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Media Missing in Action on New LAPD HQ Audit |
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Insight
By Brady Westwater
After reviewing the press coverage of Laura Chick's audit of the new LAPD Headquarters cost overruns, it is obvious some clarification is in order.
In particular, where Chick's report placed the blame. (Previous CityWatch report)
 Was the fault with the city for not having an approved building site,
for allowing the Civic Center Authority to not meet in ten years and
for allowing the small 911 emergency call center to be built on the
same block as Parker Center – making it impossible to later build the
new headquarters on the site – or was this all the Bureau of
Engineering's fault. Because right now – the BOE is taking a lot of
the blame for decisions it had nothing to do with.
Chick’s report might have offered an addendum to address the real causes for the overrun so we can prevent similar problems in the billions of dollars in projects that will happen in the civic center within the next ten years.
Second, the press needs to correct its existing error-filled coverage of this project.
Not one story even mentioned that the city had failed to develop a master plan for the civic center in more than forty years.
Third, the press needs to engage in some serious investigative reporting. The kind that used to be done by the much missed Jeffrey Anderson, David Zahniser and a few others during a brief golden age at the LA Weekly and as used to be done by the LA Times on huge, multi-year long investigations.
But the Times needs to accept that one or two good reporters with some real working knowledge can accomplish a lot, even when compared dozens of reporters and a huge budgets.
Unfortunately, the new young hires at the Times have little interest in discovering, much less, reporting, the truth; they are only interested in pushing their own preconceived political prejudices to the exclusion of anything resembling serious news reporting.
Not surprising then, the biggest winner in getting the story right came from the media outlet with the smallest budget – CURBEDLA – when Josh Williams – alone – was able to decode from the report that the Audit admitted that the blame for the overrun was not due to the BOE's supervision.
The second biggest winner was the Downtown News, which has the best coverage and the most quotes from people on each side, giving the most complete and balanced coverage – but which still did not talk with anyone who would point out the real culprits: the City.
Going to the opposite end of the spectrum, the second biggest loser – the biggest we'll save for the last – was the Daily News, even though it got off to a decent start with an article covering much of the back story about the delays due to the site problems, but emphasized the role of the BOE – while ignoring the real reasons.
Then they blew it with an editorial that blamed the entire problem on the BOE and – somehow got the original building cost of $100 million as opposed to the $303 million given by both Laura Chick and the article in their own paper.
Hopefully, the new editor will eventually retract the editorial.
That brings us to our biggest loser – The Los Angeles Times. So how did the City Desk cover this major story? Did they address the real underlying problems of the city and did the editorial page then follow up with a call for true reform?
Simple answer: no.
Because there was no story in the paper and because there was no story – there was no editorial.
A major story that dozens of other news sources covered in detail did not warrant even a single line in the Los Angeles Times.
And that's another reason why these disasters continue to happen.
While our city faces increasingly difficult challenges, when it comes to our paper of record telling us the facts we need to know to hold
our public officials accountable – there is no one at the LA Times
City Desk who even knows what questions to ask – much less knows how to answer them. And, the next generation being currently hired – apparently doesn't give a damn. (Brady Westwater is a writer, a long-time downtown and neighborhood council activist and Chair of the LA NC Congress Economic Development Committee. Westwater is a regular contributor to CityWatch. He can be reached at:
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CityWatch
Vol 6 Issue 31
Published: Apr 15, 2008
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