Comics, take 3

"According to Wednesday's paper this site is suppose to give the reason why you canceled Sally Forth. I find no reason given other than 'we wanted  to'.  ... It takes a lot of nerve not to listen to the people who keep you in your job , even if you think they give 'skewed responses.' "

That's an excerpt from Rachel Engler's comment, one of hundreds that have come in since readers learned of the change-up on The Times' comics pages (see post from Sunday).

Since then, two posts on this journal have tried to provide some of the thinking behind the changes, but readers have been left with some reasonable questions.

Readers were asked for several months about whether one strip should stay or go -- "For Better or for Worse." Yet Monday they were told both that "FBOFW" wasn't coming back and that a second strip that they didn't know was being considered for expulsion was also dropped ("Sally Forth").

Why were readers even polled, readers asked, especially if they found out later that editors don't rely entirely on reader input?

And what are the reasons behind what was called a "subjective" decision in dropping "Sally Forth"?

Alice Short, the assistant managing editor who oversees features, goes into detail that many say should have been given to them in the first place.

John Corrigan named editor of Business section

Editor Russ Stanton's memo to staff:

Colleagues,

John Corrigan, deputy business editor for the past two years, is being promoted to business editor, effective immediately.

He will head up an ambitious department that has a strong track record of delivering news and enterprise stories for A1, with staffers stationed in Sacramento, San Francisco, New York, Washington and China.

Over the past eight years, John has compiled an impressive body of work in the Business section. As deputy, he was in charge of the daily report and oversaw the launch of the new Sunday section, which focuses on personal finance. He was the project editor for the 2003 series "The Wal-Mart Effect," which won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. As markets editor, John directed the 2006 series "Retirement at Risk," which won first place in business writing from the Associated Press and The Times' own editorial award for explanatory journalism.

Mary Braswell promoted to weekend editor

Here's the memo from Editor Russ Stanton:

Colleagues:

Mary Braswell, deputy weekend editor for the past two years, is being promoted to weekend editor, effective immediately. She will report to Executive Editor John Arthur.

Mary is known across the newsroom for her strong news judgment, ready smile, dedication to teamwork and a coolness under fire developed during a decade as deputy foreign editor, when she helped manage two dozen bureaus around the world. During that period, she balanced the many demands of numerous foreign correspondents, their families, two different foreign editors and an assortment of editors, managing editors and Page 1 editors.

She has been deputy weekend editor since March 2007, helping to generate, select and edit stories for Sunday's front page, by far our largest circulation day of the week. As deputy, Mary took charge of the weekend desk when Craig Turner was away.

Hofmeister to head new Arts & Entertainment group

Here's the memo from Editor Russ Stanton:

Colleagues:

Entertainment is Southern California's signature industry and biggest global export. With more than 50 reporters, editors and producers in Calendar, in Business and at latimes.com, we have among the largest number of journalists  -- and the best report -- in town on this important subject.

For several years, our staffs covering entertainment, the business of entertainment and the arts have been located on different floors and our coverage strategy could best be described as loosely coordinated. That approach is inadequate today given that we face fierce competition, have moved to an integrated newsroom and publish in different mediums.

Today we are establishing a new department that will be headed by Sallie Hofmeister, who is leaving her post as business editor for the masthead job of Assistant Managing Editor/Arts & Entertainment. She will report to Managing Editor Davan Maharaj.

Joining Sallie will be Craig Turner, who is leaving his position as weekend editor to become Arts & Entertainment Editor. Craig has spent the past seven years guiding our best enterprise efforts into our two biggest circulation days of the week, Saturday and Sunday. Sallie and Craig will oversee the merging of our entertainment reporting groups in Calendar and Business, and they will work closely with Richard Rushfield and Joseph Kapsch at latimes.com as we continue to expand our online entertainment news and information offerings.

Combining the teams in Calendar and Business will broaden the reach, breadth and depth of our multimedia coverage. The goal remains to produce a high-quality and unique base of content that can be distributed to different audiences through different mediums. We will continue to write authoritatively about industry trends for our large print and online audiences, and look for smart and entertaining ways to cover Hollywood's movers and shakers and the celebrities who make Southern California their home. As part of this combination, we are bringing back Company Town, a package of stories and other data focused on the business of entertainment, to the Business section. It will return on Tuesday, March 3.

Why weren't readers asked about Ted and Sally?*

Many individuals left comments on the original post on this journal to ask why readers were not given a chance to voice their opinions on the plans for "Sally Forth," as they were with "For Better or for Worse." Here's the context: The Times, and other newspapers, often change comics without alerting readers beforehand. The months-long process on whether to keep or drop Lynn Johnston's strip was an exception because the creator had made the decision to stop doing new comics, which gave editors at The Times a clear opportunity to weigh the past vs. the future.

In general, though, the process of choosing strips is like every other editorial decision made in a newsroom -- subjective. Not every reader is going to like every decision made, just as not every reader agrees on what strips are great and which are garbage.

To paraphrase the washingtonpost.com story that is also linked in the original post, polling readers -- especially when it comes to comics -- often isn't useful. Such polling often results in skewed responses, when fans or even authors of strips urge others to write in, creating lopsided votes.

That's one reason readers aren't typically polled beforehand. However, their voices do count, though they're not necessarily counted up as in a vote. Sherry Stern, deputy editor in Features, notes: "Editors put a lot of thought into what goes into the paper, the comics included. Hearing what readers think is an important part of the process."

*Update: In response to a number of readers asking if cost was a consideration in the decision on which comics to run and which to drop: No, cost was not a consideration. (If it were, The Times probably wouldn't continue to devote pages to the comic strips that do run.) That doesn't change the fact, of course, that plenty of readers didn't like this decision.

*A new post on this topic added Thursday addresses more reader comments.

Robyn Dixon awarded Batten Medal; 3 other Times staffers honored as finalists

Times Editor Russ Stanton reports to the staff that Robyn Dixon won an award from the American Society of Newspaper Editors and that three other Times staffers were finalists in other categories:

Colleagues:

  Robyn Dixon today was named the winner of the prestigious Batten Medal of the American Society of Newspaper Editors for her coverage of the political and humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe.
  The award, named for the late James K. Batten, CEO of Knight Ridder Inc., recognizes “compassion, courage, humanity and a deep concern for the underdog.”
  It’s not the first time Robyn’s reporting from Zimbabwe has placed her in exclusive company. Last year, she won a Robert F. Kennedy Award (the judges lauded her “extraordinary courage”) and a Sigma Delta Chi international reporting prize.
  It would be hard to overstate the danger and difficulty of reporting in Zimbabwe. Robyn has made 11 trips there over the last two years, working undercover because foreign journalists are officially unwelcome. To avoid arrest, she entered the country by land whenever possible, chose out-of-the-way lodgings and tried to dress like a local.
  “I do my interviews in secret: moving cars, dark carparks (using my cell phone as a torch), cars parked in anonymous locations,” she said in a recent email. “The only close shave I had was in September when opposition and ruling party youths clashed, throwing stones in Harare. I was watching from one side when ruling party youths spotted me and gave chase. I ran into a crowd, all fleeing, and got away down a side street.”
  Robyn, who grew up in Melbourne, spent nine years in Moscow covering the former Soviet Union and Afghanistan, first for Australian newspapers and later for us. Since 2003, she has been based in Johannesburg.
  In addition to awarding Robyn the Batten Medal, ASNE judges recognized Times journalists as finalists in three other categories:
  -- The metro staff, deadline news, for coverage of the Metrolink disaster.
  -- Joe Mozingo, distinguished writing, for a collection of feature stories, including his series “Through Prison Glass.”
  -- Don Bartletti, community service photojournalism, for pictures that captured the ordeal of undocumented Mexican immigrants injured in a wildfire while crossing into Southern California.
  Please join me in congratulating our colleagues for their outstanding work.

Russ Stanton
Editor

When it comes to comics, the winners are ... *

This note will appear in Monday's Calendar section:

To Our Readers

Today we introduce two new comics to our daily lineup: "Stone Soup" by Jan Eliot and "Home and Away" by Steve Sicula. They replace  "For Better or for Worse" and "Sally Forth." For more about our decision, go to latimes.com/readersrep. And comments are welcome at comics (at) latimes.com.

Sherry Stern, the editor who oversees the comics, has been asking readers their thoughts for the past several months as a variety of strips were given five-week trial runs. The entry on this journal for the most recent try-out, "Stone Soup," includes links to previous posts as well.

Readers were variously tickled and annoyed at the chance to vote, as Stern's explanation below says.

News on the relaunch of L.A. Now, mapping and more

Here's a memo to Times staff from Meredith Artley, executive editor of LATimes.com:

L.A. Now, our local breaking news blog, relaunched earlier this week with a new design and a new homepage widget that scrolls through the top 5 posts. You’ll see a bolder look and feel, more prominent video placement featuring great stuff from KTLA, aggregated headline feeds from other sites, daily traffic and weather posts from KTLA, new “morning scoop” posts and continuous coverage from our fabulous metro staff. This blog drew 1.6 million page views last month – these improvements should make it even more of a must read: http://www.latimes.com/lanow

You saw the note from Russ about the Mapping L.A. project – about 24 hours later, there are more than 850 comments from readers, many of them drawing their own maps and having smart, often heated debates about the boundaries of our city’s neighborhoods. [The memo from Editor Russ Stanton and California Editor David Lauter is pasted in below.] Check out this piece from KTLA about the project, featuring David Lauter. Here’s an excerpt from one comment from a reader who sees where it’s all going:

Giving the readers a place to share their views of the communities like this, to me is fantastic!   And if you read more into what this “map” is, you will see that it will be a hell of a lot more than drawing out neighborhood boundary lines.   As this “map” develops, it looks to me that it will be place for people to get stories and information about their own neighborhood, their own back yard if you will….    crime reports, schools, city services etc.   

Even with the changes that LAT has gone through, again, just like every other paper out there, I say “Hats Off” to The Los Angeles Times for sticking it through and doing what they can to meet the needs of the community the best they can in this very difficult time.

But wait – there’s more. Metro and many others didn’t stop there – they broke new ground on the state budget coverage with live “tweets” to twitter.com/latimeslocal from the Sacramento team. Readers found this on our homepage as a sidebar (sidetweet?) to the main story. This only underlined points made in an interview published earlier this week with our social media guru Andrew Nystrom – the headline: LA Times embraces, chases social media.

Movie reviews got the video treatment this week from our expert voices:

-        Betsy Sharkey reviews “Medicine for Melancholy”

-        Kenneth Turan on “Moscow, Belgium”

And this audio slide show was embedded on the homepage last night (meaning readers could play it on the homepage), accompanying Scott Gold’s most recent Out There piece.

Look for an outstanding Oscars package coming this Sunday with a dramatic homepage layout during the show.

Just a few highlights of absolutely great work done by so many of you during an otherwise tough week.

Meredith Artley

Executive Editor, LATimes.com

Note from editor regarding job eliminations

Here's a memo sent to staff by Editor Russ Stanton:

Colleagues: 

This will be another difficult day in our newsroom as we'll be saying good-bye to 14 of our co-workers and friends. Those affected will be notified before noon.

I regret that these cost-saving moves will result in the loss of work for people who have served this company well, and for many years.

The total number of jobs being eliminated in Editorial remains at 70. For a variety of reasons, the remaining departures will occur toward the end of March.

Thank you for your patience and for your continued good work during these challenging times.

Russ Stanton
Editor

Eyewitnesses and experts in recent plane crash stories

A plane crash is news. What people have to say about the crash is part of the story. But whose perspectives actually add enough to warrant publication? Two recent airplane accidents have brought these questions from readers. One story quoted an unnamed person with experience in the field; one quoted and named an eyewitness with no apparent background in aviation.

Mike Holmstrom of San Jose took note of one passage in one of the first-day news stories on the US Airways crash-gliding in New York's Hudson River. Toward the end, the article said:

One longtime commercial pilot who has spent years as a company flight instructor warned that before dubbing Sullenberger a hero, investigators needed to determine whether crew error contributed to the emergency.

The pilot, who did not want to be named, was skeptical that bird strikes shut down both engines.

"I've seen it happen too many times in the simulators -- you get a flameout in one engine and the quick response is to shut down the wrong one," the pilot said."

After the National Transportation Safety Board said that both engines had indeed simultaneously lost power, Holmstrom wrote, "Do us all a favor, and tell the staff of The Times not to speculate so early into an investigation. What were the writers thinking? I wish The Times would come forward & say they blew it by doubting the pilot in this incident."

A December article covering the crash in San Diego of a military jet included this passage:

"It was mushing through the air," Kreischer said. "It was chugging along with what seemed like one engine. Then I heard a roar of engine and all of a sudden, whoop, dead silence.

"This guy could have turned it around and put it in the ocean. He was never going to make it to Miramar."

At the time the story appeared, Christopher Chinman in San Diego objected: