LOS ANGELES TIMES

HOME  |  AUTOMOTIVE  |  EDUCATION |  FILMS  |  MUSIC  | POLITICS  | SITE INDEX | SPORT

The Los Angeles Times (also known as the LA Times) is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California and distributed throughout the Western United States. It is the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States and the third-most widely distributed newspaper in the United States.

Founded in 1881, the Times has won 37 Pulitzer Prizes through 2004; this includes four in editorial cartooning, and one each in spot news reporting for the 1965 Watts Riots and the 1992 Los Angeles riots. In 2004, the paper won five prizes, which was the second-most by any paper in one year (the first was The New York Times in 2002).

History

The paper was first published as the Los Angeles Daily Times on December 4, 1881, but soon went bankrupt. The paper's printer, the Mirror Company, took over the newspaper and installed former Union Army lieutenant colonel Harrison Gray Otis as an editor. Otis made the paper a financial success. In 1884, he bought out the newspaper and printing company to form the Times-Mirror Company.

Historian Kevin Starr lists Otis (with Henry E. Huntington and Moses Sherman) as a businessman "capable of manipulating the entire apparatus of politics and public opinion for his own enrichment." Otis's editorial policy was based on civic boosterism, extolling the virtues of Los Angeles and promoting its growth. Towards those ends, the paper supported efforts to expand the city's water supply by acquiring the watershed of the Owens Valley, an effort (highly) fictionalized in the Roman Polanski movie Chinatown which is also covered in California Water Wars. Otis also was staunchly Republican, which was reflected in the paper's editorial and news content. Today, however, the paper has a distinctive liberal/Democratic position.

Los Angeles Times front page 2006

LINKS

General references:

• Edward Maddin Ainsworth, History of Los Angeles Times, ca. 1940.

• Robert Gottlieb, Thinking Big, New York: Putnam, 1977.

• David Halberstam, The Powers That Be, New York: Knopf, 1979.

• Jack R. Hart, The information empire: The rise of the Los Angeles Times and the Times Mirror Corporation, Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1981.

Specific references:

• "Circulation at the Top 20 Newspapers", The Associated Press,

• 2007 Top 100 Daily Newspapers in the U.S. by Circulation (PDF). BurrellesLuce (2007-03-31). 

• Inventing the Dream: California Through the Progressive Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985): 228.

• Dennis McDougal, Privileged son: Otis Chandler and the rise and fall of the L.A. Times dynasty, Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo, 2002

• ProQuest Dissertation Abstracts, accessed June 8, 2007.

• Rainey, James, "Newspaper Circulation Continues to Fall," Los Angeles Times 1 May 2007: D1.

• Editor & Publisher. "California Split: 57 More Job Cuts at L.A. Times".

• Editor & Publisher. "Pulitzer Winner Explains Why She Took L.A. Times Buyout". 

• Why I'm Leaving The L.A. Times from The Huffington Post

• Mother Jones. "Breaking the News". 

• http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-05-08-newspape

• Tribune goes to Zell, from the April 3, 2007 edition of the Chicago Sun-Times

• Salon. "Meltdown at the L.A. Times", 1999-11-05.

• Editor & Publisher. "Garfield no more?".

• Los Angeles Times. "Bomb Iran", 2006-11-19.

• Los Angeles Times. "Editor Resigns over Killed Opinion Section", 2007-03-22.

• Los Angeles Times. "Grazergate, an Epilogue", 2007-03-22. 

• Deadline Hollywood Daily. "LA Times Publisher's Friend and Tribune Co Ex-Director Don Rumsfeld was asked to Guest-Edit after Grazer", 2007-03-25.

• http://www.latimes.com/extras/bookprizes/index.html Los Angeles Times Book Prizes home page

• Tribune Company

• Los Angeles Times Travel

News A to Z directory, please click on the links below to find your favourite news or to contact the media to tell your story:

There was a time when you had the time to enjoy the simple pleasures in life. Now we rarely speak to our partners and have to schedule time to touch base on the important issues. No wonder the divorce rate is rising and no wonder our values are changing to reflect the disposable society we are creating.

Instead of helping our neighbours, some of them we fear, simply because we don't understand their culture and they ours. Whereas, the world is shrinking due to globalisation and free information exchange, much of which is achieved via the internet.

Nelson says: "time for a new approach"

The healthier taste for adventurous capitalists

Solar Red | Solar Crush | Solar Cola | Solar Spice | Solar +

IF YOU HAVE ANY GOOD STORIES TO TELL WE'D LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU WITH PICTURES, ETC.   OR, WHY NOT BUILD A WEBSITE OF YOUR OWN TO TELL YOUR STORY.  WE WILL LINK TO YOUR SITE WITH A SHORT SUMMARY.