Wednesday, April 16, 2003 2:42 PM
BY MICHAEL COLLINS
On the eve of war, more than 80 people attended the Club’s March 11 standing- room-only panel discussion, “Is the Alternative Press Still an Alternative?” an oft-times jovial event that belied the turbu- lent times in the weekly press.
News that at least three weeklies will expand or launch in Los Angeles soon, and the loss nationwide of more than 70,000 media jobs since 2000, helped draw a crowd to hear former Mayor Richard Riordan, alternative newspaper expert Richard Karpel, L.A. Weekly Deputy Editor Joe Donnelly, O.C. Weekly Editor Will Swaim and former Ventura County Reporter Editor Sharon McKenna. The discussion was moderated by Press Club Directors Michael Collins and Jill Stewart. Karpel, executive director of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, said weeklies today are in an intense com- petition against each other for space at retail outlets, and the Internet has obliter- ated personal ad sections that once brought in big revenue.
With the buyout and shutdown of New Times Los Angeles last October by LA Weekly owner Village Voice Media, and the subsequent Department of Justice investi- gation that resulted in fines against both companies, attendees were eager to hear from the Weekly. Deputy Editor Donnelly joked that trying to find out who owned the Weekly’s parent company was harder than unraveling the Whitewater scandal. He acknowledged the Weekly is owned by a huge Dutch holding company. The affable Donnelly sounded a theme heard several times, that the Weekly provides deep cover- age of local issues daily newspapers ignore. He observed that as weekly papers age, their audience has grown older — and more “bourgeois.” Said Donnelly, “That doesn’t sound very alternative. I think that the alternative press is a concept that is changing.” Several weeklies are in the works in Los Angeles, including Riordan’s, the expanded LA Alternative Press in Silverlake, and an expected launch by Southland Publishing, owner of Ventura County Reporter, Pasadena Weekly and San Diego City Beat. McKenna, who resigned from VC Reporter in February, noted that Southland Publishing never understood Ventura because the com- pany is directed by non-journalists. “There was a lot of opportunity for the Ventura County Reporter to cover a lot more stories, get a lot more advertising dollars and really seize the day and serve the County,” she said. “There also was a lack of a vision in a strong assets staff and a strong editorial staff. Instead, it was a business model that I see as an emerging and disturbing trend.”
The 800-pound gorilla in the room was Riordan, who plans to launch the weekly Los Angeles Examiner. Riordan displayed a hand- some prototype with contributions from Bill Boyarsky, Lynda Obst and Billy Crystal.
“I can talk freely because I know nothing about the newspaper business,” he joked, but earned applause when he said he will hire top editors in journalism, then trust the journalism to them.
The former mayor revealed that L.A. Times circulation has dropped from 1.2 mil- lion to 900,000, and a Times study found the paper would make its greatest profit at 750,000 readers — which made the crowd gasp.
He said that unlike alternative weeklies, the Examiner will include a Hollywood gossip column and sports. “If you want to read about dirt in L.A., you have to read the New York papers,” he said, quipping, “We have dirt on everybody in this room!”
Riordan decried a situation in which one paper dominates L.A. He says reporters get lazy relying on “the ten usual suspects,” resulting in tech- nically factual but slanted articles. “We won’t tolerate that type of report- ing,” he said. “It’s something that I don’t like.”
In contrast to the weeklies jumping into L.A., in Orange County Will Swaim faces no other weekly. Swaim also noted that after the Tribune Co. bought the L.A. Times, the Times slashed its O.C. coverage. Now, he says, the Orange County Register is for sale and Gannett is interested in buying it — a chain known for sub-par local coverage. Says Swaim, “We don’t have a lot of (local) coverage and there are three million people down there.” The community papers don’t do real news because, he says, “They are typically not in a position to piss anybody off. They have to be very, very careful about what they write.”
The question and answer session was boisterous. One woman noted that the panel, moderators and audience mentioned ‘The Los Angeles Times’ more than 80 times. “Get over it,” she remarked to laughter and applause. Considering the opportunities opening in the weekly market here, it seems that may happen.
