Excerpt from article in the "Wall Street Journals" Business section:
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L.A. Times's Articles On Groping Spark Outcry
....The issue emphasizes how carefully the Times is scrutinized for its reporting on California, particularly politics. In fact, last year, the paper's own media critic wrote an article in which he criticized the Times for inadequately covering a movement among San Fernando Valley residents to secede from Los Angeles City.
Since he joined the Times from the Baltimore Sun, also a Tribune paper, Mr. Carroll has focused on improving the newspaper's reporting on its own backyard. Under his leadership the newspaper has won six Pulitzer Prizes. The Times's three Pulitzers this year constituted the highest-ever annual tally for the paper.
Mr. Carroll has recruited heavily from the New York Times, hiring as his managing editor Dean Baquet, who shares Mr. Carroll's passion for investigative reporting. Mr. Carroll particularly emphasized overhauling the newspaper's thin and unfocused metro section. He also initiated a redesign of the features sections to emphasize topics he believed define Southern California, such as popular entertainment and the outdoors.
But the Times's Schwarzenegger coverage has renewed longstanding complaints from some media critics that the paper is too liberal. Earlier this year, Mr. Carroll himself sent a memo to some of his editors, which was widely published outside the paper, warning them to work hard to avoid the criticism that the newspaper has a liberal leaning.
Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times, praises his rival's coverage. He says typically publishing stories so close to election day calls for greater-than-usual caution, given that candidates need adequate time to respond to a paper's allegations. "One reason you are extra careful in the final week is because the reputation of the paper is at stake, too," Mr. Keller says. "You don't want people to think you're pulling out a last-minute bomb to tarnish the campaign."
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