Los Angeles Magazine has a few suggestions for "fixing" the LAT -- one of them being that the paper of record lure Nikki Finke away from her post at LA Weekly. A excerpt per Hollywood Wiretap:

She isn't always accurate (but)...she is almost alone in conveying a palpable excitement about what the Industry is doing. She is all but alone in not treating it like it's the aircraft industry or the car business. She makes you think movies matter and brings an appropriate -- or at least wildly entertaining -- moral indignation.

Finke takes the publication to task, telling us via e-mail:

"While I have not seen RJ.'s article, based on what you're telling me, I suppose I'm flattered. But I've already been a staff writer for the LA Times, so my response is: been there, done that. Besides, I'm way too provocative for that place, and it gets you drop-kicked on your head by editors there. And I'd have to stop referring to the moguls as morons and assholes, so that's no fun. But I do take strong issue with Smith's ridiculous assertion that "she isn't always accurate". (C'mon, RJ, give me even one example. What's that? You can't?) It's just not true, and he knows it."

In a follow-up e-mail, she writes:

"I've been kinda nasty about los angeles magazine in recent months, so good for them for being able to look past that and pay me a compliment. but i won't let up on them, either."