MEDIA MATTERS
By Jim
Smith
The ever-vigilant Justice
Department has approved a merger of two “alternative” media
corporations, New Times Corp. and Village Voice Media, publisher of the L.A.
Weekly. It wasn’t long ago that “alternative,” meant
alternative to the corporate media. Now many “alternative’
newspapers are just another excuse for raking in dough on soft porn and
entertainment ads. New Times Corp. bought up two alternative newspapers in the
late 90s, the L.A. Reader and the Village View. It promptly shut them down and
came out with a rag called New Times. Apparently, press competition with the
L.A. Weekly wasn’t to the liking of the suits in Phoenix who ran New
Times. They folded their unlamented publication in 2002. Now, it’s one
big, happy merged family – except for the readers.
Not to be outdone, the publication formerly
known as the Los Angeles Times, aka, the Chicago Tribune, continues to commit
slow suicide with the firing of its house radical, Robert Scheer. (In response,
Author/Historian and sometimes Beachhead contributor, Mike Davis, turned down a
Times offer to be a frequent OpEd writer.) Scheer’s termination was the
latest in the slow motion destruction of a once prominent newspaper, which in
the early 90s housed more than 1,000 top-notch reporters. It’s now down to
a few hundred. The Tribune, Inc. purchase of The Times in 2000 was the final
nail in the coffin. Since then, careful readers may note more midwestern news
items, a rightward bias in editorials and foreign news coverage and a general
malaise.
There is no major
locally-owned daily paper in the Los Angeles area anymore. The Valley-owned
Daily News and the Long Beach Press-Telegram have been gobbled up by Media News,
Inc., which is controlled by eccentric billionaire William Dean Singleton.
Unknown to most readers, Singleton also owns quite a few L.A.-area papers
including the Pasadena Star-News, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, Redlands Daily
Facts, The San Bernardino Sun, Whittier Daily News, and the San Gabriel Valley
Tribune. The Torrance Daily Breeze is owned by the San Diego-based Copley chain.
Copley also bought the Santa Monica Evening Outlook (dubbed the Evening Outrage
by many Venetians) a few years ago, and promptly closed it.
Since then, quite a few locally-owned
startups have been trying to fill the void left by the Outlook, including the
Santa Monica Daily News, the Mirror, the Observer, the Star and a few news
websites. The weekly Marina del Rey Argonaut has expanded its coverage over the
years to include everything from Santa Monica to LAX. While its efforts to cover
such a broad area with a small staff have prevented consistent and in-depth
focus, it does have a good classified section. The irregularly-published, but
locally-owned Venice Paper has found a niche by covering the doings of
architects and high-end
restaurants.
The Beachhead is one of
the few papers that deserves the title, alternative, without the quotes. Founded
in December 1968 (37 years ago this issue), it is still a not-for-profit
publication run by an all-volunteer Collective. There are no editors - or
minions - at the paper. Its financial plan, if you can call it that, calls for
funding to be 1/3 advertisements, 1/3 sustainers, and 1/3 fund-raising events.
No one makes a profit from the Beachhead - not one penny - except for our
printer, who insists on payment.
If
you’d like to keep the Beachhead chugging along for another 37 years,
please consider taking out an advertisement - starting at $25. You don’t
have to own a business to advertise. How about birthday greetings (surprise!) or
a remembrance for a Venetian who is no longer with us. You can become a
Beachhead Sustainer, and have your name listed on page two for $100 a year - a
small investment in press freedom. If you are an event planner, musician, own a
venue in Venice, or just want to help put on a Beachhead fun-raiser, please let
us know. And of course, we always need writers, photographers, cartoonists and
poets. This is a community paper, so get with it!
Posted: Mon - December
5, 2005 at 03:34 PM