GRAZERGATE WIDENS AT L.A. TIMES

The tempest at the Los Angeles Times over the decision to cancel a special opinion section edited by producer Brian Grazer after it was disclosed that the editor of the section had a romantic relationship with a publicist for Grazer grew louder over the weekend. L.A. Weekly columnist Nikki Finke, who broke the Grazergate story, reported over the weekend that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had been selected as the next special editor of the "Current" section by Times publisher David Hiller, who, she said, is a close friend of Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld was also a member of the Tribune Co. board. "Here's an even more clear impression of favoritism than Grazergate," Finke wrote. Meanwhile, Allison Silver, who edited the Times Sunday opinion section in the 1990s, said in an article posted on the liberal Huffington Post website, "The decision to go outside journalism suggests indifference to editing as a critical profession. It goes without saying that you wouldn't turn your Sunset Strip restaurant over to your mom for the night no matter how good a cook she is, or take the Jet Propulsion Lab away from CalTech and give it to Cal Arts to run, just to shake things up."

26/03/2007