RSM Bruin fan recently had a very interesting email exchange with Bill Dwyre , who was sports editor of the Times for 25 years until he stepped down in May 2006 to write as a columnist. In this exchange Dwyre seem to essentially hints at a Pro-Trojan bias (cover up?) by his colleagues in the sports section. GO BRUINS. -N
I've had some back & forth dialog with Bill Dwyre, the former editor of the Los Angeles Times in recent weeks, since the Mayo story broke on ESPN, and I thought I'd share some of the recent comments on the LA Times coverage of 'SC player transgressions that Bill has provided. Take them for what they are worth.
First, I sent a scathing email to just about everyone in the LA Times Sports department, along with most of upper/senior management basically lambasting them for their pathetic and embarrassing lack of journalistic integrity relating to the activities taking place within & around the 'SC athletic department.
From this email I received a lone response, which was from Bill Dwyre.
"I don't know if anybody else will answer you here, but, for what it is worth, I can tell you I'm damned embarrassed and I don't even run the section anymore."
My reply to Bill was that I appreciated his response and that it was truly a shame what has become of the LA Times. It's lost all its journalist integrity and professionalism and that the likes of Jim Murray must be rolling over in their graves.
Then a few days later after Menelaus on BruinsNation had updated the list of mischievous 'SC player activities, I sent it off to the same email distribution list as my original email. (Sarcasm alert) I let them know that since they seemed to be asleep at the wheel, I would try to help them restore some of their pride by providing them with the list in order to help jump start their pending renewal of investigative journalism. I said that I felt the tide was turning and that they would begin to actually do some of their own work rather than continue to only report on the work other true journalist performed (i.e. Yahoo, ESPN, AP, etc.)
The lone response from this email, again, was from Bill Dwyre.
"Pretty damning when you put it all together like this…."
My response back to Bill was that the most embarrassing part of it for the LA Times should be that not a single bit of all that was listed was uncovered, investigated nor pursued by the LA Times. Nearly all the information was made public by news sources outside the city. The LA Times only reported on most of it, after another news source broke the story.
To this Bill responded with what I consider to be a very enlightening comment, which prompted this post.
"Well, you are right on most counts except for one, the Mark Sanchez case. I investigated, pursued, wrote twice, at great length, and never got a word in the paper. I'd love to send you copies, but I'm not allowed to. But I sure have them.
Plus, although I no longer run the sports section, I hear that we are taking a good run at the O.J. Mayo case, although we've already been hammered by ESPN pretty good on that one.
We had the news of all these stories you mentioned, but not all that much in-depth follow-up."
To me his last email showed a clear and methodical strategy by the LA Times editors to keep things as quite as possible when it comes to negative publicity regarding 'SC athletics. Bill essentially says that the writers are doing the work, but the editors are vetoing it and not allowing it to be published.
- RSM Bruin