Dumbing Down in the City of Angels

David A. Abel’s “Outside the Tent” column (“Stop Dumbing Down This City,” Opinion, March 20) was on the mark. An informed public is the ultimate loser when The Times plays its “watchdog” role in a superficial fashion. This role goes beyond the mere reporting of events. It also includes thoughtful and thought-provoking analysis of what is going on beyond the self-serving press releases -- to help the public fit the pieces together in a meaningful and coherent manner.

It is apparent from the recent changes in the Opinion section that The Times has abdicated that vital and trusted role.

Lance Widman

Hermosa Beach

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Oh come on now, Mr. Abel, it isn’t the absentee ownership that has dumbed down The Times.

If you look back on the paper under Chandler family ownership, you’ll see that there is a long and perhaps dishonorable history of deliberately playing down local political affairs for fear that people might take an interest in what is going on downtown, which, for years, was controlled by the Chandler family.

Until Otis Chandler took the paper over, it was a third-rate rag. Subsequently, he made it a first-rate newspaper, but it still had a penchant for overlooking local political affairs. It still does.

Bob Klein

Malibu

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Abel may be right that the public is uninvolved in choosing a new mayor because it is “dumbed down.” However, the reason he gives is wrong.

Our citizenry is dumbed down because many people do not read newspapers. They rely on television to get news about current affairs and politics. Those are the people who did not vote.

I would hazard a guess that most of the people who voted read a newspaper, and in L.A. this usually means The Times.

If Abel wants to find a bad newspaper, he should look elsewhere in Southern California. There are plenty of them here and elsewhere in the U.S.

Neill Levy

Chatsworth

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Abel got it right when he wrote about the dumbing down of The Times’ Op-Ed page. It had been dumbed down quite enough already, but Editorial and Opinion Editor Michael Kinsley managed to make it worse.

Kinsley is just an off-site part-timer who phones it in. That would be fine for a small-town weekly, but this is the Los Angeles Times. It needs a knowledgeable, local, full-time staff for its Op-Ed pages to bring it up to the minimum standard for a world-class newspaper.

Frances Longmire

Los Angeles