And the LA Times wonders why their readership continues to shrink. . .

Newspapers across the country are suffering from declining readership, and many have either closed or are facing impending closure – most place the lion’s share of the blame on the Internet.  Pundits claim the instant access offered by the Internet is driving people from the printed word to the electronic word.  I’m not sure if I’m ready to buy into this conclusion, simply because I think there’s also a growing lack of confidence in the “objectivity” of newspapers among the reading public.

For example several weeks ago the LA Times ran an article, “Many Nursing jobs, but only the strong need apply (http://articles.latimes.com/2009/apr/27/health/he-nurses27)” .  The article was available in its entirety on line nearly two days before it ran in the print version of the Los Angeles Times, and upon reading it I found that it appeared to have more in common with a PR piece for the C.N.A. rather than an unbiased, objective piece of reporting.   I took issue with several parts of the article, and submitted a letter to the editor and one to the Reader’s Representative.  I wasn’t sure if they’d run it, but I thought that at the very least they’d print a correction.  They did neither, but after some persistent follow-up on my part; including several telephone calls to Ms. Gold, the reader representative which remain unanswered, and two calls to Mr. Newton, A Sr. VP at the LA Times who communicated with me that he ask the reporter to call me which she never did, and a lengthy conversation with someone named Maria they quietly ran my letter on the “Health” page in their internet edition.  A copy of my letter can be found here (http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-hew-letters18-2009may18,0,3851881,full.story).

I felt compelled to address several shortcomings that I found in the article.  The first and most obvious was the number of new licenses issued that the C.N.A. representatives tout to prove the success of the California Nurse/Patient ratio law that they helped push into law.  Though it’s correct that there have been nearly 100,000 new licenses issued since the law was passed five years ago, a nearly equal number of licenses have been lost, so it’s been a wash.  The reporter had an obligation to report the fact, not just the rhetoric.  The reporter also appeared unable or unwilling to interview a variety of nurses, since the three nurses she interviewed were all from C.N.A.-represented hospitals, and if this was to be a pro-union piece she should have at least interviewed nurses from the S.E.I.U. and U.N.A.C.; better yet she should have interviewed two non-union nurses and one union nurse as this would have been a fairer representation of nurses.  But the worst offense, in my opinion, was her failure to identify one of the nurses she interviewed as a member of the C.N.A./N.N.O.C. Council of Presidents.

It’s reporting and editing such as this that’s caused the reading public to loose faith on the ability of their local newspaper to report, rather than make, the news.  Just like the LA Times refused to cover the recent “Anti-Tax” parties attended by thousands in LA based on the excuse that these were manufactured events; but would show up to cover a couple of hundred people who showed up at a recent LA School Board meeting to protest impending lay-offs.  As anyone who has ever organized an event, protest or rally in this city knows, it’s all “manufactured” because as a rule you have to get permits, put out press releases, etc.  So if events being organized and manufactured is the LA Times threshold then they shouldn’t cover any such event but of course they cover those that they seem sympathetic to.  And this is one of the primary reasons, this citizen, thinks that people are turning to the Internet because more often than not we know the bias of blogs, forums and other “news sources” from these sites.