More People Should Read the Los Angeles Times

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Here are four headlines in four newspapers today:

LA Times: Trump-Kim Jong Un summit fails to produce disarmament plan

New York Times: Trump Sees Shared Path After Meeting Kim

Washington Post: Trump says U.S., North Korea are ‘ready to write a new chapter’

Wall Street Journal: Trump and Kim Begin New Phase of Diplomacy

This reminds me: more people should be reading the LA Times. After years of management depredations it’s not what it used to be, and I feel a little sad when I pick it up from my driveway every morning. It looks a bit like a cancer patient who’s lost a hundred pounds and is barely hanging on.

But—their day-to-day news judgment is the best in the business, something I first noticed during the 2016 presidential campaign. Time after time, they gave stories appropriate play, while the Post and the Journal and the NYT would ignore important stuff and sensationalize trivia. Today we see the same dynamic at work. The LAT straightforwardly describes the most important outcome of the Singapore summit while the other three insist on stenography, repeating nonsensical Trump blather even though he plainly accomplished nothing.

That might change. Maybe yesterday’s summit really will begin a new phase of diplomacy. But it hasn’t yet. So far it’s produced nothing that we haven’t seen half a dozen times before from North Korea. Why act as cheerleaders for Donald Trump’s hype machine instead of soberly telling readers what actually happened and how important it’s actually likely to be? Are they really that afraid of an angry tweet?

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate