Comments on: Marc Cooper: An Obituary for the LA Weekly

By: Doug Lasken

Doug Lasken — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 15:12:30 +0000

I suppose I should be flattered that I mean enough to Cooper to be skewered in his rant as a “laughable ‘reporter,’” but I’m actually not any kind of reporter; I’m a full time high school teacher. It seems that in my coverage in the LA Weekly of last year’s school board races I misspelled some words. As Steve Martin would say, “Well, excuuuuuse me!” Unlike Cooper, who’s made the extreme sacrifice, for the sake of world peace, of having nothing else to do that might detract him from checking his spelling, I faced a two day deadline in the middle of a work week (you’ve heard of those, Marc?) and I well remember writing until midnight on a desk covered with lesson plans and papers to grade. As it happened, I managed to interview three board members and got some important scoops.

Cooper didn’t notice the scoops, of course. I’d run into his myopia before when I debated him on his old KPFK education show. On the show I criticized “bilingual education” as a misnomer; it was actually native language education, designed purposely to exclude English instruction. The civil rights issue was the right of non-English speaking children to be taught English. But Cooper, dogmatic fuddy-duddy that he is, chose to label me right-wing and ignore my actual arguments. He does the same to Jill Stewart, who was one of the first commentators in the state to oppose bilingual education for educational rather than ideological reasons. He dismisses her as an “acolyte of The Powerful — swooning successively over Dick Riordan, Bernie Parks and Arnold Schwarzenegger.” The fact is that Riordan and Schwarzenegger criticized bilingual education before it was fashionable to do so, and they deserved Stewart’s praise.

Cooper’s sour grapes are sour indeed. Best to stay out of his way until he cools down, especially if he’s ever worked for, or with you.

Doug Lasken
Teacher, Taft High School

By: Zuma Dogg

Zuma Dogg — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 23:29:35 +0000

AND OH YEAH…I DID NOT COVER CITY COUNCIL, YOU CLOWN. I covered SCAG and the Grand Ave Project??? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? Jill was specific in not allowing me to cover city council. WHAT ELSE DO YOU GET WRONG???

By: Zuma Dogg

Zuma Dogg — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 23:20:48 +0000

it was an open secret that it was Stewart who actually wrote most of Dogg’s otherwise illegible piece ( A rapper/ranter, Mr. Dogg had once boasted: “I don’t like to read”). And no matter that this was the same Mr. Dogg who was an eccentric gadfly who repeatedly disrupted local agency meetings for which he was now being paid to report on. The Weekly was giving press credentials to clowns who disrupted the meetings they were to “report” on.

dude. what kind of non-factual journalist are you? “It was Stewart who actually wrote most of Dogg’s (piece). I hope you are not saying, yourself, that Stewart wrote most of my stuff, or you may be sued for libel.

I WILL SHOW YOU MY ORIGINAL NOTES AND DRAFT! I DID THE RESEARCH. MAKE SURE YOU PUBLISH MY ORIGINAL DRAFTS AGAINST WHAT WAS ACTUALLY PUBLISHED YOU CRYBABY. AND PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHERE I CAN PICK UP THE PRESS CREDENTIAL THAT YOU SAY THE WEEKLY WAS GIVING. THEY DIDN’T GIVE ME ONE AND I NEVER HAVE HAD A PRESS PASS. I DON’T NEED ONE TO BREAK THE STORIES YOU WILL BE WRITING ABOUT, MONTHS BEFORE YOU PICK UP ON THE SCENT. Wow, I can see why you are no longer with the Weekly. You don’t get anything correct, and you set yourself you for libel. LOSER!