Journalisting is hard

The shame spiral continues at the parent company of the "once-proud Los Angeles Times"TM.  Lee Abrams has been dumped from the Tribune Co. for sending a company-wide e-mail that included nude video sluts, and his boss and stalwart defender, Randy Michaels, is supposedly on his way out as well. It's somehow fitting, and yet galling, that it took an article in the New York Times for the Tribune board to realize Michaels and Abrams were horrifically incompetent at their jobs.

There are still people out there — like my friend Bill Heisel, or the Center for Public Integrity, or Village Voice/New Times, or California Watch — who are still doing the hard work of actual reporting. But I don't envy them.