Have the Dodgers and The Times Betrayed L.A.?

Editor,

While it’s good to focus on how our Chatsworth Jr. Baseball League fares and read the daily Patch for local information, it’s important to look at our larger community, as well. 

Little Leaguers usually want to grow up to be Dodgers while reporters for online news services and community newspapers usually want to work for a metropolitan newspaper.

But in Los Angeles, we have been betrayed by both our baseball team and our major newspaper.

I’ve always loved baseball … particularly Los Angeles baseball.  I’ve always loved newspapers … particularly Los Angeles newspapers. 

But out-of-towners killed both love affairs. 

First, real estate speculator Sam Zell rode in from Chicago and bought The Times.  Then Boston’s Frank McCourt, did the same with the Dodgers.

Zell was crude and crass … and surrounded himself with men who were too.  He once suggested at a Times staff meeting that the paper should run pornography if that would help it return to profitability.

McCourt promised not just a winning baseball team, but a community-based organization that would enhance the quality of life in the City of the Angels. 

The downfall of both of these organizations began when their family-controlled corporations sold out … the Chandlers and the O’Malleys, respectively.

The phrase that the scions of both families understood–and the Zells and McCourts of the world don’t–is “public trust.”

Pennsylvania’s State Constitution reads: “Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people.”

The key phrase is, “for the benefit of all the people.” 

No one contests the right of the owners of newspapers or baseball teams to make money.  But they are also public trusts, and should be “for the benefit of all the people.”

We want our teams to play hard and honestly, and we don’t mind if we have to “wait until next year.”  We don’t want our team owners to build six mansions and live a profligate lifestyle while raping the team’s finances. 

We want our newspapers to report the news fairly, comprehensively, and in a timely manner. 

But when greed trumps an understanding that private property is also a public trust, we quickly look for the tar and feathers. 

Frank McCourt has betrayed the public trust, and we want him gone. 

The corporate entity that is now The Times’ parent corporation, Tribune Company, has betrayed the public trust, and we want them gone. 

Both are likely to lose in the bankruptcy court, but they have already lost in the court of public opinion.

Martin Cooper

Martin Cooper, President of Cooper Communications, Inc., is Past Chairman of VICA and Chairman of its Board of Governors; Vice Chairman of the Boys & Girls Club of the West Valley; and a member of the Boards of the Valley Economic Alliance and of the LAPD’s West Valley Jeopardy Program.  He is Past President of the Public Relations Society of America-Los Angeles Chapter, the Los Angeles Quality and Productivity Commission, and the Encino Chamber of Commerce.