Freedom of the press? Not when your boss is the police

It appears that the union representing Los Angeles police officers isn’t too happy with the editorial stance being taken by the San Diego Union-Tribune and is pressuring the paper’s owners to make changes.

The newspaper’s owners, private Beverly Hills firm Platinum Equity, it turns out relies on a $30 million investment from the pension fund of Los Angeles police officers and fire fighters to help fund its acquisitions. It is this investment that the League President Paul M. Weber believes makes them part owners in the newspaper and as such have a voice in the editorial position taken by the paper.

“Since the very public employees they continually criticize are now their owners, we strongly believe that those who currently run the editorial pages should be replaced,” Weber wrote in a March 26 letter to Platinum CEO Tom Gores.

Weber, in an interview, emphasized that the League is not demanding changes in the paper’s news coverage of the issue or in its staff of reporters. “It’s just these people on the opinion side. There is not even an attempt to be even-handed. They’re one step away from saying, ‘these public employees are parasites,’ ” Weber said

Source: LA Times Blogs

Bob Kittle, editor of the newspaper editorial page, says that no one from Platinum or the paper’s management has contacted him about the union’s request.

Hopefully the investment company’s hands-off policy with the newspaper will stick because to do otherwise sets a very dangerous precedent.