “Another from that same grouping shows three young Haitians carrying a third, injured Haitian to a hospital. … Yet another photo shows two exhausted Haitian men pausing while digging in the rubble for a trapped friend.”

Terrence acknowledged that “the range is greater than I may have noticed in my upset over the size and placement of many of the more sensational pictures involving looting or suspected looting.” He added, “It's hard not to think statements are being made in the way they are being used in terms of size and placement in lieu of written material.”

Several readers reacted to an image by Cole (left) published Jan. 18 that showed two young girls and three other people bathing in the water from a broken water pipe.

A second Cole photo (below), from Jan. 19, of four women in a remote town receiving medical treatment was seen by Randy Bostic of Topanga as “a violation of the privacy of those women. In addition to what they have suffered already, they have now had to suffer a blow to their dignity in the L.A. Times.”

“The photos mentioned by the readers as being too personal I feel help to tell the complete story,” said Crawford, the editor who oversees the photo staff. “They are not images of destruction or bodies, but in both cases people coping with the realities of the situation they are in and doing the best they can.”

Each of these two photos is discomforting. Many of the photos from disasters are -- but we need to see them.

-- Deirdre Edgar
Twitter: @LATreadersrep

Photo credits: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

RELATED:

New York Times: “Face to Face with Tragedy”

Washington Post: “Horrible images of death in Haiti”

EARLIER:

Times coverage from Haiti

New assignments for Kimi Yoshino, Nita Lelyveld

Assistant Managing Editor David Lauter announced new assignments for reporter Kimi Yoshino and assistant editor Nita Lelyveld. Here is his memo to the staff:

I’m happy to announce two significant shifts in our editing lineup which will help tremendously as we move ahead in the new year with a new section.

Kimi Yoshino, who has been a go-to reporter for a decade, both here in Metro and in the Business section, will move over to the morning assignment job, which is the key post on the desk for quickly identifying and moving on developing news and quick-turnaround enterprise. Working with Shelby and Amanda, Kimi will help keep our L.A. Now engine humming. At the same time, she’ll have custody of the daily budget for our print editions, which will be all the more challenging as we deal with the needs of both the A and AA sections. Kimi came to The Times more than 900 stories ago -- in 2000, joining us after stints at the Fresno Bee and Stockton Record. She started in Orange County, where she covered Disney and quickly became our resident expert on dangerous amusement park rides. Since then, she’s covered politics, fires, glitzy parties in Las Vegas, Octomom and, of course, Baghdad, with memorable consequences. As all of you who have worked with her know, Kimi’s hallmarks are her energy, intelligence and eye for a good story. All those traits will serve her well in this most challenging of editing posts.

Nita Lelyveld, who has ably served as morning editor, will take on a new role with broad responsibility for working with reporters and editors across the department on features. With the demands of two sections, we’re going to have more need than ever for well-written features with good photography. Nita’s excellent eye for stories and skill with language will improve our ability to produce those stories. She’ll help other editors shape story concepts, work with reporters on storytelling, bring her distinctive sensibility to our daily news planning and, of course, use her own excellent line-editing skills to help writers turn promising stones into polished gems. She’ll also be our chief liaison with the photo desk, making sure that we make the most of our feature opportunities by keeping our colleagues on the visual side up-to-date on promising story possibilities. Nita’s first newspaper job was with the Tuscaloosa News in Alabama, but one would have to say she grew up in the newspaper racket, which took her as a child to at least four continents. After a stint at the AP, she joined the Philadelphia Inquirer, which sent her to L.A. in 1997 as a West Coast writer. Four years later, she came aboard at The Times. Before moving onto the desk in 2005, Nita wrote – among other things -- about Hollywood’s secession efforts, the victims of abuse by priests and, in a memorable Column One, told the story of a man with the singular obsession of walking the streets of Los Angeles.

Please join me in congratulating both of these colleagues on their new assignments.

Times coverage from Haiti

Times journalists have been reporting from Haiti since shortly after the devastating earthquake struck Jan. 12. Readers have largely praised the 26 stories and 58 photos that have run in the print edition as of Monday and the additional coverage on latimes.com, including narrated slide shows and panoramic images.

Individual articles on latimes.com have drawn dozens of reader comments apiece. And news headlines from The Times’ Twitter account have each been retweeted hundreds of times.

But there have been questions as well -- about missing charity contact information in print, potentially loaded language and use of images (to be covered in a later post).

An information box that ran in the print edition on Day 2 told readers a bit of the story behind the story: Reporters Tina Susman, Joe Mozingo and Tracy Wilkinson and photographers Carolyn Cole and Rick Loomis filed the first stories and images. Reporters Scott Kraft and Mitchell Landsberg and photographer Brian Vander Brug have more recently arrived on the scene.

Damiana Chavez of Los Angeles is among the readers who wrote in. “I am so moved by the stories and photographs that are as compassionate as they are factual. I'm saving these pages,” she said.

And Tamara Lipson of Long Beach congratulated the photography: “Kudos to Carolyn Cole and Rick Loomis, L.A. Times' brilliant photographers. They put credence to ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’ Their photographs of Haiti's damage stand alone as essays on tragedy's toll.”

Two readers have called to ask how to contribute money to relief efforts. A list of charities has been displayed on latimes.com and linked to via Twitter, but details in the print edition have been limited to one item on donating to the Red Cross via text message. The first caller, however, said she did not have Internet access, and the second said he preferred to write a check. Both were looking for an 800 number that they could call.

In the coverage itself, the term “looting” has been under debate. 

“It is very unfair to label as looters the Haitians who remove food from collapsed stores and distribute it to their friends and community,” said reader Tom Lent of Berkeley. “These are desperate starving people in a place where the commercial infrastructure has collapsed [and] aid is only slowly trickling in.”

The term has been used in nine stories as of Monday, most recently Jan. 20. Many references are along the lines of “looting was reported.” But here are two specific examples:

A photo by Cole (at right) published Jan. 16 showed a man who’d been tied up by police for having a bag of canned milk, and the caption called him a looting suspect.

Three days later, an article by Joe Mozingo and Ken Ellingwood described this scene:

Looters pilfered from a wholesale food market on the Grand Rue downtown Monday afternoon. U.N. and Haitian police tried to stop them, to no avail.

"The population was throwing stones at us to stop us from preventing the looting,” said Gabriel Diallo, a United Nations officer from Guinea. "They said we can't stop them from looting the food because they were hungry."

Reader Lent wondered whether the term was “even literally correct to apply to people removing foodstuffs from collapsed stores," where Lent thought the owner could have been killed by the quake or had fled. 

Foreign Editor Bruce Wallace said reporters and editors have been trying to avoid using the term looting, “because we are not always sure whether food has been stolen or not. But if someone has taken something by force, and we know it, that is looting. Under these conditions, many people would justify looting, and readers can decide for themselves whether the terrible conditions and desperation in Haiti excuse it.”

The Times’ preferred dictionary, Webster’s New World College 4th edition, defines looting as “goods stolen or taken by force.” It does not give exceptions, such as in the case of something being taken for basic survival.

In both the Cole photo and the Mozingo-Ellingwood article, the subjects were taking food. But in each case, authority figures were present. So “looting” seems to be technically accurate. But as Wallace says, each of us can decide whether we find the actions to be warranted.

What do you think?

--Deirdre Edgar
Twitter: @LATreadersrep

Photo: A man is arrested in Haiti after taking some canned milk. Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

Related:

NPR’s ombudsman addresses the "looting" question

CJR on using technology to search for Haiti's missing

Mary Ann Meek to join A1 news team

One more staff change to announce, regarding the promotion of assistant national editor Mary Ann Meek. The staff memo from Managing Editor/Print Jon Thurber follows:

Mary Ann Meek, who has served the national desk with distinction as a line editor, wire editor, news editor and copy editor over the last 21 years, has been promoted to executive news editor and will soon join the A1 news team that also includes Weekend Editor Mary Braswell and Executive News Editor Marcy Springer.

In her new position, Mary Ann will work with other A1 team members and colleagues across the newsroom in resolving issues in the reporting, writing, editing and presentation of stories from all The Times' news departments, Sports and Features. A1 desk editors coordinate the work of colleagues, including line editors, reporters, design and copy editors, photographers and graphic editors. The A1 desk team makes news-play decisions for the front page of the paper and for the new AA section, mediates taste and language, and handles production issues and emergencies.

A native of Los Angeles, Mary Ann grew up in Hancock Park, attended the Marlborough School and went on to USC, where she graduated with a degree in print journalism. She worked for a time at PBS, updating news feeds on its silent radio feature, before joining the copy desk at the old Herald Examiner. She came to The Times in the spring of 1989 as a copy editor and rose through the ranks in national. On her first day as an assignment editor in national, federal agents stormed the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. Since then she has had a hand in covering every major national story, including five presidential elections, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina.

When not commuting on the freeway or rooting in Dodger Stadium, she can usually be found at home in Glendora, doing her best to organize her husband and two dogs. Like her two college-age children, she says, they rarely listen.  

David Colker promoted to assistant business editor

Here is a memo from Business Editor John Corrigan to the staff regarding the promotion of business reporter David Colker:

Over the years we’ve relied on David Colker for brightly written takes on everything from Bratz dolls to discount caskets. Today, I’m happy to report that David is being promoted to assistant business editor, effective immediately.

David is one of the pioneers of technology reporting, creating The Times’ first technology column -- Cyberia -- way back in the mid-1990s. More recently, he has been a key member of the technology team, reporting on the latest advances in computers, music devices, social networking and even those old-fashioned television sets.

In his new position, David will anchor our late desk. His duties will include scrambling coverage on late-breaking stories and keeping the Business blogs and website fresh and interesting in the afternoon and evening hours.

A graduate of Penn State University, David is a former radio disc jockey whose byline first captured notice at the old Herald Examiner in the mid-1980s. He joined The Times in 1988, serving in a variety of roles in Business and features. In 1996 he was assigned to prepare the obituary for an ailing Timothy Leary. Taking the job with characteristic gusto, David managed to be at Leary’s bedside when he passed, thus making it unnecessary to attribute the LSD impresario’s last words.

A new readers' representative for The Times

As my first order of business, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm honored to be succeeding Jamie Gold as readers' representative, and I look forward to continuing the conversation. I also want to salute Jamie as she leaves The Times. For 10 years she has been committed to listening to readers and working to get your voice heard in the newsroom and reflected in news coverage. She leaves big (and stylish) shoes to fill.

The memo from Editor Russ Stanton announcing my appointment follows.

Deirdre Edgar, national copy desk chief since 2006, will become readers’ representative effective today.  

Deirdre will be expanding the scope and reach of the Readers’ Representative Office at a time when interaction with our readers, users and viewers has never been more important and the mediums in which we interact never more varied. Specifically, she will be broadening the Readers’ Representative Journal, the online report started by Jamie Gold in 2007.

As part of that effort, Deirdre will proactively share with readers many of the things that go into our newsgathering efforts, like our coverage of the Haitian earthquake and its aftermath, how we tackled an investigative project or how a photographer captured a terrific photo. She plans to host Times journalists in weekly online conversations with readers and to use the evolving tools of social media to help incorporate reader perspectives into coverage.

She will publish more reader comments, more often, with the goal being a focus on the journalism and transparency. Journal entries will include questions about fairness and usage as well as praise when readers recognize exceptional work. She will, of course, continue the office's role in independently investigating questions of accuracy and fairness in our news coverage. And she will serve as a member of the newsroom Standards & Practices Committee. Deirdre will report to me; Managing Editor Jon Thurber will edit the journal.

To enable this broadening of the mission, we will be adjusting how we handle corrections. Beginning today, correction requests sent to the readers' representative mailbox will be directed to the various news and features sections. Asst. Managing Editor Henry Fuhrmann will oversee this process, and each section will designate an editor to serve as the point person to pursue the requests.

As head of the national copy desk the last four years, Deirdre has demonstrated the extraordinary skills and high standards necessary to do this job. She is passionate about upholding the tenets of good journalism; communicates quickly and easily with editors and reporters, the A1 desk and the homepage; and is exceptionally well organized.

She and her crew have been the final sets of eyes on much of our signature work in recent years, notably our coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign as well as several award-winning projects. Deirdre was one of the copy editors on the "Altered Oceans" project, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007, and was part of the Metro team honored with a 2004 Pulitzer for coverage of the California wildfires.

Deirdre joined The Times in November 1999 as a copy editor in the Business section before moving to the Orange County and Metro copy desks. In 2003 she was named The Times’ copy editor of the year. Deirdre has held copy editing positions at the Orange County Register, the Arizona Republic and the Oregonian in Portland. She has served on the board of the American Copy Editors Society for eight years, the last four as vice president for conferences. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Cal State Long Beach. 

P.J. Huffstutter moves from National to Business reporting

Here is a memo from Business Editor John Corrigan to the staff about reporter P.J. Huffstutter's new assignment:

After a six-year tour as a national correspondent, P.J. Huffstutter will be rejoining Business on Jan. 25 as a Los Angeles-based reporter focused on the food and agriculture beat.

Most of you know P.J.’s work: covering an eight-state region in the Midwest, she  wrote about two serial killers, three major hurricanes and hundreds of tales about life in America’s heartland.

P.J. first joined the Times’ business staff in Orange County in 1997, where she covered local technology firms and the meteoric rise of Broadcom Corp. She later joined the paper’s technology team in Los Angeles, where she reported on the collapse of the dot-com world and the convergence of technology and Hollywood.

On the food and agriculture beat, P.J. will focus on several key areas – including how climate change and the water wars are threatening farming. She’ll also report on food safety issues, and give us close looks at some of the giant agribusinesses that play such a big role in what we eat. She’s also aiming to provide some interesting takes on food culture.

P.J., by the way, stands for Patricia Jettie. She adopted it for her byline as a cub reporter in Grand Junction, Colo. after she was told “Patricia J. Huffstutter” was too long. As P.J. tells it: “On my first day on the job, the publisher came stomping up to my desk – big belt buckle gleaming, cowboy boots polished to a sheen – and told me, 'Ya gotta change your name.' ”

It’s been P.J. ever since.

New beats for Ken Bensinger and Jerry Hirsch

Below is a memo from Business Editor John Corrigan about new beats for reporters Ken Bensinger and Jerry Hirsch:

Two of our ace reporters in Business, Ken Bensinger and Jerry Hirsch, are stepping into new roles.

Ken, who has been covering the autos beat since 2007, will become our enterprise reporter, enabling him to pursue a broader variety of topics.  We’ll look to Ken for investigative reporting – his recent stories on Toyota’s runaway acceleration problem are a good example of that – as well as for pieces that take readers behind the curtain on everything from insurance practices to stock market hijinks, and perhaps a look at some interesting movers and shakers as well. 

Ken takes on this new role after a year of exemplary work on the autos beat, where he has been on one monster story after another, including  the bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler, the long slump in sales and  (who could forget?) Cash-for-Clunkers.  Along with Ralph Vartabedian, he has relentlessly pursued the Toyota sudden acceleration story, using his well-honed reporting skills to find a wealth of government statistics and personal accounts that call into question whether floormats were indeed the only culprit in the automaker’s 4-million-plus vehicle recall.

A graduate of Duke University, Ken’s career has included stops at the Wall Street Journal and Smart Money magazine. He also spent four years as a freelancer in Mexico City, where he wrote for Variety, the Christian Science Monitor and the Houston Chronicle, among other publications.

 He’s hoping his new assignment means no more winter trips to Detroit.

Jerry is taking on the Autos beat, where he has already managed to steer his way to Page One.

He comes to the assignment from the Food beat, where he had a terrific run of stories chronicling  supermarket price wars, the controversy over corn sweetener and even the advent of plastic bottles for premium wine, among other subjects.

Jerry has proven himself to have a keen eye for the kinds of stories that resonate with readers and rocket their way to the top of the most-viewed and most-emailed lists. Look for him to take our autos coverage in some new directions this year. In addition to keeping tabs on the industry’s nascent turnaround, he plans to pay close attention to how automakers adapt to increased demands for environmentally friendly cars and manufacturing processes.

 And given  Southern California’s historic role as a center of car culture, he’ll also look for stories that speak to our unique fascination with all things auto.

With a bachelor's from UC  Davis and a master’s from Northwestern,  Jerry has plied his trade at shops including the Orange County Register and Daily Breeze before making his way here a decade ago.

Please join me in congratulating Ken and Jerry on their challenging new assignments.

 

New beats for Landsberg, Lin, Saillant and Winton

Below the break is the announcement from David Lauter, assistant managing editor, California, about new assignments for reporters Mitchell Landsberg, who will cover religion; Ron Lin, who will cover L.A. County; Catherine Saillant, assigned to cover regional government; and Richard Winton, whose beat will be regional crime.

Nathaniel Popper joins Business section, will cover Wall Street

Below is the memo to the Staff from John Corrigan, Business editor; and Art Buckler, Markets editor:

Nathaniel Popper joins The Times as a Business reporter in New York, where he will cover Wall Street, the financial markets and other stories about money and power in Gotham.

Nathaniel comes to us from the Forward, the Jewish-American weekly newspaper, where he spent six years as a reporter and for a time as an editor. His articles exposing the miserable working conditions at the country’s largest kosher meat packing plant won a Deadline Club Award from the New York chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and were a finalist for a Gerald Loeb Award. He has had freelance pieces published in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Columbia Journalism Review and even the Los Angeles Times.

A native of Pittsburgh, Nathaniel got a bachelor’s degree in American history and literature at Harvard, where he played intercollegiate hockey. He also studied German literature on a yearlong fellowship at Freie Universitat in Berlin. He also found time to hike the southern half of the Appalachian Trail.

Nathaniel will be in Los Angeles for three weeks starting Monday, Jan. 11, before starting in our NYC bureau Feb. 1. He succeeds Walter Hamilton, who has returned here as a Los Angeles-based financial reporter after seven years of outstanding work covering Wall Street.