perfidy

Well, about damned time, I'm thinking.

Oct. 5, 2006
Tribune Co. said Los Angeles Times Publisher Jeffrey M. Johnson has resigned, amid disagreements over the future of the paper. Johnson had defied the company's demands for what he considered potentially damaging staff cuts.

All due respect to what I'm sure were good and strongly-held intentions on the part of Mr. Johnson, but when your boss tells you to do something, you can either do it or quit. Johnson's been taking the imaginary middle ground, to date, and invoking the Nancy Reagan Defense.

He may even be right in claiming that requested cuts at the LA Times would hurt the paper's viablity, and who am I to contradict him? Nobody, that's who. I'm not contradicting him, I'm just saying that he should have been fired the minute he refused a direct order. That's the way life works, and even though he's now "resigned", let's not kid ourselves - he was fired, rightly so.

Based on the shirt-rending hue and cry of the past month in Los Angeles on this matter, the cries of indignation seem likely be broad and loud. If so, they'll all be sadly misplaced. Local groups in and around the metropolis have made noise about buying the Times from Tribune, but haven't made meaningful headway yet. Over the past month, it's sounded, in fact, as though they were trying to insist that the Tribune Co. sell them the paper, but on their terms.

Here's another tip as to how things work: You can insist that, for the good of the community, the paper be sold to local ownership, and you can insist on your own set of terms for that sale. But in America, you can't do both.

And thus, the LA Times, for now, remains the property of the Tribune Co., and with that ownership, they can take whatever management & personnel actions they feel are required. If those actions turn out to be ill-advised, the LA Times, Tribune Co., and their stockholders will suffer, also rightly so.

That, too, is how things work in America.