Welcome to The Times of the Tribune’s Season

A new editor and a new publisher have just taken over at the old Los Angeles Times, and readers have a right to know what to expect.

Will the paper be better? Worse? Thicker? Thinner? Blacker? Whiter? (We’re talking ink here.) Will it wrap around yesterday’s fish more delightfully than ever before? Will its stories continue to be the length of Leo Tolstoy’s? Will the appointments of new editors and publishers continue to be put on Page 1?

These and many other questions will be answered in the months to come, when new Publisher John Puerner and Editor John Carroll--or, as we call them around here, our Johnnies Come Lately--attempt to make The Times such a page-turner, you’d be proud to pay even twenty-SIX cents for a copy.

The Times, it is a-changin’.

I found it very interesting Tuesday, reading that this is the first time in 113 years that the Times’ top two jobs have changed hands at the same time. At a movie studio, the top two jobs change hands every 113 days. It’s good to see how much stability The Times has had since it covered Grover Cleveland.

Change is necessary every couple of centuries, however. Tribune Co. is shelling out $6.38 billion for this outfit, The Company Formerly Known as Times Mirror. So, even though Bill Gates lost that much during breakfast, I can understand why the Tribsters would want to put their own people in charge. (I frankly believe that they overpaid by $0.38 billion, but that’s just my opinion.)

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Like you, what I want to know most is how the New Improved Los Angeles Times will be different from the old one.

I was on a newspaper once in Chicago when a designer was brought in to change the paper’s entire look. By the time he got through with it, I couldn’t tell whether it was a newspaper or a coloring book. I’ve seen paintings of dogs playing poker that weren’t as ugly. Readers called in to complain. One asked if the paper was now being edited by Salvador Dali. It didn’t look like a newspaper anymore; it looked like a Rorschach test.

So naturally I have been a tad anxious about what The Times’ adventurous new editor-publisher dynamic duo has in mind.

Or at least I was, until somebody leaked me a copy of a Top-Secret Confidential Internal Memo--atop which some Tribune executive has written: “Leak This and We’ll Kill You”--detailing 10 of the major changes being planned for this paper in the near future. I believe it is my duty to reveal them to you, even if it means the next job I have at this newspaper will be delivering it.

1. All these stories about “Rampant” police corruption in Los Angeles must stop. Rampant crime, Rampant cops, Rampant crooks--that’s all you people here ever seem to write about. We’re sure corruption is Bad, but it’s hardly Rampant. If you want to see Rampant corruption, you should visit Chicago sometime.

2. You have a section here called Calendar. It has no calendar in it. Put one in.

3. About that unpleasant “Staples Center” controversy, let’s make something clear once and for all: We fully support the arena’s right not to call itself The Staples Center. If it doesn’t want the the, it doesn’t have to have the the. The the is out. Just be advised that “the Democratic National Convention,” “the Springsteen concert” and “the hapless Clippers” all do require a the, rather than just Democratic Convention, Springsteen concert and hapless Clippers.

4. We notice you run a line or two on Page 1 every day that reads: “Weather.” Why? You call this weather?

5. From now on, in movie ads quoting a critic, all quotes must come from actual critics, working for actual TV stations and publications you’ve actually heard of. We realize this will eliminate 90% of the quotes, but that’s too bad.

6. Orange County is a pretty county. Run more photographs of it.

7. For years, The Times has been famous for its award-winning foreign coverage. Nobody over there buys our paper. Write about America.

8. If the Dodgers defeat the Cubs by 10 runs or fewer, our headline should read: “Dodgers Edge Cubs.” If the Cubs defeat the Dodgers by any margin, our headline should read: “Cubs Clobber Dodgers.”

9. Astrological forecasts will henceforth move to Page 1. This is California, remember.

10. The Times will no longer be published seven days a week. We are eliminating Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. We feel no explanation is necessary.

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Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com