LA TIMES RUNS TIMELY, EXCELLENT PIECE ON ELECTRIC VEHICLES
The LOS ANGELES TIMES ran one of the best and most-realistic looks at California's nascent electric vehicle industry in their Saturday, April 5th edition. It's a MUST-READ for all Car Nuts around the world, and just click anywhere this sentence is highlighted to go to the LA Times' website and read this interesting and necessary article --- Finally, a major newspaper writer who "calls 'em as he sees 'em" when it comes to EVs. (Photos --- Above, a gasoline/electric plug-in hybrid created by Fisker in Souther California. Below, The iconic Bradbury Building in downtown Los Angeles; those who saw the movie "Blade Runner" and remember that "apartment building" where an engineer for Tyrrel Corporation worked, creating his own living, breathing "toys," have seen the remarkable interior of that building. And, yes ... The wrought-iron cage-style elevator is still there and still works; we know because we've ridden in it several times).
Now please permit me, because I've worked for both the LA TIMES and KTLA/TV5 in Los Angeles (first commercial TV station west of the Mississippi) to say a bit about today's LA Times, KTLA and their new owner.
In spite of all the bad things which have befallen the once-venerable Los Angeles Times, their automobile coverage has actually improved a bit. Every Wednesday, the paper normally carries three pieces in their "Highway 1" section; a car road test by Dan Neil, a motorcycle test by Susan Carpenter and some sort of industry news important to LA-area readers, usually written by Ralph Vartabedian, one of the nation's top technical writers. On Saturdays, they've started another "mini-section" called "The Garage". This could contain one lengthy article and a few auto news "tid-bits" and, on occasion, a personality profile. The paper will be a long time in recovering from a profile of Carroll Shelby which ran a few months ago and was nothing but a warmed-over PR promotion for Ol' Shel' ... No surprise there, but this piece was embarassing, and I haven't seen the byline of the freelancer who wrote the piece yet again in the paper ... We also couldn't find the article on the LA Times' search engine. (Photo --- LA's City Hall; there was a law in Los Angeles that no downtown building could be taller than City Hall. A publisher of the LA Times, which has its offices across the street from City Hall, purposely built the Times' latest office tower to be higher than City Hall).
Sure, the "Highway 1" automotive "section" is still only the first 1 1/2-pages of the "classified section", 
certainly nowhere near, in scope or quality, of the section which I was hired to write for every week when it first appeared, and would for its first few months be anywhere from 10 to 20 pages a week. But the Times' bean-counters eventually got rid of the entire section. And, yes, newspapers have bean-counters, too; they don't exist just to torture car-makers, they like to "spread the love" around. The revelation, at about this same time in the mid-90s, of the paper's involvement in a screwy, definitely unethical and immoral, possibly illegal advertising deal cut between the Times and the then-new Stapels Center (home to the LA Lakers, Kings, Clippers, the Grammy Awards and on and on ...), served to further harm "Highway 1" as the paper cut-off buying stories from any freelancers as Times people at the top off the food chain lost their stomach for dealing with any outside writers and/or photographers. You know how it is: When some of the key people at a company are caught with their hand in the cookie jar, then the whole place suddenly "gets religion."
The NEW YORK TIMES, in their April 7th edition, details the recent purchase of Tribune Corporation, parent of the LA Times, by Sam Zell, a well-known Chicago businessman, corporate raider and ... he's been called a "slumlord", too. Zell also got their near-25 TV stations covering most of the major cities in the nation, and the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field, both of which Zell has said are on the auction block. Tribune, it is said now, is hanging by a string to being able to pay all their (new) bills. The NY Times says Zell will probably sell-off his newspaper holdings (LA Times, Chicago Tribune, NY Newsday, etc) and keep the electronic media, which produces more cash. All of this is a shame for Tribune employees, because Zell financed the original deal to buy Tribune by giving ownership to the company's employees, and now they're finding out their shares may not be worth much more than pennies on the dollar.
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