Today, the Times of London reports on the John Edwards sex scandal and the awkward non-coverage here in the states, and it includes at least one sentence that will be very amusing to the L.A. blogosphere:
Tony Pierce, editor of the Los Angeles Times, issued an edict to the paper’s own bloggers to stay off the subject. “Because the only source has been the National Enquirer, we have decided not to cover the rumours or salacious speculations,” he wrote.
Wow! Tony Pierce, longtime writer of Tony Pierce dot com + busblog and former editor of LAist, has risen all the way to become chief editor of the fourth-largest newspaper in the United States by reported circulation? That’s incredible!
It may sound credible, but it certainly is not creditable. Pierce is a web editor at the L.A. Times, overseeing about two dozen blogs on the latimes.com website. And except for the part about working for the Times, that sounds like a pretty good job by itself.
The Times of London simply omitted the conditional “an” before “editor,” giving an inflated impression of Pierce’s role. I thought maybe there was a difference between U.S. and U.K. English usage, but after clicking around google.co.uk, I’m pretty sure it’s just a mistake.
So who is editor of the Los Angeles Times? After all the turmoil at the newspaper these past few years, I had to look it up: Russ Stanton, a 10-year veteran of the paper, who was in fact a web editor himself.
So don’t count Pierce out yet. In the meantime, at least there are now thousands of people around the world who think that he is, in fact, editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Times.
P.S. Another reason why Pierce has a shot? He may have been punk at one time, but from what I’ve heard of the fallout, he’s been fairly humorless about it. I suggest Tony “Keep Rockin’” Pierce as an appropriate nickname.
P.P.S. This leaked follow-up memo from L.A. Times executive editor Meredith Artley gets it right the second time. That’s one memo too late, but it still should have been leaked more widely.
I’m here as a result of tweet kudos from Jay Rosen. A great find.
I love the theme of this site (and that there is full-content in the RSS feed).
With regard to this article, the insight into how newsrooms are dealing with the National Enquirer story on John Edwards is fascinating. As an Edwards supporters, my wife and I hope it is not true and, however it goes, it is dealt with responsibly.
What I hope never to see is one of those idiotic newspaper (on- or off-line) click-a-circle “polls” that asks us what we believe about the story.
Small world, I interviewed Pierce for Bloggasm back when he was at LAist