Bye, Bye, LA Times! Eli Broad is in the Wings — Maybe.
By Carol Jean Delmar
Extra! Extra! There are new developments on the Huffington Post saga. I have been replaced by “Ring” leader Barry Sanders. Yes, in spite of the fact that Stuart Whatley wrote me that I was dropped because “the ‘Ring’ opera situation . . . is a highly contentious issue with a great deal of acrimony between the different parties involved and we’d rather separate ourselves from it,” the Huffington Post has taken the opposite approach by joining other Los Angeles media organizations and becoming a part of the party.
Sanders is using the Huffington Post as a marketing tool. On Sanders’ first post, he wrote that in coming weeks he would be “blogging about Ring Festival LA event highlights, feedback from Angelenos, anecdotes and controversies.” Controversies? He acknowledged what he called James Conlon’s “brilliant” presentation at the Museum of Tolerance with no mention of the scholarly heckler who didn’t agree.
But by far the most disturbing announcement Sanders made can be found in his second post. “The media are partnering with us in new and innovative ways. . . . Our media partners are not simply playing the conventional roles of reporting and commenting on events, they are ‘in the conversation’ and are thus part of the Festival,” he wrote, specifically mentioning the LA Times. “Their writers are blogging, vlogging and tweeting all things ‘Ring,’” he concluded.
So now you tell me – am I supposed to take Mark Swed’s reviews seriously? Isn’t there a conflict of interest here? The LA Times’ editorial department has crossed over into advertising, and Sanders has admitted it on one of the most frequented news sites on the Internet.
The LA Times has lost all credibility for me. Sound journalistic practices have been abandoned, and the more respected Los Angeles Daily News isn’t large enough to compete nationally.
I am no longer obliged to continue proving my political assertions from previous posts since Sanders has provided the proof for me. LA Opera, the “Ring” festival, city and county leaders, Plácido Domingo, James Conlon, the LA Times, the Huffington Post, LACMA, MOCA, the Grand Avenue Project – everything is connected to Eli Broad.
Ring Festival LA was born at a round-table discussion at the LA Times, and the festival was subsequently announced in November 2008, with Broad, who contributed $6 million to the “Ring,” stating that the festival would “bring worldwide attention to our city and attract an increasing number of visitors.”
According to Reed Johnson’s Nov. 3 article in the LA Times, Broad and Domingo “discussed how to encourage the millions who annually visit Southern California’s major attractions to add a few days to their itinerary to take in festival activities.”
So voilà! Broad has influenced the LA Times to carry out the edict. He’d been interested in purchasing the Tribune Company-owned paper in 2007, but Sam Zell succeeded, paving the way for the company’s bankruptcy filing in 2008 and a possible sale in the future. In March 2009 at a lecture on business at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, Reuters quoted Broad as having said, “I would like to see our foundation and others join together to own the LA Times.”
I wanted to put the Huffington Post matter to sleep but simply had to use this opportunity to show how hypocritical and deceitful the management has been. Whatley wrote me that they were distancing themselves from the festival, yet they are promoting it because they are beholden to bloggers Eli Broad, Zev Yaroslavsky, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Barry Sanders, and their local partner — the LA Times. After all, Broad may one day save it (if Haim Saban doesn’t do it first).
Every conceivable aspect of arts and politics in downtown LA has links to Broad, even what happened to me at the Huffington Post since my opinions didn’t fit in with the plan.
So when confronted by a reporter from LA Weekly, Huffington Post spokesman Mario Ruiz dreamt up another reason for blocking me and said that my “second post didn’t add anything new to the discussion about . . . LA Opera” when my second post was about Pasadena Playhouse, and my third post was blocked before an editor could read it.
As for my exchanges with the Huffington Post, if you are not a celebrity (or maybe Barry Sanders), the Huffington Post leaves bloggers to fend for themselves. Dan Tynan’s comment in response to a July 20 post by Tina Dupuy on FishbowlLA couldn’t have said it better. “Just getting huffpo to return emails counts as a major triumph,” he wrote. I guess I should feel flattered that Whatley sent me an e-mail even if it wasn’t true and was a bit contentious.
All pettiness aside, though, I no longer care what is said about me because I understand that the powers in Los Angeles are simply doing what they deem necessary to crush or cover up every obstacle in their way, and the moral issue of having a Wagner festival is one of them. I believe that people are starting to wise up and realize that everything written and said has merely been rhetoric — because the Emperor has no clothes! And we in Los Angeles no longer have a newspaper.
