LA Times publisher likes paper’s balanced business coverage

Austin Beutner, the publisher of the Los Angeles Times, made some comments about the paper’s business coverage on Wednesday that were misconstrued, reports Kevin Roderick of LAObserved.com. He actually likes its tough coverage.

Roderick writes, “One line in particular, quoted by LA Observed columnist Bill Boyarsky, really got the attention of reporters and editors in the Times’ Business section. Boyarsky, the Times’ former city editor and political columnist, wrote that ‘Beutner isn’t completely happy with the Times’ business section. He said someone told him the Times has an anti business section ‘and sometimes it seems that way.’ But he didn’t expand on that.’

Kimi Yoshino, the Business editor at the Times, sent her staff a note this morning clarifying that there was some further comment on the subject by Beutner. From her note:

From: Yoshino, Kimi
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2014 11:26 AM
To: yyFiStaff
Subject: Following up on a speech Austin gave yesterday …
I fielded so many questions about this last night, that I wanted to pass on more information to help clear up any misperceptions.

Yesterday, a reporter from KPCC tweeted that Austin said during a speech: “There are many who’ve told me we have an anti-business section, not a business section.”

Unfortunately, he failed to tweet the rest of the quote: “But we’re not going to publish just puff pieces. We’re also going to ask the tough questions, because we have to. That’s our job.”

Read more here.