Error 404 Posted April 24, 2007 Report Share Posted April 24, 2007 Something must be done on this case. http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2007/04/...ide_dispute.php Armenian genocide dispute erupts at LAT Kevin Roderick A dispute that has been quietly bubbling in the Times newsroom went public today when the publisher of the California Courier demanded that LAT managing editor Doug Frantz be fired for blocking publication of an article on the Armenian genocide by senior staff writer Mark Arax, who is of Armenian origin. According to Harut Sassounian, a widely quoted leader of the Armenian American community, Frantz feels Arax is biased on Armenian issues. Arax has lodged a discrimination complaint and threatened a federal lawsuit, says Sassounian. Arax, who lives in Fresno and writes for West magazine, told me he couldn't comment, but I've confirmed there is an internal investigation at the paper. Frantz emailed LA Observed: I put a hold on a story because of concerns that the reporter had expressed personal views about the topic in a public manner and therefore was not a disinterested party, which is required by our ethics guidelines, and because the reporter and an editor had gone outside the normal procedures for compiling and editing articles. My actions were based solely on the journalistic ethics and standards that we follow to ensure that readers of Times news coverage are not affected by the personal views of our reporters and editors. Here is Sassounian's piece, which cites emails between Frantz and Arax: When a company discriminates against an employee on the basis of his or her ethnic origin, it violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits "employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin." It appears that such a breach of the law took place when Douglas Frantz, the Managing Editor of the Los Angeles Times, blocked the publication of an article on the Armenian Genocide written by Mark Arax, a distinguished journalist of Armenian origin, who has worked at the Times for 20 years. On April 11, 2007, in an e-mail to Arax, Frantz accused him of having "a conflict of interest that precludes you from writing about the Armenian genocide, and particularly about an ongoing congressional debate about it. …Your personal stance on the issue, in my view, prohibits you from writing about the issue objectively." To justify his discriminatory action, Frantz used the pretext that Arax and five other reporters at The Times had signed a joint letter in September 2005, reminding the editors that the newspaper was not complying with its own policy of calling the Armenian Genocide, a genocide. The editors, at that time, had no problem with that letter. On the contrary, they thanked all six reporters -- five Armenian-Americans and one Jewish-American -- for the reminder and pledged to comply with the paper’s policy on this issue. To make matters worse, in his e-mail, Frantz falsely referred to the above-cited letter as a "petition," and on that basis accused Arax of taking "a position" on the Armenian Genocide. He thus implied that all six letter-writers -- Mark Arax, Ralph Vartabedian, Robin Abcarian, Greg Krikorian, Chuck Philips, and Henry Weinstein -- were political activists rather than independent journalists. By "prohibiting" Arax from writing on the genocide issue, Frantz, by implication, was also prohibiting all six journalists, among them a Pulitzer Prize winner, of ever reporting on this subject. In other words, Frantz was not just blocking one particular article and its author, but all future articles on the Armenian Genocide that may be written by any of these six journalists, thus practically issuing a gag order that silences all Armenian Americans working at the Times. By the same logic, Frantz is implying that Latinos will be barred from writing on illegal immigrants, African American journalists from covering civil rights, Jewish-American reporters from writing about the Holocaust and Asian-Americans covering issues peculiar to their community. Sadly, Frantz’s misrepresentation of the joint letter as a "petition" initially helped convince other editors at The Times that Arax had an ethnic bias, thus gaining their support in his decision not to run his article. Only days later did these editors take the trouble to investigate the matter and discovered that they were misled by Frantz. Jim O’Shea, the top editor of the Los Angeles Times, in a meeting with this writer last week, said that the letter signed by the six journalists was not a “petition” at all, and that there was nothing improper about it. In fact, he admitted that the letter upheld existing L.A. Times policy. Amazingly, even after discovering the truth, rather than reversing themselves and publishing the Arax story, The Times’ editors continued to endorse Frantz's censorship and compounded the discrimination. They did this by assigning their Washington reporter, Richard Simon, supposedly to update Arax's story. Even though Frantz, in his April 11 e-mail told Arax that he had "no questions" about his "abilities as a reporter and writer," he did use the excuse that Arax and Washington editor, Bob Ourlian, had gone around the "established system for assigning and editing stories." Obviously, this was a red-herring. The editors in the chain of command both in Washington and Los Angeles were aware of Arax’s article and none of them had any questions or complaints about procedure or content. In fact, not even Frantz himself cited a single factual or bias problem with the story. The only problems he did point to were that Arax had taken a “personal” stand on the Armenian Genocide, which allegedly led him to have a “conflict of interest,” presumably because of his Armenian heritage. Arax has written countless major investigative stories over the course of his 20 years at the Los Angeles Times, including several on the Armenian Genocide, but never had a single one of them “killed” by any editor. But that was before Frantz entered into the picture, moving from Istanbul to Los Angeles to become the newspaper’s Managing Editor in November 2005. The thrust of Arax’s story was not only about the clash between Turks and Armenians over the congressional resolution on the Armenian Genocide, but also about the split in the Jewish community between those who sympathize with the victims of the Armenian Genocide and those who put a higher premium on Israel’s strategic alliance with Turkey. Richard Simon, on the other hand, proceeded to write a completely different story which was published in The Times on April 21. His article covered the conflicting political pressures affecting the adoption of the Armenian Genocide resolution by the Congress and its “uncertain” chances of approval. There was no reason to kill the Arax story to run Simon’s. Both articles could have been published, one as a sidebar to the other. In a vain attempt to appease Arax and defuse a looming controversy that is sure to anger the half-a-million strong Armenian community in Southern California, a handful of paragraphs from Arax’s article were incorporated into Simon’s story. The editors told this writer that they were dismayed that Arax refused to have his name jointly appear on the byline for Simon’s story. Even then, despite Arax's justified protests, the editors added a tagline at the end of the article, stating that Arax "contributed to this report." An investigation of this matter in the past two weeks has led this writer to believe that rather than Mark Arax having an ethnic bias, Douglas Frantz himself seems to be the source of the problem. Based on discussions with individuals familiar with various aspects of this controversy, conversations and meetings with top executives at the Times, and a contentious phone call with Frantz himself which he initiated, it appears that he has strongly held personal views on Armenian-Turkish issues which have clouded his professional judgment, causing him to take actions which are improper and possibly illegal: 1) In a discriminatory e-mail, Frantz falsely accused Mark Arax and five other Times’ reporters of signing a "petition" on the Armenian Genocide. This accusation was used as a pretext to block Arax’s story on the Armenian Genocide. 2) Frantz has reportedly made comments to at least one co-worker at The Times that he personally opposed the congressional resolution on the Armenian Genocide. He also said he believes that Armenians rebelled against the Turks, an argument used by Turkish denialists to justify the genocide. 3) Frantz was stationed for several years in Turkey, first working for the New York Times as Istanbul Bureau Chief and then for the Los Angeles Times during which he may have developed very natural friendships with Turkish individuals and officials. 4) The Turkish Consul General in Los Angeles has reportedly bragged about his close friendship with Douglas Frantz and said that he turns to him whenever he has a problem with The Times. 5) This writer was told by the editor of The Times, Jim O’Shea, who has known Frantz for many years from their time together at the Chicago Tribune, that Frantz has a very abrasive personality. No wonder he was short-tempered and abrupt during a phone conversation that he initiated, falsely accusing this writer of threatening him, when in fact he was simply being told that the controversy regarding the Arax article might upset the Armenian community, if it turned out that the story was blocked due to the Armenian background of the journalist. 6) Frantz is scheduled to moderate a panel at a conference in Istanbul, May 12-15, on "Turkey: Sharing the Democratic Experience." The panelists are asked to discuss: "Can the Turkish experience be emulated by other countries in the region and beyond?" Among the speakers at the conference are the President, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Turkey. One of the participants on the panel chaired by Frantz is none other than Andrew Mango, a notorious genocide denialist. Despite being sponsored by the International Press Institute, the conference does not cover the lack of freedom of speech in Turkey, the jailing and killing of journalists such as Hrant Dink, and draconian laws on "denigrating Turkishness." O'Shea told this writer that the Los Angeles Times will be paying Frantz' airfare to participate in this conference. Would The Times pay for Frantz’s trip, if he were moderating a panel that included David Irving, the infamous Holocaust revisionist? Arax has filed a discrimination complaint with The Times against Frantz. He is also considering a Federal lawsuit for the possible violation of his civil rights. The Times executives are expected to make a decision this week on what action, if any, they would take against Frantz. The Publisher of The Times, David Hiller, and the Editor, Jim O’Shea, reassured this writer last week that they would not tolerate any executive who has a bias against the Armenian Genocide and discriminates against Armenian-American employees. Once the internal investigation is complete, the expectation is that the top management of The Times would do the right thing and find an appropriate way of eliminating the hostile working environment created by Douglas Frantz at one of the nation’s greatest newspapers. It is hard to imagine how Frantz could continue working at a newspaper in a community where more than half a million Armenians reside, given his unfavorable actions against his Armenian-American colleagues and his negative views on the Armenian Genocide. The Armenian community highly values the special relationship it has developed in recent months with the publisher and other executives at the Los Angeles Times. The opinion column written by Matt Welch, the Times’ assistant editorial page editor, published on Sunday, April 22, is another indication of the newspaper’s solid position on the facts of the Armenian Genocide. The Frantz episode is an aberration and has to be dealt with as such. His continued presence at the highest echelons of this venerable newspaper would only serve to antagonize the Armenian community and all those who care about the upholding of equal rights for all employees regardless of their race, color, religion, sex and national origin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sip Posted April 24, 2007 Report Share Posted April 24, 2007 By the same logic, Frantz is implying that Latinos will be barred from writing on illegal immigrants, African American journalists from covering civil rights, Jewish-American reporters from writing about the Holocaust and Asian-Americans covering issues peculiar to their community. That sentence just made me laugh ... Mexicans have the illegals issue, blacks have race, jews have the Holocaust, but poor Asians ... all they have is "issues peculiar to their community" Oh and this thing with the LA times completely blows. They should fire Franz like they fired Imus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Error 404 Posted April 24, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 24, 2007 Amazing how certain individuals define their egoistic existence above some ethnic, racial or religious groups. Franz MUST BE FIRED FROM LA TIMES. There is no tolerance for what he has done to Armenian community in LA or to whole Armenian Nation on the same day when we mourn our losses. I was expecting something decent from LA times on the eve before April24 or on April 24. But look what he has done. Bravo Arax. He took the right path by starting a lawsuit against Franz. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ED Posted April 25, 2007 Report Share Posted April 25, 2007 Amazing how certain individuals define their egoistic existence above some ethnic, racial or religious groups. Franz MUST BE FIRED FROM LA TIMES. There is no tolerance for what he has done to Armenian community in LA or to whole Armenian Nation on the same day when we mourn our losses. I was expecting something decent from LA times on the eve before April24 or on April 24. But look what he has done. Bravo Arax. He took the right path by starting a lawsuit against Franz. ironically the same LA times wwhich is in financial trouble must realize the boycott of Armenian community if the decision is made in favor of this turkish lobbyist, and few years ago, no word, not even a sentance was mentioned in Times about 90'th aneversery of AG when over 10% of city's population was demonstrating in Hollywood streets but published a full page add about Jewish Holocaust go figure, i personaly was furios when i franticly searching for an article on 25'th in 2005, i called every ANCA branch i knew, even all the way to Washington! yet no action was taken. sometimes i wonder, do we march to pay our respect for the dead? or simply to awake awareness, and if the answer is awarness then it isent working,go to church, light a candle or fight the war as they do. how many years should this go on? enough is enough. Nothing these people will change for us, not even if every news paper in US will publish a story. sobmer day, somber thoughts, forgive those fallen for my words voxpam merelots Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DominO Posted April 25, 2007 Report Share Posted April 25, 2007 Learn French and read Radio Canada webnews. http://www.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/Inter...e-turquie.shtml Those guys are unbeatable, using no stupid qualifiers, presenting denial as such. The last two paragraphs placing the non-recognition of the US, UK and Israel into context. ironically the same LA times wwhich is in financial trouble must realize the boycott of Armenian community if the decision is made in favor of this turkish lobbyist, and few years ago, no word, not even a sentance was mentioned in Times about 90'th aneversery of AG when over 10% of city's population was demonstrating in Hollywood streets but published a full page add about Jewish Holocaust go figure, i personaly was furios when i franticly searching for an article on 25'th in 2005, i called every ANCA branch i knew, even all the way to Washington! yet no action was taken. sometimes i wonder, do we march to pay our respect for the dead? or simply to awake awareness, and if the answer is awarness then it isent working,go to church, light a candle or fight the war as they do. how many years should this go on? enough is enough. Nothing these people will change for us, not even if every news paper in US will publish a story. sobmer day, somber thoughts, forgive those fallen for my words voxpam merelots Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vava Posted April 25, 2007 Report Share Posted April 25, 2007 Those guys are unbeatable, using no stupid qualifiers, presenting denial as such. The last two paragraphs placing the non-recognition of the US, UK and Israel into context. Clear & concise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AK-47 Posted April 25, 2007 Report Share Posted April 25, 2007 Learn French and read Radio Canada webnews. http://www.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/Inter...e-turquie.shtml Those guys are unbeatable, using no stupid qualifiers, presenting denial as such. The last two paragraphs placing the non-recognition of the US, UK and Israel into context. Cool article. It summed those countries' denial of the event perfectly, as a realpolitik game. It shows the reader than the genocide indeed did happen and that the only reason why some countries don't accept it is for bilatral relations that may succumb to Turkish blackmail. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Error 404 Posted April 25, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 25, 2007 Done! Sent a protest email to the senior management of LA Times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Takoush Posted April 25, 2007 Report Share Posted April 25, 2007 (edited) More than awareness for the recognition of the three allied countries that seem to sort of rule the world nowadays and more than anything support our one and only enemy; (namely the US, UK, Israel); it is my belief that all this fighting for our cause binds us together as a nation and as people ; it brings us together for a cause, our cause of the respect of our 1,500,000 deceased and for its recognition as Genocide. Whether these so called countries recognize it or not, nevertheless we all come together under one roof, one belief, one sacred fight along with our new generation. Therefore all this has its uses for us and for our youth, to come together, not to assimilate as much and stay and remain and feel a bit longer as Armenians in exile. I would like to remember at this time our 1,500,000 martyrs though 92 years ago but who lost their lives with unbearable torture and barbarity in the hands of our enemy the turks. May their souls rest in peace. Edited April 25, 2007 by Anahid Takouhi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neko Posted April 25, 2007 Report Share Posted April 25, 2007 it is my belief that all this fighting for our cause binds us together as a nation and as people ; it brings us together for a cause, our cause of the respect of our 1,500,000 deceased and for its recognition as Genocide. Whether these so called countries recognize it or not, nevertheless we all come together under one roof, one belief, one sacred fight along with our new generation. Therefore all this has its uses for us and for our youth, to come together, not to assimilate as much and stay and remain and feel a bit longer as Armenians in exile. "In the face of the distress of assimilation, the glory of a shared victimhood is seductive indeed, especially when it can be attained without having actually suffered." "Without the shared sense of purpose afforded by the pursuit of Turkish recognition, would the Armenian diaspora simply assimilate and disappear? In other words, is Turkey's denial the diaspora's lifeblood?" The Burden of Memory Meline Toumani http://since1865.com/doc/20040920/toumani Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Takoush Posted April 25, 2007 Report Share Posted April 25, 2007 "In the face of the distress of assimilation, the glory of a shared victimhood is seductive indeed, especially when it can be attained without having actually suffered." "Without the shared sense of purpose afforded by the pursuit of Turkish recognition, would the Armenian diaspora simply assimilate and disappear? In other words, is Turkey's denial the diaspora's lifeblood?" The Burden of Memory Meline Toumani http://since1865.com/doc/20040920/toumani You can go and burn in hell for your idiodit monologues. Don't worry... don't you worry.... we are not assimilating much. You can see our young blood are still here and they'll be around for another 100+ years and we'll prosper too with or without your HAREMLEX PEOPLE's acceptance. We don't need you to stay alive as a nation for we are a nation and have stayed alive for 4000 years, and we are considered to be a nation of one of the most civilized of nations. On the other hand what is turkey? A bashebozook haremlex barbaric bunch of people that doesn't even come close to be accepted as a nationality. Europe doesn't even want you in the EU because of it. You turks have killed us in cold blood and pushed us out of our anscestral lands and so we had no other choice but to be in exile. What's your excuse???? Why the hell are you people outside of Turkey and all over the world???? Ask yourselves that. Shouldn't have turkey been prosperous enough to hold all of her countrymen if turkey was economically able enough to do that???? Ask yourself that, ignoramus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arpa Posted April 25, 2007 Report Share Posted April 25, 2007 (edited) You can go and burn in hell for your idiodit monologues. === What's your excuse???? Why the hell are you people outside of Turkey and all over the world???? Ask yourselves that. Shouldn't have turkey been prosperous enough to hold all of her countrymen if turkey was economically able enough to do that???? Ask yourself that, ignoramus. Neko is not Turkish, he is Scottish, whatever the heck difference.He is of Presbyterian heritage. That means the "comuunity of elders", "yeritsakan/երիցական" in Armenian. He is the author of Virtual Ani, http://www.virtualani.org/citymap.htm. Can we top it? And is known as Bellthecat, Tiggyhonents, abcdefg…. and Steve Sim. Sorry Steve for blowing your cover. This is who he is; http://www.armenianow.com/?action=viewArti...40&lng=eng# Edited April 25, 2007 by Arpa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DominO Posted April 25, 2007 Report Share Posted April 25, 2007 "In the face of the distress of assimilation, the glory of a shared victimhood is seductive indeed, especially when it can be attained without having actually suffered." "Without the shared sense of purpose afforded by the pursuit of Turkish recognition, would the Armenian diaspora simply assimilate and disappear? In other words, is Turkey's denial the diaspora's lifeblood?" The Burden of Memory Meline Toumani http://since1865.com/doc/20040920/toumani Sad reality, the Diaspora should one day realise that the most important thing shared is the republic. It has been very successful with the recognition, but it should not concentrate all those ressources if Armenia is left out. The future of the identity is not the recognition of the genocide but the republic (Artsakh included) which is much more important. A stronger Armenia is positive for the recognition of the genocide, and of course inevitably the attachment of Artsakh to the republic, there is no concession to make, Artsakh is not a republic, it belongs to Armenia. It is time to concentrate the ressources and the fight, and the main common interest should be this, it is not the Armenian Genocide which should make the Diaspora survive, it is the republic of Armenia. The recognition of the genocide should first benefit Armenia, the opening of the borders etc. The living republic the living people is more important than the deads. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DominO Posted April 28, 2007 Report Share Posted April 28, 2007 TROUBLE AT THE L.A. TIMES By Daniel Hernandez LA Weekly, CA April 26 2007 An editor kills a Page One story on Armenian genocide, and charges of bias fly Did the Los Angeles Times kill a front-page article about the fight over the recognition of the Armenian genocide because its writer, Mark Arax, is Armenian? It's a question L.A. Times managing editor Douglas Frantz would probably prefer not to address. News broke earlier this week that Frantz killed Arax's story in a terse email message to the writer because, Frantz said, Arax had "a conflict of interest" and a "position on the issue." Frantz was referring to a 2005 letter in which Arax, four other Armenian Times staff writers and legal affairs reporter Henry Weinstein reminded the paper's top editors to refer to the genocide as genocide, in accordance with the paper's style rules. The 2005 letter had been well-received, acknowledged, and, sources at the paper tell the L.A. Weekly, forgotten. But in his recent email to Arax, obtained by the Weekly, Frantz characterized the letter as a "petition," as in some form of activism. He also told Arax that he "went around [the] system" in a bid to land the story assignment, by dealing with an editor in the Times Washington bureau, Robert Ourlian, who is Armenian American. So Frantz reassigned the story to Washington reporter Rich Simon, who turned around a decorous and somewhat routine take on Turkey's ongoing mission to block Congress from recognizing the slaughter of more than 1 million Armenians by Ottoman Turkey during World War I, something several Western developed countries - including France and Canada - have already done. The revised Times article ran under the headline, "Genocide Resolution Still Far From Certain" on Saturday, April 21, four days before Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day in L.A. Arax was given a consolation tagline at the end of the article for having "contributed" some reporting. Arax, sounding incensed, sent an email to some of his fellow reporters, which made its way to the Weekly. Here's how it started: "Colleagues, You should know that I had a Page One story killed this week by Doug Frantz. His stated rationale for killing the piece had nothing to do with any problems with the story itself. In an email to me, he cited no bias, no factual errors, no contextual mishaps, no glaring holes." Arax then spelled out the holes he saw in Frantz's objections, reiterating that the 2005 letter was not a petition, and that the standard process was used with Ourlian to assign and edit the story. And he pushed the dispute up a notch, going so far as to suggest that the only person in the dustup who has a bias or personal stance is Frantz, who lived in Turkey for years. Said Arax, in his email: "Because his logic is so illogical, questions must be raised about Frantz' own objectivity, his past statements to colleagues that he personally opposes an Armenian genocide resolution and his friendship with Turkish government officials, including the consul general in Los Angeles who's quoted in my story. Frantz is heavily involved and invested in defending the policies of Turkey." Arax ended the note by sharing the news that he has filed a discrimination complaint against Frantz inside the paper, and that a Times Human Resources Department inquiry was launched. The reporter, based in Fresno and officially assigned to the paper's West Sunday magazine, declined to speak to the Weekly, citing the internal investigation. Ourlian, the Washington editor, and Frantz, also declined to comment. Times editor James O'Shea and publisher David Hiller did not reply to interview requests. But Harut Sassounian, publisher of the local Armenian paper The California Courier, has been more than willing to publicly address the dispute. On Tuesday, Sassounian began circulating a scathing article he penned calling for Frantz's resignation, accusing Frantz of discriminating against Arax because of his ethnic background. Sassounian framed the dispute in terms the rest of Los Angeles media can easily digest. "By the same logic, Frantz is implying that Latinos will be barred from writing on illegal immigrants, African-American journalists from covering civil rights, Jewish-American reporters from writing about the Holocaust and Asian-Americans [from] covering issues peculiar to their community," Sassounian wrote. Sassounian told the Weekly he learned about the matter from people who had been interviewed by Arax and were waiting for his story to be published. He said Arax never called him. The Courier publisher, based in Glendale, said he had recently met David Hiller at a dinner event and had a cordial conversation with him. So he called the Times publisher directly to find out what happened to Arax's piece. Within minutes, Sassounian said, he got a call back - from Douglas Frantz. Sassounian said Frantz was "abrupt" and "evasive," telling Sassounian that there was "no problem" and that the story needed "depth and balance." Sassounian said he warned Frantz that if it turned out Arax's story was axed simply because Arax is Armenian, a confrontation would arise between the paper and the L.A. Armenian community, which happens to be the largest in the world outside Armenia. That's when Frantz went bonkers, Sassounian said. "He says to me, 'I'm going to hang up on you! You've threatened me! I said, 'I didn't threaten you.' He said, 'You threatened me. I'm going to hang up.'" And Frantz did, he contends. Hiller and O'Shea, Sassounian said, treated him much differently. Sassounian said that in conversations with the Times publisher and editor, they apologized for Frantz's behavior and said they would not tolerate any bias against the Armenian community in their paper's pages. "They all apologized for his behavior, for accusing me of threatening him," Sassounian said. When the Sassounian piece started making the rounds, Frantz quickly shot back, defending his actions to media blog LAObserved: "I put a hold on a story because of concerns that the reporter had expressed personal views about the topic in a public manner and therefore was not a disinterested party," Frantz told the blog. But who's really the disinterested party here? Frantz was a longtime correspondent based in Istanbul for both The New York Times and the L.A. Times. As Sassounian noted, Frantz is scheduled to be back in Istanbul next month to moderate a panel for the International Press Institute's World Congress that is titled, "Turkey: Sharing the Democratic Experience." Among the panelists is Andrew Mango, who Sassounian describes as a "notorious genocide denialist." And then there's the matter of Frantz's coverage of the Armenian genocide while at The New York Times. In January 2001 the paper ran a correction on Frantz's reporting, for downplaying the genocide. A month later, the Armenian National Committee of America put out an action alert again accusing Frantz of downplaying the genocide and casting it as merely an Armenian allegation. The paper never ran a second correction. Frantz joined the L.A. Times as a reporter in Istanbul, brought on by his friend, then-managing editor Dean Baquet, who left the paper in spectacular fashion late last year and then rejoined The New York Times. The L.A. Times dispute over Arax's killed story became public on Tuesday, April 24 - the massacre's traditional remembrance day. All day long, cars and trucks driving in Little Armenia in Hollywood were draped with Armenia's red, blue and orange flag. A somber march and rally was held on Hobart Street. The few young people the Weekly spoke with after the Unified Young Armenians rally said they had not heard of the controversy at the L.A. Times, but spoke with a refreshing sense of naunce about the imperatives of history. "It's politics," said Sevak Ghazaryan, 19, a student at Glendale Community College. "Turkey and United States are very close. The United States has a military base in Turkey, and businesswise they import a lot of goods from Turkey for cheap price, likewise for oil. So therefore, Turkey plays a big role in business and economy for the U.S. It's just politics." http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/trouble-...la-times/16232/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Error 404 Posted April 28, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 28, 2007 http://hyeforum.com/index.php?showtopic=15849 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DominO Posted April 28, 2007 Report Share Posted April 28, 2007 http://hyeforum.com/index.php?showtopic=15849 Damn, I even answered to the thread. Looks like I'm really tired. I'll wait a kind mod to merge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Error 404 Posted May 1, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 1, 2007 Some follow up on the issue. http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2007/04/...rops_a_bomb.php Arax drops a bomb Kevin Roderick Times staff writer Mark Arax just escalated — in a big way — his dispute with the paper's managing editor over a recent story about the Armenian genocide. He emailed an open letter to everyone on the news editing system laying out his side and demanding a public apology from Managing Editor Doug Frantz. Here's the whole thing; links to the background are at the end: From: Arax, Mark Sent: Monday, April 30, 2007 10:48 AM Subject: from Mark Arax April 30, 2007 Dear Colleagues, I am not sure about the timing of writing you. In no way do I want my personal issue to add to the turmoil inside the Times. But as I’ve watched our newspaper respond to my issue over the past several days, I’ve come to conclude that it raises troubling questions that go right to the heart of what we do and how we do it. I know of no other way to explain the matter to you than to proceed straight with logic. I have been accused by Doug Frantz of having an opinion on the Armenian genocide. “Are you now or have you ever been a believer in the Armenian Genocide?” Of the numerous accusations that Frantz has thrown my way over the past month, this one I am happy to plead guilty to. Yes, I have a stance on the Armenian genocide. I believe it happened. And I am gratified to know that my newspaper believes it happened, as well. So here is the dilemma at hand: What is our obligation when this same newspaper, in stories from Istanbul in 2004 and 2005, begins to contradict its policy on the genocide? What is a reporter to do when members of the Armenian community—judges, politicians, civic leaders--start calling and demanding to know why the newspaper is suddenly throwing qualifiers in front of the word “genocide?” This was the question confronting me and Greg Krikorian and Ralph Vartabedian and Robin Abcarian in the fall of 2005. So we did what our Jewish and African American and Latino and Asian colleagues have done countless times when faced with an ethnic community angry over our coverage. We went to our editors. We reminded them in a letter that the newspaper had an official policy on the genocide—that it happened, that there was no need to equivocate or treat it like a “he said-she said” dodge. We pointed out chapter and verse in the Times style book. “The Armenian genocide is a historical fact and we should use the word ‘genocide’ without qualification in referring to it.” To act as our newspaper’s eyes and ears and help correct the error was our duty. To stay silent would have been a dereliction of that duty and only served to damage our newspaper’s public standing even more. Thus, the proper question confronting Doug Frantz as he read my story three weeks ago on the Armenian Genocide resolution in Congress is not whether I believed in the Armenian genocide or signed that letter in September 2005. The proper question—the only question that mattered--was whether I had allowed my beliefs to bleed into my story in a way that made it tendentious. This is the same question that every editor must ask of every story because all reporters, all human beings, have opinions. And yet it does not matter, really, what Henry Weinstein believes in his gut about capital punishment. It does not matter what Megan Stack utters over dinner about the war in Iraq. It does not matter what Robert Lopez writes in a memo to his editor about our coverage of border issues. The only question that needs to be answered is if their biases are on display in a story. This is what we have spent years training as journalists to put aside—our own quarrels, our own narratives, our own wounds. This is how I, the son of a murder victim who had spent more than half his life searching for the killers, was able to go inside the California prison system and uncover official abuses against murderers and rapists. Let me now briefly explain what happened to my genocide resolution story as it made its way through the editing process in early April. Bob Ourlian had first crack at it. He removed a few paragraphs here and there for space. He removed a handful of words that he considered imprecise or too loaded. Then he put the story on the budget—“it’s a great read”—and began to sell it for Page 1. As the story moved up the chain of command, no editor called Ourlian or me to alert us to any bias or need for more reporting. Not Joan Springhetti or Tom Furlong or Scott Kraft or Craig Turner. And here is the crux of the matter. Not even Doug Frantz, in his e-mail to me explaining why he was putting the story on hold, said one word about bias or any problems with the story itself. No holes, no contextual problems. Instead, Frantz told me he was holding the story—a hold that later became a kill—because of two other issues: One, because of the 2005 letter to our editors (Frantz called it a “petition”) I had taken a public stance on the issue and had a “conflict of interest.” Two, Bob Ourlian and I, as a pair of Armenians, had gone around the established system to plant a story about the Armenian genocide resolution. So rather than judge my story on its merits, Frantz suddenly chose to take a gratuitous leap and look into my heart as a writer and the ethnic heritage I was born with. This is dangerous stuff. For one, it raises questions that are impossible to answer. And it has grave implications for all of us, for every journalist in every newsroom. In other words, it is not good enough for the story itself to be fair, objective, well reported and well written. Even when a story passes all those tests, it could still be censored by some tortured inference that the reporter holds an opinion, even though that opinion never shows up in the story. So my story never ran. A completely different story by Rich Simon replaced it. To justify this, the top editors have now manufactured all sorts of after-the-fact reasons in explaining why my story needed a “new angle.” And what became of Frantz’s two stated reasons for killing my piece? Jim O’Shea told me the HR investigation has concluded that Bob Ourlian and I had followed the proper procedure in compiling and editing the story. And the letter the six of us signed in 2005 did not address a genocide resolution in Congress but rather the fact of the genocide itself. Thus, it was not a form of advocacy, he said. In other words, Frantz’s two reasons for killing the story have no merit. I hope you don’t think it selfish of me, but I believe I deserve a public apology from Frantz. And I believe that the five colleagues who signed the letter with me—Krikorian, Vartabedian, Abcarian, Weinstein and Chuck Philips--deserve to hear from our editors that our letter was the right thing to do. Are we to stop our conversation inside the paper about issues of fairness and accuracy in fear that raising those issues might someday disqualify us from ever writing about a subject again? If we can no longer trust that we will be judged on the merits of our work—the words carried on the page--then the very foundation of our vocation is destroyed. What the six of us did wasn’t a public display. We didn’t grab a bullhorn in one hand and a petition in the other and take to the corner of First and Spring. What we did we did inside the paper as loyal employees who care deeply about the Times. In no way should the carrying out of this duty preclude us from writing about the Armenian genocide now or in the future. Thank you for your ear. Respectfully, Mark Arax Ourlian is an editor in the Washington bureau. Word going around Times staffers at this weekend's Festival of Books was that editor Jim O'Shea ordered Frantz to make a public apology and that it wasn't going down too well with Frantz. No confirmation on that from O'Shea (who I had two pleasant conversations with this weekend) or Frantz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sip Posted May 1, 2007 Report Share Posted May 1, 2007 Damn, I even answered to the thread. Looks like I'm really tired. I'll wait a kind mod to merge. I don't know what you are talking about Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DominO Posted May 1, 2007 Report Share Posted May 1, 2007 This is not only about public apology, the moron should quit his job. Had this happened to a Jew, or a Black, it would have forced the culprit not only to apologize, but he would have lost credibility and would have to quit his job. What an idiot, it is obvious that the only person here in conflict of interest is him. BTW, thanks Sip for the merge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sip Posted May 1, 2007 Report Share Posted May 1, 2007 We need Reverands Albert Sharptonian and Hovsep Jacksonian to step up!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arpa Posted May 1, 2007 Report Share Posted May 1, 2007 (edited) This is what you get when 299, 999, 999 million Americans allow a Jew from Istanbul or a Turk from TelAviv become an editor in chief of a prestigious AMEERICAN Paper. Does Ameriacn mean Jurkish or Tewish,? Look at Frantze‘s credentials. “correspondent from Istanbul“. One could only wish that they would get the hell buried in the mud pits,/cesspools of TelAviv ... You think this is an Anti-S, or whatever the f *** it is, then you owe us an explanation of what semite means. does it mean Aramean, Assyrian, Syrian? Does it include turks? How soon can they forget that we are Holocaust//Genocide bosom buddies? Speaking of “ambassadors of good/bad will“, Henry Morgenthau! Where are you!? What happened? When did your Tewish brothers become Jurks? Both Mark Arax and Harut Sasunian have been cautious enough to not forget that Frantz is a furkish Jew. I am neither Mark or Harut and I don't shy away from saying that those Furkish Tews and those Jurkish Tews get off of our asses. Or, beter yet. WE get off of theirs'. Find another way to spread our our messge, other than the so callled Ameri-Tewan controllled Media. How about we place some high profiled and authoritaive editors at places like the LA Times and NY Times? Or does that disturb our "peaceful" existence of whether it should be Է or Ե ,Վ or Ւ. How much more stupid can we be? Edited May 2, 2007 by Arpa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Error 404 Posted May 1, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 1, 2007 Hey guys, how about each of us sends a protest email to the Chief Editor of LA Times O'Shea ? That way we could have done more work than just talking about the issue. This is really in our competence. It happened in LA and we have a big diaspora here. If you need a sample text for reference I can post here my email to them. A prominent Armenian editor is getting discriminated because of his ethnicity... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zartonk Posted May 2, 2007 Report Share Posted May 2, 2007 We need Reverands Albert Sharptonian and Hovsep Jacksonian to step up!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zartonk Posted May 2, 2007 Report Share Posted May 2, 2007 This idiot is burying the reputation of the entire Tribune company not to mention the already damaged LA Times. Things will only get rougher once the LA Armenians drop their subscriptions. Can you imagine if it was a Holocaust article though? The ADL would have choked them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DominO Posted May 2, 2007 Report Share Posted May 2, 2007 This idiot is burying the reputation of the entire Tribune company not to mention the already damaged LA Times. Things will only get rougher once the LA Armenians drop their subscriptions. Can you imagine if it was a Holocaust article though? The ADL would have choked them. What the hell are they waiting to drop their subscriptions? Are they only good at whinning??? This is not a lightly matter, a simple apology won't make it, the idiot is in conflict of interest and what he did was intellectual dishonesty and prejudicial. Every single Armenian there should drop their subscription. I know what will happen, the guy will claim he was misunderstood twist the thing and it will be ignored unless something STRONG is done. The US is not Azerbaijan, there is supposed to be some journalistic standards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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