News and Media Part 1: Review of Dennis McDougal's "Privileged Son"

Privileged Son: Otis Chandler and the Rise and Fall of the L.A. Times Dynasty the Micheneresque history of the LA Times written by former LA Times journalist Dennis McDougal is enlightening and an entertaining read.  The book traces the story of the Los Angeles Times and the powerful family that owned it for over a century until its sale the Tribune Company in 2000.  The dynasty that used its power, wealth, and influence to control the City of Los Angeles and its environs for nearly half a century was founded by staunchly anti-union newspaperman General Harrison Gray Otis and passed on to his acquisitive son-in-law with a rapaciousness that complemented his Protestant work ethic, Harry Chandler, the inspiration for Robert Towne's character Noah Cross in Chinatown.  The book is very well written and much less sugar-coated, apparently, than numerous histories of the Times that have preceded it.  For a resident of Los Angeles, I consider it no less than required reading if one wishes to understand this sprawling megapolis.  So much becomes clear; just by understanding a detailed history of the Chandler family financial interests, one can trace the development or lack thereof of numerous components of this fair city including the LADWP, the LAPD, public transit, urban sprawl, the aerospace industry, the ports...  The Chandlers had a hand in almost everything.

While the intrigue and corruption make for an interesting read, one through-line that appealed to me was the development of the Times as a paper and how it attempted to cover the news.  During the lifetime of General Otis and Harry Chandler, the paper was merely a tool for controlling local politicians and a mouthpiece for their virulent anti-union, arch-conservative politics.  Even with the control of the paper passing to Harry's son Norman, the paper remained a "Republican" paper.  It was not until Norman's son Otis took control of the paper in 1960 that the Los Angeles Times attempted to emulate the New York Times in terms of quality.  Intensely competitive, Otis Chandler wanted to have a good product and to him that meant critical recognition.  Otis wanted Pulitzers and  he wanted to beat the New York Times and for that he had to allow his paper to become a more "neutral" observer of society, and spend a lot more money hiring better reporters, comic artists, and opiners.  This brings up the questions of what  approach makes a paper "good," what sells, and what, if any, is the duty of journalists and publishers in publishing the news?

The 20th century saw a development of a set of codified journalism ethics that rely on objectivity and the public's right to know.  However, with the newspaper business seemingly in trouble, it has brought into the public debate the questions above as well as those of "why are newspapers failing?" and "what will be the vehicles and platforms of news and media consumption in the future?"  In a series of articles I intend to explore a number of these issues and at the risk of sounding like a media studies syllabus, I hope to delve into the following topics: the moral and civic "duty" of journalists, centrism vs. objectivity, and the fate of newspapers and future consumption platforms.