Good judgment at the Los Angeles Times

Published: Saturday July 07, 2007

A scandal at the Los Angeles Times involving reporting on the Armenian Genocide has come to an appropriate end thanks to Armenian-American activism and to good judgment at the Times.

The managing editor of the Times, Douglas Franz, was to leave the newspaper effective July 6, as we reported last week. He had killed a story by star reporter Mark Arax about the Armenian Genocide resolutions in Congress. In its place, he ran a commentary masquerading as a news story, arguing against the resolutions.

In killing the original story, which was slated for Page One, Mr. Frantz had argued that Mr. Arax was not objective because he had once reminded Times editors to abide by their own policy of referring to the Armenian Genocide as an established fact. Mr. Arax says the newspaper's code of ethics required him to alert editors to such deviations from established policy.

Harut Sassounian, publisher of the California Courier, broke the story in his syndicated column. In a campaign led by Mr. Sassounian and joined by a wide cross-section of the community, Armenian-Americans insisted that the Times demonstrate that it would not tolerate the sort of behavior exhibited by Mr. Frantz. Mr. Sassounian called for the dismissal of Mr. Frantz.

Under the headline "Blunder at the LA Times," this page on April 28 urged readers to "write to the Times and demand decisive action on Managing Editor Douglas Frantz's effort to arrange tendentious reporting about the Armenian Genocide resolution. They should understand that Armenian-Americans are following the matter closely and will not be satisfied with half-measures."

As Mr. Sassounian explains in his column for this week, on the page opposite, he and other activists spoke and met with the publisher and editor of the Times on several occasions. And the community was active in contacting the Times with its concerns.

The incident shows that persistence and vigilance can pay off. It also demonstrates the importance of cultivating relations with the editors and managers of important media outlets, and being active in our communications.

To its credit, the leadership of the Times took the matter seriously. It initiated an internal investigation, which cleared Mr. Arax; he left the Times with an undisclosed settlement. Mr. Frantz left the Times under pressure.

The publisher and top editor at the Los Angeles Times have demonstrated sensitivity to Armenian-American concerns, for which we are grateful. But we also appreciate that their decision reflects their salutary commitment to nondiscrimination and their journalistic integrity.

They understood that it was unacceptable to discriminate against a journalist based on his ethnic origin, or because he knew his history and his paper's policies. Nor was it acceptable to have a story rewritten so that with reckless disregard for the truth it reached the conclusions preferred by the assigning editor.

We encourage our readers to write to the Times to thank the newspaper for ultimately doing the right thing.

Publisher David Hiller: David.Hiller@latimes.com, Editor James O’Shea: James.oshea@latimes.com