Local Editor Ponders Future While Celebrating Pulitzer Prize Winning Alums

An article posted this week by Easy Reader News editor and publisher Kevin Cody perfectly encapsulates the Dickensian state of 21st century journalism.

On the best-of-times side, there’s the fact that Cody – who manages a 50,000-circulation print weekly as well as a respected companion website – recently got to spend time with former contributors who have gone on to Pulitzer Prize winning success. He partied in the Hollywood Hills with Wall Street Journal national news editor Sam Enriquez and had dinner in Redondo Beach with politico.com’s Matt Wuerker, who just won this year’s prize for editorial cartooning.

At the worst-of-times end of things, he had a long conversation at the first party with an LA Times employee about the newspaper’s paywall:

I assumed the Times web reporter would be happy at the prospect of people paying to read his stories, rather than reading them for free. He wasn’t. He thinks the paywall is a bad idea. Every morning, he reads Google News for free, so why would he or anyone else pay to read the Los Angeles Times online, he asked.

The Times’ web reporter told me the Times’ print edition has never lost money. I said that’s good. He said, no it’s not, they just keep cutting costs. He’s witnessed 20 rounds of staff cuts.

Cody makes many more salient observations in his piece. He ends by saying that Easy Reader News is expanding print distribution into Palos Verdes and El Segundo, as well as partnering with Body Glove for a surf magazine called Drop Zone.