By: At least 11 newspapers owned by the same company on Sunday ran rare front page editorials blaming the governor and state legislators for the ongoing impasse over the state budget.
An editorial in the San Jose Mercury News, one of the papers owned by Denver-based MediaNews Group Inc., titled "Budget fiasco shames state," excoriates lawmakers who "mouth platitudes that talks on the budget are going well and do nothing."
The Los Angeles Daily News, Long Beach Press Telegram and at least 9 sister publications called for Californians to demand for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislators to resolve the three month stalemate over the budget, and cite the editorial board's own anger as the reason the papers took the unusual step of raising opinion from the back pages to the front.
Mercury News Editor Dave Butler, who also serves as vice president for news for the chain's papers, said he thought the front page placement was needed to underscore the issue's importance. He said each newspaper's editor made an independent decision about whether to run the editorial out front.
"This is the first time that we've ever, to my knowledge, published an editorial on the same topic on the same day," said . "But the editors felt it was important enough to put on the front page and we can only hope that the people in Sacramento are listening."
While the editorial spreads blame to the governor and all legislators, it is especially critical of Republicans, who they say "cling to ideological purity" by not compromising on tax hikes despite evidence of the degradation of schools, health care and other essential services.
"It is indeed a complicated matter, but I think what we said in unison is 'The time to compromise is now ... and both sides need to do that and the sad fact is that we'll probably need to both cut services and raise taxes,'" Butler said.
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