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So you are Los Angeles Times. You have a rotating door of editors and your readership has declined steadily in recent years. The Tribune Company wants to cut your ass. Kurt Andersen of New York mag has some advice for you: stop pretending you're from New York.

The notion that tedious worthiness equals substance and importance and vice versa is compensation for the elites' anxiety about the very L.A.-ness of L.A.—sun, fun, show business, too few intellectuals and crowded sidewalks, too many fake breasts and self-confident dumb people.

According to Michael Kinsley, the paper's editorial-page editor in 2004 and 2005, "they have always been looking over their shoulder at the New York Times, and fear not being taken seriously." Which is why they hired him, of course. And why they ran multiple articles about MoMA's raising its admission, and a recent page-one story about New York janitors. As it happens, Baquet and two of his three top editors all came from the New York Times. "They play to an imagined East Coast constituency," a former L.A. Times news editor told me.
Andersen adds, while standing over its wounded, writhing, that the majority of NY Times readers are college grads, compared with just 19 percent for LAT.

So stop worrying your purdy little head about what people think of you, and be happy with who you are. You have a great rack and the doctor did a superb job with the nose.

Update: Stephen Burgard, director of Northwestern University J-School, says the Andersen piece can't be taken seriously. Why?

It relies on Michael Kinsley's perspective. "What Kinsley accomplished during his short reign as opinion editor at the LA Times was the opposite of channeling East Coast import," writes the former LATer. "He took a serious West Coast editorial page and subjected it to embarrassment."


Still, Andersen's criticism seems to stand, at least partially. Judging by the readership, LAT seems to occupy the LA equivalent of the market occupied by the Post and Daily News, and its desire to be a prestige paper doesn't work for the audience.

Vanity Kills [NY Mag]
Burgard: Andersen's piece on LAT can't be taken seriously [Romenesko]