By T.J.Simers
The LA Times is now playing owner Patrick Soon-Shiong for a clueless dope.
Bad enough that sports writer Kevin Baxter flies everywhere, including Uganda, to write about soccer, but then he writes about soccer.
Now we get our favorite writer in the Times, Culture Critic Tyler R. Tynes going to London to write Thierry Henry.
Who? All the way to London and the newspaper won’t cover Ohtani and Trout in Oakland.
Garbage. No use pretending anymore. It’s just plain garbage, our Culture Critic writing paragraphs that are longer than Baxter’s mush.
Our Culture Critic proclaims that he got to see Henry naked, which explains why Soon-Shiong paid to have him fly to London.
You would think someone who gets an invite to see him naked would get an insight into who he is interviewing. But in the five stories now that Tyler R. Tynes has written for the Times in the past eight months there hasn’t been a whiff of insight.
I’m still shocked. The Times laid off 74 employees last week while the sports culture critic was probably munching on biscuits and having a pint while trying to organize his Henry notes into a cogent story. Not everything always works out in a pub.
How do you justify 74 exits with a flight to London to write about a guy begging for a job as manager?
Patrick, Patrick, you aren’t paying attention to your product. Who spends millions and millions and then doesn’t care how it impacts his reputation: Patrick Soon-Shiong!
You might be doing wonderful work in the lab, but you suck so far as newspaper owner.
You sent a guy who can’t write all the way to London to demonstrate he can’t write. This is a guy, who was recommended by your editor Kevin Merida, which makes his journalism judgment suspect.
We’re told in Tynes overwritten piece, that Thierry Henry was the American equivalent to Kobe Bryant. Everyone in the world knew Kobe. Come to Yorba Linda, no one has heard of Henry or they will soon be asked to move.
From what I could tell in treading through all the big words and hyped copy, Henry hasn’t played in 10 years. And that’s what you paid for, Patrick, a guy who has been retired. He’s a broadcaster.
No one reads your newspaper in Orange County but there would be more interest in Angels’ broadcaster Mark Gubicza.
Did I mention how bad the writing is? Tynes, our Culture Critic, tells us: “He was as fly as a Frenchman could be, faster than any man in the world who dared to share the pitch with him; perhaps more marvelous than any Black man with the ball I have ever seen.”
Perhaps, but I don’t know about being as fly as any Frenchmen.
Did you know Henry was born in Les Ulis? Yeah, I didn’t care either.
He was born to Antoine and Maryse, in “les quartiers difficiles,” Tynes writes. I finally understand why he’s our Culture writer.
The story goes on and on because if you’re going to play Soon-Shiong for a sap who is paying all the bills you have to give him something, like lots and lots of words.
If you use that many words you probably need help from a copy editor. I wonder if the Times has any left.
Meanwhile in other parts of the paper, Sunday Calendar, which used to be about “The Town,” filled pages yesterday with a Austin, TX, travel profile on its stand-up comedy community. Clearly all of the L.A. entertainment stories have been told.
Sports keeps me busy, but that is shameful