Letters to the Editor: Karen Bass won. Rick Caruso conceded. L.A. shows how democracy is done.
“There is not just any reason to oppose the death penalty.”
That’s how I began my article on the California Supreme Court decision on lethal injection this past Thursday. When I wrote that there is not just any reason to oppose the death penalty, I was simply taking the position of the ACLU and the other civil rights groups concerned with death sentences. I did not mention that I was writing about California. Nor did I mention the ACLU in that article.
When I went to write my own letter to the editor about what I thought was an unjust decision (the ACLU is, in fact, a very small group of very dedicated supporters of capital punishment), I wasn’t sure who should be my correspondent. So I wrote to the newspaper where I work and asked for advice. I received an encouraging and encouraging response from a very fine editor, who I had not written to, but who had written my editor at the same newspaper.
The editor’s response to me was to write a letter of his own to the editorial board of that newspaper, who are responsible for shaping editorials. The response was as follows:
To Eric, our Editor,
Thank you for writing to our newspaper today about L.A.’s decision to make people execute criminals. I am writing back about something that we are not permitted to write about because it is so important to the public.
I’m sorry to say that it is not my place to speak on the death penalty. I was asked to make a statement by our Publisher, and she has asked me to leave the decision on this to her.
I am writing on behalf of the Editors and Publisher of L.A. magazine for the readers of our publication and for the people of L.A. who are concerned about the death penalty.
As a journalist, I am required to do my own ethical and moral evaluation of the decisions that I cover, and that’s what I am here to do. As an editorial editor of L.A., I have to make sure that the readers will know what they are reading by keeping a close watch on the opinions of our writers.
I think that the decision of the editors and publishers in the Los Angeles Times and L
