By: E&P Staff In a note to readers in Tuesday's Los Angeles Times, Editorial Page Editor Andr?s Martinez gave what he described as a "longer-than-usual" explanation of why the newspaper fired Robert Scheer, ending his Op-Ed column after 13 years.
It's not,
he wrote, for any ideological reason.
"Some readers have complained that The Times is conspiring to silence liberal voices on the Op-Ed page," Martinez wrote. "Others have gone so far as to suggest that Scheer
is being punished for opposing the war in Iraq. But that is hardly a badge of shame around here -- the newspaper's own editorial page opposed the decision to invade Iraq."
The decision to end Scheer's column, announced last week by the newspaper, provoked a storm of protest. At the same time, the paper announced that editorial cartoonist Michael Ramirez will also be leaving the paper, and that the Times would no longer have a staff cartoonist.
"Hundreds of readers called and wrote to protest" Scheer's cancellation, Martinez wrote.
"We are grateful -- humbled -- that readers care so deeply about the content of these opinion pages and the columnists who appear on them," he wrote.
Martinez said the paper was now publishing more Op-Ed columnists than ever before, and noted that in early 2004 there were only three regular columnists. The new lineup, he added, includes "more liberal voices -- and conservative ones -- than ever before."
The goal, he wrote, was to "offer readers a lively exchange of opinions from across the political spectrum."
"We appreciate the hurt and anger that many readers feel over Robert Scheer's absence," Martinez wrote. "We fervently hope to be inundated by a similar outpouring when one of our new columnists ends his or her run."
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