Tag "Black Lives Matter"

This summer, as residents of the City of Los Angeles found themselves caught in the middle of the deadly economic reopening pushed by Kathryn Barger, the Republican head of the County Board of Supervisors, I called Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti the “unhittable object.” As he had done at so many points during his now nearly two-decade-long tenancy in City Hall, Garcetti had put his best foot backward, reopening gyms, bars, and other businesses in Los Angeles, despite, by all appearances, never thinking it was a good idea to do so.

The Mayor’s obsequiousness to the county in allowing businesses to briefly reopen had real costs, both in lives lost and in businesses disrupted if not destroyed. Nonetheless, the mayor had a simple rationalization for his inaction: once Governor Newsom had acceded to Supervisor Barger’s reopening request, there was “no public health benefit” to the city maintaining more protective standards than the county. The whole issue was, in his opinion, out […]

On June 5, Los Angeles Times executive editor Norman Pearlstine sent an all-staff email announcing reforms, acknowledging the LA Times’ failures “addressing concerns of people of color in the newsroom,” and “focusing on a white subscriber base even as the city became majority non-white.”

The email was shared with LA Podcast by LA Times employees who asked to remain anonymous.

NEWS: LA Times exec editor Norman Pearlstine sends all-staff email announcing reforms, acknowledging LAT's failures "addressing concerns of people of color in the newsroom" and "focusing on a white subscriber base even as the city became majority non-white." (con't next post) pic.twitter.com/zNBut834VM— LA Podcast (@thelapod) June 5, 2020

Dear Colleagues,

This has been an extraordinary week during an extraordinary year. Thousands of Americans have taken to the streets during a pandemic to protest longstanding racial injustice, prompted by the deaths of George Floyd in Minnesota and Breonna Taylor in Kentucky. These incidents are the latest in a terrible legacy of state violence against black […]