Media Critic: L.A. Weekly's 'Aggressive Slant Erodes Quality'
By AAN Staff
june 22, 2009 08:34 am
Los Angeles Times media critic James Rainey opined in a column last week that the
recent departure of
Weekly editor-in-chief Laurie Ochoa was the latest sign that the alt-weekly had "fallen far from the days it was required reading for those in the know about the city." Rainey attributed much of the decline to "bombastic" news editor Jill Stewart, saying "she pushes story lines that make some sense, with arguments that make very little."
In response, Stewart says Rainey didn't bother to contact her for his "take-down attempt column," and that he also failed to mention a
Weekly story she helmed that heavily critized Rainey. "I am very sad to see Jim launch a wrong-headed attack on me without disclosing that I assigned and edited a story critical of him in 2007," Stewart writes, while noting the
Weekly's recent "hammering" of the
Times in award competitions. "Our story about Jim was, in fact, far more extensively reported and much better sourced than his about me."
