Joe Scott 3: The Body Politic

NFL Speeds California Expansion Study

06 November 2005 |permalink | email article

National Football League owners are actively discussing additional stadium sites in California and have dispatched Commissioner Paul Tagliabue to the state this month to both evaluate current facilities problems in franchise cities, and assess others who want a venue, I have learned.

Tagliabueís itinerary includes San Francisco, Oakland and San Diego, where the 49ers, Raiders and Chargers play, and Los Angeles and Anaheim, each vying for a franchise, including meetings with the governor and affected city mayors.

NFL owners were scheduled to meet Oct. 26-27 in Kansas City, partly to discuss the still unsettled future of the New Orleans Saints, and its potential move to Los Angeles in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. But the meeting was postponed after the death of the New York Giantsí iconic owner Wellington Mara, 89, the NFLís patriarch and a team owner since 1930.

Mara’s death, as the New York Times noted, comes at a time when the NFL is losing its links to the past and faces a challenge to its tradition and business model when the league meets again Nov. 15.

After the postponed Kansas City conclave, the league formed a special operations unit, ironically titled the ìLos Angeles Working Groupî - composed of majority owners Robert Kraft (New England Patriots); Jerry Richardson (Carolina Panthers); Pat Bowlen (Denver Broncos); Jerry Jones (Dallas Cowboys); and Tagliabue ñ to move the stadium issue along quickly

While Los Angeles remains a favorite, with solid civic and political support behind its to bid to return professional football to the Coliseum for the first time in 13 years, the issue of NFL expansion, regardless of the Saintsí status, has now significantly broadened to include the entire state.

Unlike the Patriots, the 49ers and Raiders lack new stadiums, and the Chargers say their situation about getting a new facility is complicated by politics and the cityís financial problems.

So several scenarios could potentially unfold starting as early as next year, including possible relocation of the San Diego and New Orleans franchises, and greenlighting new stadiums in Los Angeles and Anaheim.

Dean Baquet and the Big Squeeze

04 November 2005 |permalink | email article

Dean Baquet, the formidable new Los Angeles Times editor, spoke with refreshing candor this week at a Zocalo forum in Little Tokyo about guiding one of the nationís most influential dailies, and struggling to maintain editorial content while coping with the Tribune Company, its Chicago-based owner and most prestigious asset.

(Ken Auletta, in the Oct. 10 issue of The New Yorker, wrote a prescient piece, ìFault Line,î asking whether the Times can survive its owners.)

Baquet, interviewed by the writer Kevin Roderick, a former Times editor whose blog, L.A. Observed, best chronicles the pulse beat of the city, appeared at first downbeat concerning ìanxiety in the newsroomî and tension about another round of mandated layoffs, rumored to be imminent.

It was incessant cost-cutting by the business side of the Tribune Company which led to the resignation in July of John S. Carroll, the newspaperís editor for five years. He hired Baquet, then the New York Timesí national editor, as managing editor soon after his own arrival. Under their leadership, LAT won 13 Pulitzer Prizes.

Baquet, 49, who is African-American, was raised in a working class New Orleans neighborhood, worked in that city for seven years as a journalist and was hired in 1984 by the Chicago Tribune where he won a Pulitzer Prize for uncovering City Hall corruption. In 1990 he joined The New York Times.

He almost left with Carroll who urged him to consider his obligations to the people they both had hired. He recalled, ìCarroll was right. I stayed partly because I love the paperÖitís worth fighting for. Ultimately, itís a winnable fight.î

ìThe Times is the great test case,î Baquet said, echoing a belief expressed by Carroll to Auletta that the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal are Americaís best newspapers because they are controlled by families ñ the Sulzbergers, the Grahams, and the Bancrofts, respectively ñ who value the quality of their papers above short-term financial performance.

(Ironically, the Tribune Company paid $8.3 billion to buy the 116-year-old Times Mirror Company - including the Times, its crown jewel - in 2000 from its controlling shareholders, the Chandler family. Until then, the Chandlers rounded out the publishing dynasties described by Carroll. That sale caused the Times’ current problem.)

Sidestepping the paperís circulation and advertising difficulties ñ and ignoring often churlish sniping by a handful of bloggers - Baquet said ìwe want to talk to the city about how much we care ñ we can do this.î He cited a recent series of unexpected front-page stories on homelessness by the columnist Steve Lopez as the kind of enterprise reporting that will make compelling reads.

With a reputation for being involved in every aspect of coverage and well respected by the staff, Baquet said subjects high on his reporting budget include immigration and education.

Asked about a serous loss of of institutional memory at the paper through attrition, layoffs and buyouts, Baquet did not really address the issue. But he told Auletta that when he and Carroll arrived, the paper lost a whole generation of talent ñ maybe thirty people in all.î (Some veteran staffers complain that a few recent hires, both mid-level editors and reporters, were insufficiently vetted and lack any real knowledge of the city or the issues.)

Investigative reporting, Baquetís passion, is a priority and several ìIî teams are in play. He cited ongoing major series on the Getty Museum and Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, which won a Pulitzer Prize, as examples. ìYou will see more,î noting a big work in progress on the L.A. County budget which he said the Board of Supervisors “may not like.î

After the forum, I asked Baquet why the old ìMetroî section, the heart of local L.A. coverage in the past, was renamed ìCaliforniaî ever since Carroll arrived. ìWe talked about it and decided that, since the Times circulates in counties all around Los Angeles, the new name seemed more appropriate.î

But he candidly told Auletta, ìwe havenít mastered making the paper feel like it is edited in Los Angeles.î My impression is that if anyone can restore the daunting balance between the goals of journalism at the Times and the financial needs of the corporate bosses in Chicago, it is Dean Baquet.

Ask Scott McClellan

03 November 2005 |permalink | email article

Significantly missing in the Bush administrationís long awaited plan to deal with the threat of avian pandemic flu is any suggestion of a much broader role for the armed forces.

The president first ominously hinted at such a role in his Sept. 15 televised speech from New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. But three weeks later in a news conference he surfaced the subject in asking Congress to let the U.S. military play a broader role in enforcing quarantines and other emergency measures.

That W. might be considering revision or repeal of the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, a Civil War-era law which bars federal troops from carrying out law enforcement-duties inside the U. S. during peacetime, short of insurrection, immediately drew fire from both ends of the political spectrum ñ from the ACLU to the Paul Weyrichís Free Congress Foundation.

But Scott McClellan, Bushís spokesman, made clear soon after the New Orleans speech that Posse Comitatus ìwas an issueî that the administration was in the early stages of discussing.

Yet, as The Washington Post noted today, the plan ìoutlines no role for the militaryî as raised by the president a month ago.

Did the White House decide any reference to Posse Comitatus was really a bad idea or, given its current major problems - and mixed reception to the flu plan - decide tinkering with the act now was sufficient reason to quietly down periscope?

Itís a pertinent question for McClellan in the daily White House press gaggle. Who will ask it?

The Pandemic Problem (October 8)