LA Observed reprints an open letter sent by former book review editors Digby Diehl, Sonja Bolle, Steve Wasserman and Jack Miles protesting the termination of the LA Times Book Review as a standalone section after publishing one last edition this Sunday, July 27. And since it's better to read the entire thing in full, I shall reprint the letter's entirety here as well:
LOS ANGELES, Calif.--As former editors of the Los Angeles Times Book Review (1975 through 2005), we are dismayed and troubled at the decision by Sam Zell and his managers to cease publishing the paper's Sunday Book Review.
This step signals the end of an era begun 33 years ago when Otis Chandler, then the paper's publisher and owner, announced the debut of the weekly section. Since then, the growth of the Los Angeles metropolitan region and the avidity of its numerous readers and writers has been palpable. For example, every year since its founding in 1996, the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books has attracted upwards of 140,000 people to the UCLA campus from all walks of life throughout Southern California. Four hundred writers from all over America typically participate. The written word is celebrated. It is the most significant civic event undertaken by the Los Angeles Times to deepen literacy and to strengthen the bond between its news coverage and its far-flung community of readers. But without the Book Review itself, the book festival will be a hollow joke.
The dismantling of the Sunday Book Review section and the migration of a few surviving reviews to the Sunday Calendar section represents a historic retreat from the large ambitions which accompanied the birth of the section.
To be sure, no section of any newspaper can remain hostage to past ways of covering the news of the day. We are convinced, however, that the way forward is to increase coverage of our literary culture -- a culture that every day is more vibrant and diverse in the thriving megalopolis of Los Angeles.
Angelenos in growing number are already choosing to cancel their subscriptions to the Sunday Times. The elimination of the Book Review, a philistine blunder that insults the cultural ambition of the city and the region, will only accelerate this process and further wound the long-term fiscal health of the newspaper.
We urge readers and writers alike to join with us as we protest this sad and backward step.
Sonja Bolle
Digby Diehl
Jack Miles
Steve Wasserman
Asking Zell & co. to see reason is akin to the magical sprouting of working wings on a pig, but it does beg a related question: whither the Festival of Books?
UPDATE: In related news, PW reports that Carole Goldberg, the Hartford Courant's books editor since 2002, was laid off today as part of the current round of cutbacks.
I'm not sure if the L.A. Times FOB will be affected, at least in the short run. It was actually started outside of the Book Review section and although many staff members do participate as moderators and speakers, the administration of it is separate--at least that is my understanding. The weekend booths are pricey, running close to $1,000 so I'm assuming that the event is fiscally self-sustaining.
About the other, more pressing matter--the condition of the L.A. Times. I was so dismayed with the thinness of today's paper--every section, including the main section, California, business, sports, etc. (Don't think making the photos half a page are going to fool us.) There were a few good nuggets--Paula Woods' review of STILL WATERS but alas the whole thing is already in the recycle bin. Now I'm wondering how much the New York Times will be with my husband's educator discount.
Posted by: Naomi | July 21, 2008 at 12:56 PM
Too bad about the book section - but I'm not sure I'd take advice from an editor who used the word "avidity". A perfectly cromulent word, to be sure... but still.
Posted by: Graham | July 21, 2008 at 03:16 PM
Newspapers often publish special sections, and perhaps the LA Times will do one for the festival.
As for lamenting the demise of a book section, I lament the loss of 150 editorial jobs there, 57 jobs at the Hartford Courant, and even more at the Baltimore Sun and the Fort Lauderdale Sun. This is not about books or arts. This is about how newspapers are ceasing to be what they've been since their inception. This is how the business I got into 25 years ago is no longer even a shadow of what it was then. I have no idea where newspapers will be in the future, but I think for those of us in the book business we need to be a bit more "out of the box" when it comes to accepting where we are reviewed. Because newspapers just ain't where it's going to be.
Posted by: Karen Olson | July 21, 2008 at 03:29 PM
Exactly, Karen - the issue is bigger, though the Book Review's demise is a good way to look at the larger whole of what a bloodbath this year, especially, has been for the newspaper business. There are so many reasons to be appalled but one I'm thinking of is how reliant other kinds of media, be it TV, radio, blogs, whatever, are on newspaper-generated content. Get rid of it and then what? Let's face it, most people are not inclined to go out there and do original reporting, especially when there's no incentive to do so.
Posted by: Sarah | July 21, 2008 at 05:04 PM
You're right, Sarah. And when local news coverage is cut from newspapers, as it will be from the Courant, people in those towns suddenly are left without any reliable news about their local school board, planning and zoning commissions, and whatnot. I've heard that the Courant isn't even going to be covering crime, unless it's pretty horrific.
I have no idea what's going to happen. We do have three free weeklies that come in our mailbox that cover our small town but not every town has even one of those. There is an online "newspaper" called the New Haven Independent that covers the city pretty thoroughly and pays reporters to cover things. Maybe that's the way it's going to go.
I think it could be a while before we see the dust settle and people start to try to figure out how exactly to get information out there or how to get information in other, creative ways.
Posted by: Karen Olson | July 21, 2008 at 06:04 PM
Idiots such as Zell -- and many more lesser idiots before him -- decided long ago that the best way to revive newspapers was to appeal e to non-readers, and non-curious ones at that. So, they cut story lengths, foreign coverage, national coverage, news hole, and news staff, and instead offered more charts, graphics, white space, color, celebrity gossip, personal finance tips, plus lots of other so-called "news you can use" gimmicks.
The result at each juncture of this gradual (and now precipitous) dumbing down has been that readers have deserted newspapers in ever greater numbers, because their wants and needs are increasingly ignored. And have non-readers come aboard to replace them? Well, of course not, as any fool could have told these idiotically short-sighted publishers.
Yes, I well know that the economic model for newspaper publishing has taken one hit after the other -- especially as classified ads have been decimated by the free services available on the Internet, and as their product of news has also become available for free online. But underlying this trend has been the vast stupidity of major publishing companies, with their tactics geared toward the very audience that is least likely to bail them out.
Therefore, it's not at all surprising that the LA Times would now do away with a section devoted solely to readers of books. Zell and his ilk, to put it bluntly, hold readers in contempt. Strange but true (and spoken as someone who wrote for the Baltimore Sun for 20-plus years, and witnessed these changes firsthand).
Posted by: Dan | July 22, 2008 at 12:37 PM