COMMENT
Timing and the L.A. Times
A Journalistic Late Hit? How Quaint
There are things worth debating about the Los Angeles Times's eleventh-hour October 2 story on Arnold Schwarzenegger's serial groping, and the uproar that ensued: Were the allegations relevant? Does the anonymity of some of the accusers undercut their claims?
One bit of criticism that rained down on the Times, though, is no longer worth discussing: timing. The idea that it is unfair to publish a negative story about a candidate six days before the vote is a vestige of a vanished past, when news cycles were measured in days rather than minutes, and responding to charges meant waiting for a followup story or penning a letter to the editor. Today's campaigns are nimble and swift. Candidates have well-prepped digital war rooms poised to hit back instantly with a crush of e-spin. Within minutes after the Times posted the groping story on its Web site at 11 p.m. on October 1, bookers from the morning talk shows were trying to nail down interviews with the reporters, and nasty e-mails were landing in the paper's inbox. By the next morning, Schwarzenegger — backed by a vitriolic chorus of voters and right-wing media — was on the offensive. He copped to boorish behavior, then effectively shouted down the Times story with more than a little help from his friends.
The Times's editor, John Carroll, spent the next week defending
his paper's solid journalism against charges of bias and dirty
pool. The sad fact is that such charges come with the territory
in this increasingly partisan new media world, in which the power
of the press is being redistributed. This doesn't mean Carroll
did the wrong thing. He ran the story when it was ready; the timing
is not an issue.
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