Independent Sources Editorial on Los Angeles Times Columnist Steve Lopez

When the Los Angeles Times hired novelist Steve Lopez, they knew exactly what they were gettng—an extremely liberally-biased writer of fiction with a large ego who likes to inject himself into his columns. For Lopez there appears to be no line between his reporting and his liberal advocacy. Lopez also maintains an intense dislike of California’s current governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and he disparages him at every opportunity. He does this either by dedicating whole columns to the task or by inserting little barbs into wholely unrelated columns. A full year and a half after Arnold Schwarzenegger officially became California’s governor, Lopez still applies the actor moniker whenever possible.(Warren, Was Your Talk Just an Act?)

“Not that any of those actors, including Schwarzenegger…”

In that story, which coverd Warren Beatty’s anti-governor diatribe in front of U.C. Berkeley graduation students (see our Warrent Beatty Embarrasses Himself Again), Lopez put Beatty and his views on a pedastal. That said, Lopez, made it clear that he, Lopez, was the true celebrity.

 ”I thought you’d never call,” Beatty said, … and “I fear you.”

Notwithtanding that it is unusual for a writer to position himself as a force of change, I think what Beatty must have meant is that ‘I’ve seen how you and your paper covers candidates you don’t like. You guys dispense with all of that fair, objective reporting, so I fear you.’ The fact that the Times’ bias against Gov. Schwarzenegger has been so blatant (it is well documented and even reported in the popular press) was probably not lost on Beatty who comes from a profession where a whiff of  negative press can kill you.

As said above, the fiction-writing Lopez can be exceptionally creative in figuring out ways to incorporate Schwarzenegger barbs into completely unrelated subjects. 

On a story about  a bio-monitoring study that Lopez participated in, Lopez worked in this line:

“If I come back to work and start telling you what a terrific job Gov. Schwarzenegger is doing, you’ll know he [the surgeon] nicked my brain.”

In a column about issues relating to the mayoral races in Redondo Beach and the City of Los Angeles, Lopez tossed this in:

 “Schwarzenegger jumped into the fray with both feet, warning that the billboards would send more illegal immigrants rushing across the border. He didn’t seem to have any thoughts on immigration reform and didn’t mention that some of those illegals work in the industries that write checks to him.”

The examples go on and on and on, and that’s the problem. Despite being a writer of at least three published novels, Lopez’s anti-Schwarzenegger bias has become predictable and tedious.

Lopez recently announced that he’s going to drop from three columns a week to two, which he says will give him more time to research stories. Perhaps he’ll have time to write about something other than his personal dislike of the governor.

Addendum: if you are interested in other examples of Los Angeles Times’ bias read the Independent Sources story on the Times’ unique take on the Kerry records release as well as Patterico’s detailed analysis of a recent Times’ editorial.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 13th, 2005 at 8:57 am by Insider and is filed under California Schemin', Los Angeles Times, Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.