Flooding the Apathy Zone

Posted: 3/28/2013  |  By: John Mecklin | CJR

SANTA BARBARA, CA — Let’s get an understatement out of the way: Your average citizen of Los Angeles is not a politics and policy junkie. The stoner Angeleno who finds Election Day sort of, like, hard to remember is a character so enduring that even Cheech and Chong have riffed on the theme. And while reality may not quite conform to the stereotype, given the city’s reputation for civic apathy, and the budget pressures legacy media organizations continue to face, the Los Angeles Times might have been excused this year if it pared back a bit on coverage of a local election that did not include any national names.