What's Next, Los Angeles? with Mike Bonin
Los Angeles is at a turning point. We are living in a defining moment. What happens next is up to us. Over the past few years, problems and challenges have shaken this city -- and tremendous opportunities for change have presented themselves. How do we rise to this moment and emerge a better place to live? What will it take to create a more just and a more equitable community? Working together, how are we going to create a stronger, forward-thinking Los Angeles? Mike Bonin, writer, teacher, progressive activist and former City Councilmember, looks at the issues and problems facing Los Angeles, examines ideas, and talks with the people who will lead us to a brighter future.
Produced in partnership with LA Forward.
What's Next, Los Angeles? with Mike Bonin
The Fed Tapes: How the LA Times Won the Pulitzer
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Last October, one the biggest news stories in Los Angeles and around the nation was the release of the Fed Tapes -- revealing an ugly, racist conversation between some of my council colleagues and the head of the labor federation. For me and my family, it was brutal and personally wrenching. For Los Angeles, it was a scandal of epic proportions. It was a window into the ugly souls of of some of the most powerful people in Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles Times assigned dozens of reporters, editors and columnists to cover the story. The staff of the paper won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News for its coverage of the story. In this episode of What's Next, Los Angeles, I talk about the story and how the paper covered it with two members of that award-winning team: Ben Oreskes, one of the reporters who covered the story - in fact the reporter who called me about the tapes and; Steve Clow, one of the editors who directed the coverage.
L.A. council members made racist comments in leaked audio. LAT full coverage
LA Times/Fox 11 Town Hall on the Fed Tapes
Ben Oreskes now covers state and national politics for the Times. You can find out more about him, and how to contact him here.
Steve Clow is assistant managing editor for California projects and innovation at the Los Angeles Times. You can find out more about him, and how to contact him here.
What's Next, Los Angeles? is produced and hosted by Mike Bonin, in partnership with LA Forward.
Last October, a huge political earthquake hit Los Angeles, and we are still feeling the aftershocks. Some people call them the Fed tapes. Other people call them the racist tapes. I still barely have words to describe them. The release of the tapes was big news. The LA Times won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the story. And we talked to two members of that award-winning team on What's Next, Los Angeles. In September of last year, an anonymous person posted on Reddit an hour-long audio tape of a secretly recorded conversation between three of my colleagues, Council President Nuri Martinez and Councilmembers Kevin DeLeon and Gil Cedillo, along with Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera. It seems that no one paid any attention to the Reddit post until a few weeks later, when a Twitter account called LA Union Laundry tweeted about it. They tagged the LA Times, the local chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, and the campaign of then council candidate Ugo Soto Martinez. On Sunday morning, October 9th, the LA Times and Knock. The four participants in the conversation schemed to secure their own political power, to undermine black political influence, and to diminish the growing power of progressives. The conversation attacked or insulted blacks, Oaxacans, gays, Jews, Armenians, and more. Martinez and De Leon in particular expressed a deep anti-black animus. They attacked me for supporting my black colleagues, and they used ugly and racist and reprehensible language to attack my young son. For me, it was brutal and personally wrenching. For Los Angeles and the world, it was a scandal of epic proportions. It was a window into the ugly souls of some of the most powerful people in LA. And within 24 hours, it was national news. In the days and the weeks that followed, the LA Times assigned dozens of reporters, editors, and columnists to cover the story. They reported on the political fallout and on the personal pain. They profiled key players and spoke with everyday Angelinos. They examined the racial dynamics and they scoped out the various calls for reform. The staff of the LA Times won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News for its coverage of the story. It is the most prestigious award in journalism. Today I am joined by two members of that award-winning team: Ben Oreskies, one of the reporters who covered the story, in fact, the reporter who called me about the tapes, and Steve Clough, one of the editors who directed the coverage. I interviewed them in mid-June. Here is that interview. All right, and joining me now are two Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, Ben Oreskies, staff writer from the LA Times, uh, and Steve Clow, the assistant managing editor of the LA Times. Ben was one of the reporters who covered this story, and Steve uh uh oversaw the coverage. So uh welcome, guys. Good to see you.
SPEAKER_02I am glad to be here, and I'm also glad that you made Steve come on, because so often it is the reporters that get all the glory, and he deserves it as much as we do. Well, that that that's good. And he's not my boss anymore, so that is not me sucking up to him. So I I don't have to I don't have to say that.
SPEAKER_00Very good, very good. I'll I'll I'll tell you, when you guys won the Pulitzer, I had such such a mixed reaction because it sort of triggered and brought up the whole freaking nightmare of of this story. And then when I thought about talking to you guys, it it it it's sort of both traumatic and um uh uh therapeutic at the same time, I think. Because I'm also sort of curious, as a reader and as somebody who's interested in journalism, about how you went about covering the story and and and and how it got shaped and how you made the decisions you did. So, first of all, congratulations.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. Uh I mean, it uh all I remember, and it's a bit of a blur, uh, was Saturday evening. I think I may have been home watching football or something, and I got a call from Julia Wick, who, by the way, I should mention, you know, the the the entire staff of the LA Times, it seems like was involved in the coverage of this recording. Uh but uh the the lead figures in it from our newsroom were Ben, Julia Wick, Dave Zonnheiser, and Dakota Smith, and uh Gustavo Ariano, and then other columnists, and pretty soon the whole newsroom it went viral. And um, so everybody uh got involved. And uh from that phone call from Julia, the next, I don't think I saw the sun for a month after that. It was pretty nuts and uh followed every twist and turn. So, yes, and uh all credit to the reporters who do the hard work.
SPEAKER_00So let's go back to the beginning then that that Saturday. Um uh I when did you first hear about it? Because it had been posted, somebody had posted something on Reddit weeks ago, nobody saw it. Then somebody posted something on Twitter and they they tagged uh Dave Zonizer, DSA Los Angeles, Hugo Soter Martinez, and and maybe somebody else. When did it come onto your radar?
SPEAKER_02So I the the provenance of how we got it is something like we're not gonna get totally into the specifics about just because it is more complicated than it being posted on the internet and then being taken down. We note that in the stories, and it it it kind of came to us after that, but how it got to us, I think we'll just leave it at that. But it was something that once we realized we had and had sort of internalized enough of it, because remember, it's an hour-long tape. So you're listening to it and you're like, what is going on? What is going on? And then, oh my God, what are they saying about you, your son, your family, any number of other other colleagues? And and so that that afternoon, uh that Saturday, um, we kind of processed it and listened to it and realized, I mean, I think as reporters, you kind of know you have a big one. It's sort of like fishing. You can feel the pull on the on the reel or whatever. Uh and I think we really knew we had something big there and knew we needed to move fast because we knew it would be something that one would have an enormous amount of interest and also an enormous amount of competition. And so that evening we kind of started parceling it out. And I don't, I mean, just kind of casting your mind back to that moment, the audio itself is hard to hear. And and I think for all of us in many ways. Well, I and I and I mean in the sense that it's it's it's not great quality. But yes, the the substance of it is also hard to hear. Um, but but so really taking the time and really diligently listening to it to make it make sure we felt like we were uh fairly rendering what was on it was something that we all took very seriously. And and it was not a quick thing. So, you know, that was what Saturday was. And it was also, and not to kind of put the you know, turn the tides, it was also important to us to reach out to the people who were on the tape and affected by it. And it's when I called you. And I think you should tell the listeners about that moment because of where you were at that time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it um I had gotten a call earlier in the day before you called. Um uh someone called me uh because it had been since DSA and Ugo's campaign have been tagged, it started making rounds the rumor about it. And somebody sent me the the told me about the contents and said, You want first of all, they said, Hey, uh, there's this uh tape about Nuri and and Kern and Gill secretly recorded. And I'm like, Oh, well, you got my interest peaked. And then they said, No, you need to sit down, it's really bad. And they gave me a a thumbnail of it. And um I was back east visiting family, had attended a funeral of a friend, and I I downloaded everything because I figured, well, this shit is gonna get uh pulled off the internet quickly, and didn't listen to it. Uh I drove into Boston and uh I went to a concert, Billy Bragg concert, with a a friend of mine, and in between the opening act and the main show, I see a phone call coming in from Ben Oreskies, and I'm like, ah fuck. And um, which is usually what I say when I get a call from the LA Times. Uh and I suspected what it was, but I thought, uh, maybe not. And I did not pick up. And then a second later, there was a text that said, Hey, please call me urgently, and I knew what it was. And uh we we talked briefly, and all I remember from that conversation was my my thought was about my son, and uh saying, you know, please don't mention Jacob, even though I knew as a former reporter you had to, right? Um please just be vague about it, don't use the actual terms, say you know, just racist comments and stuff like that. Um and I and I know you guys had some conversations about what detail to go into, and I'd I'd love to hear that. But then throughout the the concert, Ben was texting me excerpts. And so I'm trying to get my mind off of shit, the the death of my friend and and and the tapes themselves, and listen to the concert, and these texts are coming in. And I also had to come up with a statement in reaction and communicate with my husband who was back in Los Angeles, um and it was just this sort of crazy chaotic moment. Um what was going on with you guys? When you were hearing these tapes, there's so much on there. Um obviously the the part about my son was the most sensationalistic, but how did you go about deciding what to focus on in that first story?
SPEAKER_01Uh well, you know, we a meeting of the minds, I suppose. I mean, we have great reporters who have been covering, you know, that building and you know, that panel for you know various amounts of years. And they, you know, Dave Zonnheiser, Dakota in particular knew all the voices, uh, Julia and Ben. So uh number one, we had to understand what was being said and the significance of it. We're working in real time, it's a Saturday night, it's competitive. Um, and I think we just tried to latch on to the things that we could understand, first of all, that was clear and uh sort of unmistakable, and then um, you know, and make sure that we rendered it accurately and uh clearly. And, you know, we couldn't obviously write about everything that was on the tape at that moment, but um we just tried to put our little news hats on and figure out what was going to be the most important and most interesting at that hour. And we worked late into the night. Uh Ben, I don't remember who actually wrote the first draft of the story, if it was you or Dave or whoever, but um we we felt in fairness, I mean, we didn't want to just put something up on the internet without reaching out to the parties involved. Uh during the night, we received uh um an email from an attorney working with the county fed who uh you know urged us in various ways to not write a story about this. Uh so our lawyer got involved and wrote a response, and uh that just takes a little time. So it was finally in nine o'clock the next morning or thereabouts that we felt like we had it all ready to go. We had a story, it was edited, it was reviewed by my bosses, and uh um and and then Jeff Glasser, our attorney, had uh sent a response to the labor feds attorney. And at that point, we just felt like we had to publish, and uh um, you know, and the rest uh everything blew up from there.
SPEAKER_02And yeah, I mean, I think I want just really quickly to add one thing to that. I we we talk about the letter that the labor fed sent us and the response we said sent, but like, you know, the world wasn't thinking about AI in that moment. But I I think that in the back of our minds, certainly in the back of mind, there was this small kernel of discomfort of like, what if this is a put-up job? What if this is a fake group of people? And that I remember receiving the letter, you know, waking up at 7 a.m. uh and seeing this email in my inbox from the lawyer for the labor fed, and it saying this conversation was quote, recorded in violation of California's privacy and recording laws on LA County Federation of Labor property. And like I was so relieved to see that because it exactly, and that like we, I think we're gonna go with it. We felt really good about what we had, but we didn't know it was real, and and and that that was a kind of big moment for us in some way, in a backwards way.
SPEAKER_01Um it certainly helped confirm that this thing happened and it happened there, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I'm I'm I'm curious though, because there were so many things on the tape, right? There was the the the just the overwhelming anti-black racism, there was the redistricting stuff, the Wahawk in comments, uh, and then the stuff about you know me and and and my son. Um, how much did you talk about how much to get into the particulars about you know a young kid?
SPEAKER_02I mean, I think we certainly talked about it in the context of how it was germane to like to the story and and and and the sense that there is a real visceral dislike of you among some of the people on that tape, and how to kind of contextualize that without explaining some of the stuff about your son, yeah. Uh it was would have been hard to do. And I think that was where my mind was at. And um, and I mean I think as well, like they're being racist. I mean, I think we we we called it that in the final version of the story, and and and and I think the that's a that's hard, you know, that's a big thing for us to say, and that you need to be able to substantiate that. And, you know, it wasn't just Nuri saying, fuck that guy is with the blacks in reference to George Gascone. It was something deeper and more uh maybe pernicious, I guess is the right word, about how they viewed uh your dynamic with other members of the council. And I mean, I don't think you can talk about that with what without saying, you know, without going into deeper detail about what they were discussing about your kid at that parade.
SPEAKER_00It was uh, you know, I I had so many things going on in my head when I was trying to process this. Uh, because there's stuff that is in there that just you know infuriated me, made me angry. Then, you know, there's stuff in there that, you know, I I never really talked about this before, but I felt guilty. I'm like, shit, you know, if if I hadn't been a council member, this never would have happened to my son. And then there was stuff in there where um, you know, Nuri says, oh, they're raising him as a white kid, and Nuri is challenging whether or not, you know, Jacob should have been uh at the parade, um, uh, or you know, the the accessory lawn jockey comments they made. And you know, being a white guy raising a black kid is tough, and you know you often fail at it, right? Because you can't get your head around what they have to deal with in terms of pernicious racism. Um and I always knew, you know, if I'm taking Jacob somewhere, somebody is gonna think that in the back of their head. Oh, he's just taking him so he can look like he's, you know, uh uh uh down with the the the black community. And you know the the reality is, and we didn't get into this when we spoke back then either, is if you're a a white dad with a black child, particularly living in the part of town I do, you have to bring them into black spaces where they see themselves reflected. And it was important for me to bring him to that parade. And uh it was important for me earlier to bring him into council chambers so he could see that the guy who was in charge running the show, Herb Wesson, looked like him. Um so I had just so many different reactions when this was coming in, and I I honestly was it was it was so hard to to process the whole thing. Um but you know, you uh you you you mentioned that you had this little doubt about whether or not it's uh real. And I know it was a small one. Um and Steve, you don't you didn't know the players the way Ben did. Um I mean when I heard it, I'm like, yeah, this is them, right? Uh you had been just been interviewing Nuri for a profile a few days before, right? Yeah, yeah. And you and you had spoken to Kevin before, and there were things in there. You know, Kevin has this issue with me being from Massachusetts that they had both said before. So there was a lot of truth resonating in there, wasn't there?
SPEAKER_02Uh absolutely. Uh no, I think when you have something as um explosive as this, you're you're just it's why you become a journalist. You you know, you you you live to put things like this out into the world because it's important, but you just, you know, what if you get it wrong? What if it's wrong? What if it's this? It's like the thing that lives in the back of all of our minds, and that, you know, certainly with the three people I work on this stuff with or was working on this stuff with, you know, there's such, and Steve can speak to this better than anyone, such a neurotic, nagging need to be right. And, you know, that is so paramount for us that you just have that pang of doubt. And that letter, obviously, from the lawyers for the labor fed kind of sealed the deal. But to your point, I I I think um uh particularly with uh Councilman De Leon, uh obviously there was some racist, there was a lot of racist comments that he made on this tape, but there was nothing on here that I hadn't heard him say before. There was uh there there was a there was a fidelity to how he speaks that was evident throughout this tape.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, one of the things that um you know we we tried so hard to not make mistakes and uh bringing Gustavo in was very, very helpful because he you know has an incredible command of two languages, and um he was able to help us uh sort of unpack and discern some of the nuances of some of the Spanish and Spanglish type comments that were on the tape. And uh a while after the story broke, we were able to publish uh an annotated transcript that uh made incredible use of the talents of our staff and the reporters, as well as uh Gustavo and Erica Smith, who who um, in a particular Gustavo was able to just sort of uh contextualize some of the comments in Spanish. And uh and and they were it was very revealing. And I just remember extensive conversations about you know really parsing uh you know the Spanish phrases uh and in a very careful way. And and all through the the whole process, I mean, I think we were, you know, you you worry about not getting it 100% right. And I don't remember us getting anything wrong in the whole thing, which is a a testament to these reporters and how careful they are.
SPEAKER_02And like to that end, like just to be very precise about this, like this use of changito uh is a term that we heard from any number of politicians, people in LA who were like, yeah, my my grandmother called me that, or my uh it's a term of endearment, or you know, it's like a cute thing, or uh, you know, I don't know. And and and I think for us it was really important to say, okay, we hear that, we process that, but like let's put it in the context that it's in talking about uh you know, George Gascombe being with the blacks, or you know, Bonin and his brother Mike Marquis Harris Dawson, or you know, that like there was much more to meet the eye. And to Steve's point, it was taking all of that, not you know, tuning out a lot of the noise that was happening around us and saying we're gonna be right and we're gonna be confident in our conclusions, and our conclusions are not gonna be. Based on opinions, our own opinions, but on a really seeking out experts. And we did a lot of that. And I'm very proud of us, not just because it was hard, but also because there was so much noise of wanting to take the tape and you know bring it to represent their person's worldview. And like we were very assiduous in our efforts to just be like, this is what's on it. You can listen to it. Here's what it is. You know, we want to give you the context about redistricting, about who Mike Bonin is, about who Nuri Martinez is, or any number of these people. And then like you do, you readers are power empowered by the information we know.
SPEAKER_00I I I remember you know, you guys did a several versions of the story that Sunday afternoon. I remembered reading the first one, and you know, it it it was a it was a a punch, but it was like, okay, this could have been worse. It wasn't quite as bad as I thought it could be in terms of my family dynamic. And then Ben, you called me back uh, you know, maybe an hour or so after to publish saying, you know, Gustavo just read this, and then you told me about Changuito. And um, that's when I really lost it. That was like the the emotional sort of breaking point. I remember sitting at my mom's kitchen table and then having to call my husband Sean and and and give him a heads up because you guys were you were giving me a heads up, you were updating the story. Um you mentioned a few minutes ago, Ben, that you know you you called it racist by the final version of the story. The the original version didn't, as I recall. When, and I guess it said racially charged or something, when did you decide it had sort of been very clearly racist and it was time to use that term?
SPEAKER_01I I think it was pretty quickly, actually. Yeah. Uh we we you know, we were trying to um you know get the story posted. Um, and we, you know, we as Ben said, I mean, we don't just casually call people racist, but in this case, um, you know, we didn't, you know, take all the time that we might normally want to take on something like that. We just got the story ready as best we could. We had a headline that said racially charged, but very quickly we said, you know, actually this is racist, so let's just change the headline. And uh so within a few minutes, I think. And then by and then I think we revised that story like eight times through the course of the day, yeah, uh, which is a lot for us.
SPEAKER_00And uh well, so much kept happening.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean uh I mean that that that day felt like it lasted, you know, like 72 hours.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, I I I I just want to emphasize like we were it's like sort of building the plane while flying when you're doing a story like this. It's like we just no I I didn't mean to, but yes, but but but in the sense that like we are listening to it, trying to put things up online, trying to get responses from people. Like it was all happening in real time. It wasn't like this fully rendered thing that then we put out to the world, which you know, people don't love that, but it's just how it is. Uh I I get that.
SPEAKER_00I mean, you know, I I gave you a a statement on Saturday night, and then you know, I began listening to the tapes on Sunday morning because I had downloaded them, and um uh I I was struggling with what else to say. I mean, you guys were asking me, every media outlet in the world was was asking, and my initial instinct was I'm not gonna say anything. This is so ugly, it just speaks. And then I started getting some phone calls uh from uh from uh Marquise, from Isaac Bryan, from uh many uh African-American parents I know, and they said, Listen, fuck the politics. When your son is a teenager, he needs to know that you and your husband fought like hell for him. Um, and that's when we decided to to put out the other statement. And then it it felt like every 30 seconds there was another uh another uh development where somebody was issuing a statement and uh it must have felt for you guys like you know you were drinking out of a uh a fire hydrant.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean that Sunday was uh, you know, we we went all day and into the night, and then Monday came along and um, you know, everything was blowing up, and then Tuesday's council meeting uh came along, and you know, we're all watching to see you know what's gonna happen with Nuri and all that. Uh and you gave, you know, a very powerful uh speech on the floor, as I recall. Uh and uh and then um amid all the chaos in the room, right? There were activists and protests and media, and it was it was uh it was pretty nuts. And then uh I think Steve Lopez uh kind of came backstage and maybe caught some time with you and he did. Um and you know, I that was uh an extraordinary amount of emotion uh that we normally don't hear, you know, at meetings of that type. And uh I wonder what it was like, you know, at that giving that speech and um you got through it and how that day was in retrospect.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, it um so you know I was in Boston when it happened, and uh I flew back Monday night. Um uh I remember talking to Ben as I was sitting in Logan Airport uh waiting for my flight. And at the same time, I was getting calls from uh Melina Abdullah uh and others, uh Isaac Bryan and others saying there's just been a meeting of uh of 60 black leaders, they want you to be council president. Uh like, no freaking way. Uh I mean, that was the last thing on my mind. I didn't think my colleagues would go for it anyway, uh, but um uh just the idea of being in the middle of that maelstrom. Um and so I'm dealing with all of this stuff, and I get home and earlier that day my son uh had uh tested positive for COVID, uh, which in retrospect was a blessing because he was out from school all week uh and wasn't hearing anything uh without us contextualizing it. And you know, he had a week of um uh playing video games and eating pizza. So for him, it was you know one of the fondest weeks of his childhood, probably. Such a disconnect for me and my husband watching his joy in the middle of all this. But so I got home that Monday night and I couldn't actually hug my son, right? Um, and I remember talking to him in the backyard and then getting a few hours of fitful sleep, and I'm in the driveway the next morning going to work. And Sean says, What are you gonna say? I'm like, shit. I like it hadn't really struck me. And so you know and my my main thing when I walked into council was I said to my staff, is I think Nuri had just announced she was taking a leave of absence or whatever. My main thing to my staff was do not let Gil or Kevin come up to me. Do not let them near me. I'm not giving them that photo op apology thing to to to cover their ass. Uh and they literally had to block Gil from talking to me. Um uh Kevin didn't try. Uh and you know I I gave that speech and um it was hard because the crowd wouldn't let anybody speak for a while. Right? I mean, it took 45 minutes or so before and I had to like plead with the crowd, please let me speak. And uh when I finished, I I collapsed into my chair, and I thought it was you know just mental exhaustion and jet lag. Turns out that afternoon I tested positive for COVID, um, which I had apparently transmitted to help Paul Krikorian who couldn't come to council as he was elected president. Uh and I realized I'd hugged everybody in that room except for the two people in the room that I was wishing ill on at the moment, Kevin and Gil. Uh, but it was uh that that day there's a photo, uh I think it might be a Times photo, I'm not sure, of me when I was speaking. There were a group of people who were standing behind me. Uh that's that's that that's one of them. And you can see in that photo Isaac Bryan right behind my head. Also there was Eunysis Hernandez, uh Marquis, Hugo Soter Martinez, um who has who was still in a race, right? Eunysis had won, uh hadn't taken office. Uh, and Heather Hutt, uh, who I had just voted against a week before, uh when Nuri, you know, a week or two before when Nuri uh uh uh sort of pushed through her appointment. And earlier Nithya had been there at my side, and there's another photo of that. And I I looked at that photo and I was I was so moved by that because it was such a portrait of solidarity, but the portrait of the the solidarity Los Angeles needed to get through the moment. And I was so overwhelmed by Heather, right? Uh you know, a few days later, uh just as I was getting over COVID, she and Danny Bakewell, who's mentioned on the tapes, invited the family to the Taste a Soul event in in uh Crenshaw. And uh they had the the crowd from the stages give an affirmation of of of love to Jacob. And it was just an overwhelming moment because it was the one moment of the week that he actually experienced. So that'll be the thing that he remembers most is the love. But I remember saying to Heather, I said, Heather, I'm so amazed that you've you've been so amazing. I said, You given where we were politically two weeks ago. And she said, Listen, she said, before anything else, I'm the mother of black boys. Uh and that was it, you know. Um and she and I have bonded a lot since then.
SPEAKER_02Um I I'm curious, you know, one other thing that happened that day, I'm sorry to kind of become the Inquisitor along with Steve, but it's great to do this. Uh, you know, we heard from Biden, or we heard from Biden's press secretary calling for their resignation. And I I I personally was I wasn't actually in the room when you gave the speech. I was sitting, you know, the Times has this little room off of the off of the John Ferraro chamber that is, you know, a fire hazard because of how much paper is in it and the pack rat nature of some of my colleagues. Um, but I was sitting there alone because I was doing the rewrite, and I remember watching the White House press briefing as you're doing this and thinking, like, holy shit, like, you know, from one, the halls of power in LA to the halls of power in DC. And I I recently with my girlfriend rewatched the um the show they made about OJ with Cuba Gooding Jr. And there's this scene where Johnny Cochran is just given, I don't know, whatever, one of his defenses of OJ, and he's watching a nightline or something of Clinton talking about uh OJ, and he's reduced to tears. And I'm sort of thinking to myself, like, so much has changed, and yet the politics and racial disharmony of this city are like still so central in the minds of the country, and that like every five, 10, 15, 20 years, the world turns its eyes back on LA and says, have we gotten any better? And it's kind of this amazing. I I was thinking about that as we re-watched this show recently. Um, but I want I wonder, we've talked about this not on on air, but you know, you and your husband love to go to Italy. And I remember you taught telling me how Sean got some incredible messages from someone in Milan about this. And I wonder you should tell people about that.
SPEAKER_00It um, yeah. I I remember thinking when you first called me, oh shit, this is gonna be like the front of the California section. It hadn't even my wrapped around my head that it was gonna be the lead story in the paper, right? Um and you know, the next morning I'm at my mom's house and she's like, this is on CNN, right? And then um uh Sean called and said that uh someone, a friend of his uh in Milan, his Italian language teacher, had reached out to him about it. And the the the the teacher does not know me, has no idea what my name is, right? So the story had to be comprehensive enough that it mentioned Sean as well in the story. Uh I think we heard from you know friends uh in Latin America. I mean, it was uh you know, and then when Biden made, you know, when the Biden administration said something, it um it was just surreal. And you know, I mean as as we were telling our son about this during the course of the week, uh you know, he was uh he he was two at the time of the story Nuri was telling, he was eight at the time all this was happening. We're uh trying to explain things to him, and you know, one of the things we were able to tell him, because he knew it was uh it was people he knew, right, who worked with his dad, powerful people who were saying the shit. Well one of the things we were able to tell him is that you know, when you get name called, the president of the United States stood up for you, right? That was that was uh really powerful and relieving. But ultimately, I think for me, the most impactful one was Alex Padilla. Um when Alex, I I think that was the game changer for everything. I mean, his brother had been Nuri's chief of staff, they went to high school together, they were part of the same sort of political um you know family uh in the San Fernando Valley. When when when Padilla called for them to resign, that was uh I think I was on the the uh the commuter bus to Logan Airport in Boston, and that's just when I was like, I I I kind of lost it then as well, because it was just such a powerful, powerful moment.
SPEAKER_02Uh but I have wondered why, I mean, not to minimize the the horror of it, but there's plenty of bad racist stuff that happens in the world that doesn't kind of mushroom like this. And I've wondered, is it the tape? I mean, I mean, is it hearing them? Is it Jacob being, you know, so young? Is what it was that kind of is it is it because it's LA? I mean, that maybe that's part of it.
SPEAKER_01I just it's still something that kind of and also the idea that it was kind of something going on that we're normally not privy to. And it sort of raised the idea, gee, is this how they all talk when the cameras are off and they're just among themselves? And uh sort of a glimpse uh, you know, behind the scenes, I think was really fascinating to people.
SPEAKER_02And uh and and and that you could hear them and and and kind of feel them, smell them, taste them. It had that it I think I think I mean, I I I was thinking about this a lot recently because I've been in DC, you know, reporting on Diane Feinstein and and sort of the story I did about her sort of forgetting that she had been gone kind of blew up. And and it I think it partially blew up because there was a tape of it. And I and I I've just been thinking about that relationship between it's one thing to read it, reading it flattens it out almost, maybe minimizes it or doesn't give it as much. When you can hear it, it really it it I mean, that's maybe why we love podcasts. I don't know. It just it kind of pulls you in in a different way.
SPEAKER_00I I I often have wondered though, um how much of I mean in the moment, I I was very acutely aware that this while the story was initially focused on on my son, I knew that this was a story about racism, not about an individual comments about an individual child, and really wanted to to to make sure. I remember talking to you saying, make sure, point out the racist, the the systemic racism on on this. And um uh I I often wonder though, if it would have become an international story if Nuri hadn't been making comments about a young child, right? Because that added a sensationalistic twist. And I'd like to think that people would have been as outraged about the the the sort of casual anti-black racism, but I I wonder, what do you guys think?
SPEAKER_02I I I think I think you're right. You know, as sexy of a topic as redistricting is, as excited as we all get about it. And and I mean, as important as it, I'm I'm making a joke, but like I just don't think it would have been what it was without the audio hearing it, and you know, the targeting of of Jacob and and and you know, by proxy you. You know, I mean I I just you know, not to toot our horn too much, but I mean, I think one of the things I've always been proud of in that package of stories, one were there were two pieces, well, three. One, the transcribing of the tape, the annotating that we did, because I think it showed the expertise that the paper has. And then two stories, one which was anchored by Jessica Garrison, which is sort of like a history of race relations in the city. Ran the Sunday after.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And and then a story that Dave and I did about, you know, there was all this clamoring of like, this is illegal, what they did on this tape. It's illegal. And and I, you know, not to, I think as reporters, sometimes you like to zig when people zag, but like really being able to point out to people the high bar it takes to for something about ground redistricting to be deemed illegal. And, you know, talking about the ant, the litany of case law to support that point. And and I think all three of those stories showed, you know, there used to be a category at the Pillads called beat reporting. And that like the strength of our stories and why I think they resonated with people beyond the substance, which we just talked about, was that we were able to sort of say, we were ready at a moment's notice to be able to talk fluently about an incredibly complicated, an incredibly fraught, an incredibly divisive subject, and do it with depth, you know, nuance, flair, and style. And I mean, I think that was what was so important or great about what played out in that way.
SPEAKER_00I I want to ask about that. I'll do a follow-up on that in a second, but there's there's one other thing I wanted to say first is, and and I've said this uh to uh uh Kevin Merida when I've seen him in the past, and and uh I've said it to a few others at at the paper as well. Uh I am so glad, Steve, that the reporter who called me was Ben. Um uh it it it just it made a difference. I don't know Julia very well. Uh I've had a lot of interactions with Dave in Dakota. Um, not to say anything prejorative about anybody. I'm just glad it was Ben. I mean, he was uh he was just very human about it. Uh and I could tell it was a hard phone call for him um as well as for me. Um and I'm curious, how did you guys decide who was gonna call whom in those moments?
SPEAKER_02I I I I don't remember. I mean, I think it was just like I I think you want to always ascribe there was some plan or some strategy. Yeah, I I don't think there was much of one other than, you know, we you and I had spent a lot of time going back and I mean I think I think it was about relationships. And I mean, I I think again that goes to this point about beat reporting and the importance of it and the importance of expertise. And, you know, there's a lot of chipping at valid times as an institution, some of it fair, some of it unfair. But I mean, I think the thing that we pride ourselves on is that we treat everyone fairly and we go to everyone. We went to Kevin, we went to Gil, we went to um Ron, Herrera, you know, we and certainly went to Nuri. Um and we went to you. And and and and and I think our ability that that's not just some perfunctory, we got to put a didn't respond respond to comment in the story. That was like we that's important to us. And I mean, I think back to just not to change the subject, but I think back to this is the first house guest to the house that I'm sitting in right now, which is where I live with my girlfriend, was Mike Bonnet, who came and sat in my kitchen, my lit my dining room for two hours with Doug Smith when we were coming at you guys hard about what the Venice boardwalk looked like. And we would have never thought to do those stories without giving you your due. And I think that's just such an essential piece of how we do our jobs. I mean, I remember you and I and Doug getting pretty animated at each other, disagreeing, you know, Doug kind of asking some pointed questions that you didn't like. And, you know, we published a QA next to it. And, you know, me asserting that I thought one of the challenges you faced in your election, that your re election that you didn't end up running for was the what we perceived as the failure there. And you saying, no, that's not a failure. And that back and forth as being healthy, constructive, brought, but certainly essential to any reporting we would do about that moment in time, which was so complicated. So I mean, I think the same. So this question of like who called who is the people who had been. Bugging you the whole time. You know, and I think those things can't be disentangled from one another.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, we do, I do have a dartboard here, and that's how we decide most of the things that we do. But I thought it was a roulette. I thought it was a roulette wheel. You know, but but um you know, one of the things that is so great about working with my colleagues is they're all very unique personalities and people with incredibly diverse journalistic backgrounds. And uh like I knew that um Dakota, you know, had um, you know, could reach out to to um Gil Cedillo because she had covered him. And, you know, so it was part of my job, in addition to trying to keep people relatively calm, is to help um decide uh to make out the roster and figure out who who's gonna be assigned to what to get the best value and the best story. Uh and I, you know, I've been at the paper a long time. I kind of know who everybody is, I know who's best at what. So that's you know what I try to keep in mind is just how to match reporter and story on something like that when everything is just blowing up. And um, you know, I think we, you know, we hit hit hit it pretty successfully, as you know, Ben referred to the story that Jessica Garrison anchored. Well, Jessica Garrison covered Los Angeles City Hall 15, 20 years ago and did a great job of it. So we knew that she was the right person to uh anchor a story of that type. Uh uh similarly, uh, you know, Dave and Ben wrote I, you know, the sexiest story about redistricting that you're ever gonna read uh around that time, because you know, Dave knows that stuff and he'd been covering uh a lot of those meetings. So it's just a matter of matching uh people, plus just uh whoever's least busy. Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, I again I think there is something to be said for, you know, all our failures are inadvertent, as are all our successes in that way.
SPEAKER_00Um I was I was curious, you you mentioned you published the the the very detailed, comprehensive, annotated uh uh transcripts on uh I guess it was I I read through these stories last night, uh reliving everything. Uh November 21. You you posted the full tape October 15th, which was you know five days later. Um uh independent journalist Nock, they had posted it that morning. I I actually used their transcript of it to submit into the council file when we were doing the um uh the censure motion because it was the only transcript that that we had. Why did you wait um to post the whole tape?
SPEAKER_02I think it was mostly a technical thing. We were struggling to get it all uh online. And I mean, I think uh without slagging colleagues, I mean it was something we were eager to do as quickly as possible. And just given given how much we were doing and the amount of output that was happening, uh, there was not there was not some like thought to holding it back for any substantive reason. It was just a technical challenge. And and um I I I I'm not trying to hold back. I can't even remember what exactly it was, but it was just like we were we were so busy doing so many things, we were trying to get it online and we published excerpts of it, I think the day of or even the day after, but it was not the whole and yeah, and we but we wanted to get it up. And then the reason the the annotation took so long was that they had to build within our CMS like custom boxes to do it. Like it was not an easy thing to make look nice. And I, you know, again, a shout out to all the people who do that kind of work who are not bylined and and are not, you know, always credited. And there's so many producers and people on our news desk and copy editors who, you know, a quick we were at our Pulitzer, you know, afternoon celebration. What Dakota noted as this uh a shout out to Scott Sandel, who's a a cop one of a uh he's a top editor at the paper, edits the front page. Uh he's a former copy editor, and he was the one who first reached out to us to said, I think Kevin Leone, Kevin DeLeonis talking about a goillard bag. Of course, you know, really uh insight to all of us and our expensive tastes. None of us knew what goyard was.
SPEAKER_00I had never heard of it. I I thought he was talking about like some yard bag with rake leaves in or something.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And and so, but but again, that just it's such a tiny example, but it shows you know, Scott is a former copy editor, just it speaks to the diligence of our colleagues who were all rooting for us, reading this, talking to us, giving us feedback. Uh and uh yeah. So uh again, I've I learned so much during doing the stories, including what a go yard bag is.
SPEAKER_00Me too. Um to Steve's point earlier, this was really a huge team effort, right? Um uh so many different reporters, and to Ben's point, so many people behind the scenes, not byline. I I I think one of the reasons that you got the pull it's a for it wasn't you know just the coverage of the first three days, but the coverage of the the the arc of it, the yeah the the the the textured stories that that some of which you've mentioned, the the story that that that Jessica did, um uh you did, you know uh a profile of Gill. You did um a story about uh the reaction of the Oaxacan community, you did a story about not just the the reaction of the Oaxacken community, but the dynamic of uh sort of colorism even within the Latino community. You did stories, and Erica did columns about, you know, what does this mean for black power? You did a story about what are parents saying about this stuff, right? Um I'm really curious what that process was. Was uh like how did you decide? What was the discussion like in deciding what are these other stories we need to be reporting? Was that done in like in a meeting or was it like a flurry of texts, or both it's funny?
SPEAKER_01Steve, you answer that. Um so very quickly, you know, everybody got involved. My boss, Hector Becerra, the great Shelby Grad, uh, who is a deputy managing editor at the paper and was California editor for many years, uh Kevin Merida. Um, you know, and and ideas started flying. And um, they created a specific Slack channel for staffers to offer up ideas. Now, I was so buried in the minute-by-minute developments of those first three days, I didn't even realize they had created a Slack channel for ideas around the paper. But uh, you know, we've got uh you know a room full of hundreds of people uh figure virtually, and uh a lot of people had great ideas. I mean, the idea of the parenting uh angle came from a reporter who has written about such issues. And uh the Oaxacan story was written by a reporter who is of uh Oaxacan descent. Um and uh the columnist Robin M. Perion uh wrote a great column about uh that talked about the reference to um Armenians, and um so ideas just were flying in, and and the challenge is to you know get somebody on them and and get those stories turned around quickly. Um, you know, we had every department, we had the sports writers involved and people from the calendar section. And uh and you know, we had, I mean, it's unlike anything I've seen really, I mean, at the paper a long time, but like when 9-11 happened, that was another example where you had every department involved. And uh so uh very quickly. Including my mom, your your amazing mother, Geraldine Baum. Um so we uh yeah, so uh people above me were certainly, you know, kind of instantly involved, and you know, a lot of assignments were being made. So it was just the idea is this is a really big story, and we just want to try to cover it in as many ways as we can. We had video, we had audio, we had uh LA Times Today on Spectrum uh had an episode. Um yeah, so um how did we do it? I mean, I think it was just a lot of meetings and phone calls and Slack messages, and uh yeah, that's how that went.
SPEAKER_00Ben, how was your mom involved? I I can't let that.
SPEAKER_02Oh, sorry. My I you may not know this. My mom was a reporter at the LA Times for 25 years and was the LA Times reporter at at Ground Zero. And she was edited not that day, but later in her career by Steve Clow. So wow. I don't know, I don't know if that ages Steve, but uh it maybe makes me feel young.
SPEAKER_00Um that that's like when I was in high school, I had some of the the teachers that my parents had when they were in high school.
SPEAKER_02I I there are certainly editors of the paper who were who edited my mom.
SPEAKER_01Well, Ben, and your mom, of course, um spent that whole day at Ground Zero and I and then later wrote a long piece about uh coming home that night, and she was caked in what in in dust and ashes, right? And the detritus from the buildings, yeah. And you she came in to you know, hug you goodnight or whatever. And I think there's a mention in that story of how she, you know, had all this you know residue on her, and uh anyway, yeah. I thought she was a ghost. That's actually what it was.
SPEAKER_00Uh Steve, a few weeks before the story broke, I think it was uh a few weeks before, um, you you actually got a new assignment, right? You were gonna be um at a broader portfolio, was gonna be uh trying to figure out stories that need to be platformed in in different and and bigger ways. This became certainly one of those stories. And one of the things that came out of it was um maybe a week and a half after everything happened, there was the big joint town hall between Fox 11 and the LA Times, uh, which both uh Ben and I were on, and um uh Erica was on, a number of people from the Times were on. How did that come about?
SPEAKER_01You know, um we've got LA Times Studios, which is uh uh sort of part of our larger operation. And uh, you know, I think uh it made I I was I was in on a lot of that, but I don't know about the actual origin of it. It could be that, you know, Fox 11 and you know, they have uh a very uh uh highly engaged you know political reporting operation. And Alex Michelson is is uh their great uh reporter and anchor. Uh and I think it was just them touching base with us or us touching base with them and saying, hey, let's do this, let's try to do it, let's make it work. So, you know, once that light bulb went off, then you know, uh wheels turned and reporters got assigned and columnists and they set about finding locations. So I mean that that's kind of an example of what the Times is is trying to do is sort of reach beyond the traditional, you know, print uh uh you know form and you know, be more digital, be more sort of out there in many different ways to reach audience.
SPEAKER_00And and Ben, you participated in that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean it was I I mean it was a great exercise. Or I remember being brought on to explain the machinations of redistricting and thinking, you know, I think like tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, watch like the nightly broadcast of Fox and thinking to myself, like, great, I get to tell everyone about a thing that I've been obsessed with for like a year, and now so many more people are gonna get to hear about it. And and thinking of how like great an opportunity it was to like make people care about redistricting. And I um also like that was like my I thought like just like a great opportunity, as horrid as like the tape was. It was this like amazing moment to like make people engaged about a thing that like is changing. Like this week, we got writ recommendations to expand the city council to do redistricting reform. I mean, this is like a real debate. And I mean, I think it like let's not forget, like this was at the the peak, this is like the beginning of October of a mayor's race. I mean, people's like this was at like the apex of people's engagement with local politics, which the three of us know more than anyone, really waxes and lanes in a way that is can be quite depressing, I think, if you're someone who lives and breathes it all the time. And uh that I I just as bad as that moment was, it was sort of amazing to watch people kind of tune in and and sort of think deeply about how the city runs, who runs it, and how it should look.
SPEAKER_00Um I I saw when the Pulitzer was announced, many of you were together in the newsroom. I'm curious, were were any of you ever together during the reporting of the story, or were you all scattered about?
SPEAKER_02Um so uh yes, uh uh Steve was you know manning the the the battleship from his home office, but um but but the three and some you know the four of us, Julia Wick, Dave Zionizer, Dakota Smith, and I, and we have this bureau in City Hall, and it is uh, you know, week to week, one between one and four of us were always there before this. And that week, I mean, I think we were all there. I think one day I worked for home because it, I mean, you know this, Mike. It it that building is so distracting, trying to get things done. You're running into people. So I mean, I remember one of the days I finally said to them, I was like, I'm gonna work from home because I can't, couldn't focus on a thing. But broadly, it was all done remotely, with the exception of the three or four of us being in the building. Um, and then I'm trying to think if there's anything else.
SPEAKER_01Uh I mean, that was about it. I was just gonna add, Ben, you are very good on television. And um, you know, um, you're a counterweight to uh the very sort of um uh uh sleekly uh uh whoft um you know people normally on television. So um the anti-Alex Michaelson.
SPEAKER_02I hope you do not leave us for television. I I I have no plans yet, um or or ever really.
SPEAKER_00Um since this is an audio podcast for those who don't know what Ben looks like, uh think about uh any uh Renaissance era uh portrait of Jesus Christ. Uh beard, long hair.
SPEAKER_02Well, and he won't have a problem with me saying this because he said it to me a million times, but Kevin DeLeon used to call me a member of the DSA because of the beard and long hair. So uh, you know.
SPEAKER_00Well, from from Kevin, that's uh that's a a deeper slur than saying you're the fourth black member of the council.
SPEAKER_02I I I I never I I chose to laugh at it whenever it came up, but I think in hindsight, maybe I should have viewed it differently.
SPEAKER_00Um this was like a series, uh the covering this like living it was just a a a series of of events after event after event and and and so many different nuances. I'm curious if there's a moment for you that stands out as something that just sort of captures the the the the the the the sensation and the experience of it. For for me, it's that photo of of those people standing behind me when I I spoke. Because for me it captures uh the the potential, the unity, the the the hope, as well as you know what I was going through. Curious if there's any moment that you went through that you know, if you were gonna say this is one thing that sort of captures the experience, what would that be?
SPEAKER_02Steve, you go first.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Uh like I said, it's a bit of a blur. Um you know, I think um just getting through that, those first couple of days and meeting all the deadlines for all the platforms, you know, we're we're digital, so I mean we're producing versions of stories all day long. And I think at the end of that first day, that's Sunday, when we finally hit the button on the last version of the story, I just felt like that had been a pretty crazy 24 hours and that we had uh we had done done right by our readers, but also by all the people mentioned in the story. We were trying to be fair and um you know, and as thorough as we could be. What the other thing I uh looking back uh a couple weeks ago, I kind of I saved most of the papers and I went back through and looked at a lot of them. And I was struck by, you know, and this is really all credit to the staff, how well written a lot of those stories were on deadline, you know, sometimes being re being written, you know, in multiple uh passes. And uh I thought, you know, this is people should be buying our paper because you know, this is really good. And uh um, and I just was proud of the work that everyone did. And I sort of got that feeling again when I revisited those those stories.
SPEAKER_02I think for me, I mean, it's a moment we've kind of dwelled on a lot was was your speech. Um you know, obviously it was a moment that you are someone who is uh verbose, maybe is the fair way to describe it. You're someone who enjoys a good speech and uh enjoys, you know, having having the the dais. Um, but a moment that I felt like, again, to use your words, was redemptive and and also captured so much of what was going on in the city at that moment. Uh, you know, I think a lot about our coverage of 2020, of the racial unrest, of so much of the sort of activism about that time, and that it again, it was a return to this like level of engagement and and and holding accountable of public officials that waxes and wanes. And you know, I don't fault people for not being always like locked in because there's like so much going on in the world. Uh, but just seeing you stand up there and give this speech and and hold that audience um with such attention that they had was very powerful. And then also, like, look, I'm someone's son, and and I I I think that as a reporter, you always like I am a human first, as you noted. Uh, and I like felt for Jacob that entire time. And seeing you kind of talk about how much you loved him was very uh was very you know moving. You know, however I felt about what was going on, it was. So I I definitely remember that moment.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. I I really felt because in addition to the slurs, he was sort of uh mischaracterized as like a misbehaving child. And I thought it was really important for me and Sean to describe the sort of joy and humor and just brilliance uh in this very you know high-energy kid. Uh man, I remember at the concert that night when you first contacted me being baffled by what parade Nuri was talking about because you thought I was joking.
SPEAKER_02Like you really were laughing. And I was like, dude, you need to like I remember saying to you, like, you need to like take this more seriously. Or like, I I mean maybe I didn't say it in those terms, but like I I remember you very much not taking it as seriously as I was in that moment.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean it was it was still a a little shock. And I was used to you know, hits from Nuri and nobody paying attention. And anything I would say to object to or nobody paying attention to, but I remember having to go back and look through Facebook that night and find what year were they together? Because he's on a been on a lot of floats in Ping Day with me. She wasn't there for a lot of them, and we finally tracked it down, and he was you know a few months shy at three years old. Um Yeah, he's but he's an amazing kid. Uh he was an amazing kid at three, he's an amazing kid at nine. He's just he's joy. Um just a couple of last questions, and thank you for for the time. I've enjoyed the conversation uh and the therapy. Is um uh looking back, is there anything you would have done differently in covering the story?
SPEAKER_01I mean, you mentioned, I mean, in a perfect world, we could have gotten the full audio up sooner. Um, you know, we could have been faster on the annotation. But again, uh, you know, it's uh as you say, a fire hose, and we're trying to do the best we can on all fronts. So um I don't know. I I thought uh nothing beyond those sort of technical issues that really leap to mind.
SPEAKER_02I I I agree. I think that there was a lot of like sort of bad motive ascribed to some of those things, and and they were very much about like the how much was happening at that time. And I I you know I I get why people thought that those were like things that we were trying to hold back or something like that. And I just don't think that's it wasn't true then, and it's not true now. You know, I mean, I always I always think or wonder this isn't a regret, more of a wish. I would love to hear from Nuri. I I think Nuri is a really interesting person. I think that her story is the story of LA in a in a way, you know, the the how the politics of the city has changed. So that's not a regret. I I just you know, she has put out a lot of statements about her remorse, but I I think she's a really interesting figure. And I also think she's one who has a point of view about the city and and and and also this that moment that if given the space might say something interesting and something that we could all learn from. So I I w I wish she would talk to me about it. She hasn't. I wish she would talk to anyone about it. I I think it'd be interesting to hear from her.
SPEAKER_00I just hope she keeps her mouth shut for the rest of her life.
SPEAKER_02But I think you're entitled in that uh in that view. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh but I'd uh I won't even say any more on that. Uh I've heard rumor, I don't know if you guys have have checked it out, that she's actually moved to Arizona. I have no idea if that's accurate.
SPEAKER_02I think we'll I think we'll let that lie. We can talk about that offline.
SPEAKER_00Well, I I imagine in October there will be a year's anniversary type thing where you will look back and reflect. Um last question is uh this was a big story. You've talked a lot about the ways it has sort of reverberated with redistricting, with you know impacts on city politics. Curious how this has uh changed, if it has, the way you uh cover Los Angeles.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I I think I think the way it has changed how I think about LA is that we need to again, it comes back to that thing about Cochrane and and and that moment is like that history is like still it I think there's a lot of people who think LA like the politics in LA like had this reset with like people like Nithia's election with 2020, and that like there's something very like not being a historical about it, and that like very much grounding a lot of the past in this moment and that like really focusing on that. And for me, that's a challenge. I I I've I've been at the paper seven years, uh, you know, for someone like Steve Clow, he's been here a lot longer, but just like focusing and making sure we're not covering things like, oh, this is the first this has ever happened, like really making sure that it's put in in the context of the history of the city, uh, because the history of the city is so interesting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's been really important to me to uh, you know, keep the uh volume and the quality of the coverage of the city politics high. Uh Ben and Julia joined us, you know, at the start of last year. Uh guys were doing other things. Uh, and the four of you and we had other people as well, Jim Rainey, who was a veteran reporter who's covered LA politics in the past. We really muscled up last year. And it's, you know, with the elections over, it's been important to me to try to keep that level of coverage high. We have a newsletter that comes out every Saturday that we've you know kept going, even though I've uh, you know, it sometimes it's tough to keep it going because everybody's so busy. So uh I I just you know want to make sure that we're trying to cover things in the nuance that they deserve and and in the depth that they deserve. And I think that the the leadership recognizes that you know that LA City Hall is an important building and we have to write about everything that goes on there, even if sometimes it's in a level of detail that may not uh um translate into a million page views, it's still interesting and important.
SPEAKER_00Well, both of you, I really appreciate you coming on and talking to me. I'm still I think I'll be spending the rest of my life processing that that uh month of October 2022. But um uh it was it was really helpful to have such an engaging conversation with you. Steve Clow and uh Ben Oreskis, thanks so much. Thank you. That story that won the LA Times, the Pulitzer, is far from over. Kevin De Leon remains on the council until next year, when I am confident that voters in his district will throw his racist ass out of office. The City Council is considering creating an independent redistricting process, and a new wave of progressive elected officials who are firmly committed to multiracial solidarity are beginning to make its mark. This was an ugly moment for Los Angeles and for me and for my family. I said something last year that is still true for me today. On those tapes, I heard the absolute worst of Los Angeles. But in reaction to those tapes, I saw and I felt the best of Los Angeles. Los Angeles rose up with compassion and with love and with optimism and said, this is not who we are. I think that is the Los Angeles that will prevail. And that's it for this edition of What's Next Los Angeles. Thank you very much for joining me. Until next time, peace and take good care.