TARNISHED INDUSTRY SPIKES COLUMN recommending improvements: “Imagine the outrage if this were RJ Reynolds or General Motors getting a column killed on the state of its industry, instead of the L.A. Times.”

As Mickey Kaus observes: “They’re in the business of killing stories these days, not publishing them, apparently.” Good luck with that.

Whole story here.

UPDATE: Steven den Beste emails:

“They’re in the business of killing stories these days, not publishing them.”

That has always been the most important power of gatekeepers. Not in deciding when to open the gate, but in when to close it.

And that’s the reason that the gatekeepers are so upset by the rise of blogs and other alternative media. They still have the ability to open the gate for stories they like, and to try to focus attention on those stories, but they no longer have the ability to close the gate because thousands of bloggers have dug tunnels under the fence.

Heh. Indeed.