Well, it won't be just the Fish Wrapper but the entire Tribune Company that will file Chapter 11. It's been a long time coming -- the Fish Wrapper has suffered declining readership, serious editorial and business mismanagement, and a seeming inability to stop hemorrhaging money with both operations and advertisement. It's not alone; these are the same problems that every large news-gathering organization will inevitably have because supporting a worldwide network of reporters is certainly an expensive undertaking.
I generally dislike the Fish Wrapper because it seems unable to keep editorial bias from creeping into its reporting. Even when I agree with their bias (maybe one time in three) it's still irritating. But at the same time, it is a world-class news organization and we need to have more than a handful of these out there to keep us all informed about what's going on in the world. Ultimately, we have to depend on someone to tell us what's happening elsewhere in the world, and an independent (meaning not government-controlled) source is inherently better than the alternative. So I do hope that the Tribune pulls through -- but watch this story, folks, because whatever company emerges from the Chapter 11 will likely be the next phase of global news reporting.
Besides, I have some civic pride. If Los Angeles has a world-class newspaper, that makes it a world-class city.
December 7, 2008
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