His Times, and ours

IF EVER IT COULD BE SAID that a modern newspaper is the result of one man’s efforts, then that newspaper is the one you are reading right now, and that man is Otis Chandler. A newspaper is essentially a collaborative project, from the moment a reporter makes the first call on a story to the time the delivery person launches the paper, accurately we hope, toward your front step. To an unusual degree, however, the Los Angeles Times owes its success to the stewardship of Chandler, who died Monday at the age of 78.

When Chandler became publisher of The Times in 1960, it was a mediocrity. Compare two front pages, the last published under his predecessor and the last published under his tenure: The first is a hodgepodge of foreign wire stories and unbylined local briefs; the second features the work of Times correspondents in Paris, Israel and Grant City, Mo., as well as a long report on the uneven revitalization of downtown. (Some stories, alas, never change.)

Of course, Chandler’s predecessor was his father, and it’s worth noting that Otis Chandler was an exceptional publisher in part because he was an exceptional Chandler. One of the first investigative series The Times published under his tenure was about the extremist John Birch Society, which counted his own relatives among its most prominent members. After the stories appeared, the paper published a front-page editorial denouncing the group.

When Chandler took over as publisher, he wrote another front-page editorial promising readers that “no changes are in the offing.” They may have been the least-true words he ever wrote. In his 20 years as publisher, The Times became one of the most successful newspapers in the United States in terms of circulation and advertising, and -- most important -- established the standards of fairness and professionalism that we still strive to honor today. At least now when we fail, we fail to live up to our own standards.

Almost 20 years after he left the publisher’s office, Chandler wrote something that served as a reminder of both the importance and fragility of his legacy. On Nov. 3, 1999, as The Times was roiled by a maverick publisher who questioned the need to separate decisions about news coverage from the influence of advertisers, Chandler called the city editor and dictated a withering five-page letter, later read aloud to the newsroom. A recent decision to share revenue from a special issue of the magazine about the newly opened Staples Center with the center itself -- without disclosing the arrangement to readers -- was “unbelievably stupid and unprofessional,” he wrote. The paper’s editorial staff had been “abused and misused.”

An editorial writer who listened to Chandler’s words that day later sent him an e-mail of thanks. Chandler sent a handwritten letter in reply. “I came to the point in my life -- busy, but retired now -- that I felt I had to send a message to Times employees telling them to hang in there,” he wrote. “We still are a great paper and we will continue to fight for the integrity of the paper, and the sacred trust our readers and our communities place each day in our hands.” The words “sacred trust” are underlined.

It is a quaint notion, that a newspaper is a sacred trust. But serving the public, as fairly and as honestly as possible, remains the core of a newspaper’s mission, whether its owner is a single family or, dare we say, a publicly traded corporation based in Chicago. It was Otis Chandler who set The Times on that mission, and it is his legacy we seek to uphold every morning.