False Front Page Wrapped Around Times

About 2,500 copies of Tuesday’s Times were wrapped with a fake front page criticizing U.S. involvement in El Salvador and the newspaper’s coverage of events there.

The crudely fashioned pages appeared in newspaper racks from Santa Monica to South-Central Los Angeles.

A spokesman claiming to represent an unnamed group responsible for the bogus front pages told United Press International that The Times was targeted because its El Salvador coverage “is biased.”

“We did this so the general population of L.A. can really know what is going on down there,” the spokesman said. “This will happen again and again until coverage becomes less biased and more full.”

Times Editor Shelby Coffey III deplored the action. “We feel the perpetrators’ view of our coverage is erroneous,” Coffey said. “They are perfectly free to have their opinions, but they are wrong in vandalizing our news racks and misappropriating our name to express those opinions.”

The mock front page featured a masthead that read “Los Angels Times” and a Times-style typeface. It contained stories about the civilian death toll in El Salvador and the amount of U.S. tax money spent there. There was also a false apology from The Times for its news coverage.

The flip side of the page contained a denunciation of Salvadoran right-wing leader Roberto D’Aubuisson and an ad for an upcoming demonstration against U.S. intervention in El Salvador.

Salvadoran peace activists have also placed phony front pages on newspapers in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Phoenix, Baltimore, Tucson and Washington.

Al Brewer, The Times’ circulation street sales manager, said most of the phony pages were placed in vending machines in the Westside, although they were also found in North Hollywood, Studio City, Los Feliz and in South-Central and downtown Los Angeles.

Dozens of readers reported sighting the phony pages. Some recognized the prank copies immediately. “It looks exactly like your front page, only darker,” said Margaret Charnoff of Los Feliz, who bought her copy on Hillhurst Avenue. George Charouhas of Studio City said he was also momentarily fooled. “It took me a few seconds to realize that The Times looks funny,” Charouhas said.

Other readers were confused by the fake page. “What is this, a joke or something?” asked one woman who lives in Santa Monica. And a caller who purchased his copy of The Times in Westwood advised: “I think you should know that there’s a Third World-oriented hate parody in your paper today.”

Spokeswomen for two of the city’s major Salvadoran relief organizations said they were unaware of the prank.

Ruth Grabowski of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, one of the sponsors of Saturday’s Salvadoran rally, said she had not seen the phony page. Mary Brent Wurley, an official with the Interfaith Task Force on Central America, expressed surprise over the bogus page, then applauded the stunt.

“That’s fabulous,” Wurley said. “We don’t know anything about it, but we’re very impressed with it. That’s so exciting.”