KPCC Gives LA Times LAUSD Coverage an F

Tony Pierce at KPCC posted the blog equivalent last night of a screeching high school hallway alarm bell. Let’s hope the LA Times soon takes notice.

Pierce notes that reporter Howard Blume completely bungled a story about the Los Angeles Unified School District. Although Blume wrote that the district was planning to change the student passing grade from a “C” to “D,” the truth is that D is the current benchmark. What the LAUSD in fact wants to do is bump that up – by 2017 – to the C level.  Per Pierce:

Not only did the Blume article allow Matt Drudge of the powerful Drudge Report to write an eyebrow-raising headline and tweet (“LA Schools May Lower Graduation Standards To Curb Dropouts”), but it inspired the LA Times’ beloved columnist Steve Lopez to blast an angry blog mini-column on LA Now.

Because of the LAT misinformation, Pierce writes that the district’s newly appointed social media director Stephanie Abrams was kept busy yesterday tweeting and Facebook-ing the facts. This must be an especially irritating black eye for Lopez, who only occasionally blogs outside his regular long-form columns and was led astray in this case by a newspaper colleague.

[Photo: Photoroller/Shutterstock.com]

Previously on FishbowlLA:
LAUSD Recruits TV Journalist to Run Its Social Media Channels