LA Times does something right

The LA Times has done something innovative and kind of cool! Whoa! One of their Op-Ed columnists is a woman named Patt Morrison, who is sort of the LA version of Gail Collins of the NY Times, but a little spunkier. She has had a column on the Op-Ed page for a couple of years. Today the Times introduced a new feature - Morrison will be interviewing a different person each week, with the interview on the Op-Ed page. The first interview is with everyone's favorite Chick. Laura Chick, that is, formerly LA City Controller, now going to Sacramento to audit the state of California's $48 billion from the stimulus.

Great move by the LA Times, and a great way to start. This is a wonderful way to create unique content - leverage one of their best assets, a woman who knows LA like the back of her hand. She's already received one of the highest honors a Los Angeleno can get - she has a hot dog named after her at Pink's, the legendary hot dog stand. This is even more remarkable given that she is a vegetarian (it's a vegetarian hot dog). Even better is starting with Laura Chick, who worked wonders as the LA City Controller. She's currently one of my heroines. One of the most inspiring civil servants I have ever seen. That's not damning with faint praise - she has worked very hard, and very smart, to try and make LA government work better. It was a very good call on Arnold's part to appoint her. She has voodoo dolls in her office. An auditor with voodoo dolls (they're all anonymous) - you gotta love that.

To make room for the interviews, which look like they will be taking up most of the page, the Times is moving Meghan Daum to Thursdays. Another good call. She's one of my favorite columnists in the LA Times, and I've been a little bummed that she is on Saturdays, because that's the day of the week with the fewest newspaper readers. It made a certain amount of sense to publish her on Saturdays, since she is sort of a lifestyle columnist, but it's good to see her being published during the week.

The LA Times did something right, and cool, and innovative. Can I get an Amen!