My friend Joe Scott, a former colleague at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and notable Angelino, has died. He was 87. http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/latimes/obituary.aspx…
Joe Scott
His passing didn't get the recognition it might have in other days by the Los Angeles Times for reasons explained here by the blog LAObserved:
The latest twist at the paper is that the last remaining obituary editor at the Times, Steve Marble, emailed editors on Wednesday saying that "I’ll be shifting back for the foreign/nation desk next week." That will put more onus on the editors in other sections, such as Metro, National and Sports, to produce obituaries on key news subjects in their areas.
The problems with that, as the Times recognized a generation ago when it first created a desk dedicated to specialists in obits, then expanded it greatly before cutting it way back in the last couple of years, are many. Editors and reporters deeply immersed in covering today's news are not the best at appreciating yesterday's newsmakers. The priorities of the news desks is news, not obits, so in the competition for time, space and resources obits tend to lose out — even though readers value obits, especially of local figures who won't get as much attention nationally.
Also, not everyone deserving of a news obit in the hometown paper falls neatly into the Times organizational structure, so it's easy to miss worthy subjects. You only have to look at today for examples.
I posted a tweet about the passing of Joseph Scott III, a third-generation Angeleno whose famous lawyer grandfather (I believe) has a statue in the Civic Center. Joe Scott, who died last month at age 87, was well known in California political circles as the creator of the Political Animal and California Eye newsletters and the Body Politic column in the late Herald Examiner. He also columnized for a time at the Times itself, blogged on LA politics, and was the director of communications for two Los Angeles County District Attorneys in the 2000s. I happened to see his name in the paid, non-news obits in the Times. He would probably have merited at least a small news obit in the Times in the past, but I'm not sure which desk editors would realize it.