The Evil of Sam Zell

By Ken Silverstein

I used to work at the Los Angeles Times and still read it online regularly, although I rarely see a hard copy. I was just in Los Angeles for a week and was surprised to see that — despite Sam Zell’s best efforts to destroy it — it’s still an exceedingly good newspaper.

There were strong stories every day I checked, especially this piece by Mike Anton about agricultural workers in the Coachella Valley, and this story by Greg Miller about soon-to-retire CIA lawyer John Rizzo (”John was kind of the legal enabler of the agency,” said a senior CIA official who worked with Rizzo and requested anonymity when discussing the agency. “His approach was always to find a way legally for the agency to do what it wanted to do.”), and this story about a six-year-old girl suffering with schizophrenia.

Hopefully the Times can rid itself of Zell soon, and leave him on the dustbin of newspaper history.