The leaders of the Los Angeles Times need to do a better job of ferreting out those that don't understand, or refuse to understand, the existing business climate they're operating under. For the third time in a row, a standing editor of the Times was fired for refusing to carry out necessary budget cuts.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the battle ensued when publisher David Hiller directed O'Shea to carry out about $4 million in cuts. He refused, and he got cut.
What sources say O'Shea's argument was, was that the cuts would hurt the paper's ability to cover the Beijing Olympics, along with the presidential election.
The cuts come not much more than a month after Sam Zell bought out the parent company of the Times, the Tribune Co., which was taken private.
Zell is already on the record as saying endless cuts would be a "dead end." Even so, he has started things off under his ownership by decentralizing power and giving more authority to heads of various properties. In other words, it seems Zell had nothing to do with this particular battle.
You'd have to have your head in the ground though to not understand the competitive pressures and changing climate of the newspaper industry. For editors to act as if this isn't the reality is irresponsible. It isn't like there's some high ideal being fought for, it's simply current economic and industry realities. The slowdown in the economy will hurt it even more, making the idea of the coverage of the presidential election and Beijing Olympics even less of a factor.
Before any newspaper company installs a new editor, one simple question needs to be asked: if we implement cuts, will you carry them out? The answer to that question should be the determining factor in promoting them, when the rest of the qualifications are fairly equal.
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