Readers Angry at The Times for Schwarzenegger Stories
Kathy McIver is a Democrat from La Habra and a longtime subscriber to The Times. Today's paper, she says, will be the last that will be delivered to her door.
Like many readers, McIver is angry. She is angry about The Times' coverage of the California recall campaign, and especially angry about the stories that the newspaper has run in recent days detailing allegations that Arnold Schwarzenegger touched women inappropriately.
"I was disappointed that The Times was being used to be the messenger," she said in an interview Saturday, "and that they would do that type of investigation and not balance it out by having something negative about [Gov. Gray] Davis because, as we all know, he's done some negative things."
Since publishing an article Thursday that described allegations by six women that Schwarzenegger groped them or made inappropriate comments, The Times has come under attack on talk-radio stations and television, and has been the target of vociferous complaints by the Schwarzenegger campaign.
Schwarzenegger complained Saturday that The Times was taking part in an effort "to derail my campaign, and I think that it's part of the puke campaign that Davis launched now."
But the greatest volume of outrage has come from readers, who have flooded the paper with calls, e-mails and letters.
"To me this is a fairness issue," said Debbie Mahoney, a 52-year-old Northern California resident who said she has read the paper periodically for the last five years. She said The Times has demonstrated "true bias" in its coverage of Schwarzenegger.
"You don't even call him by his name," she said. "Whenever I see coverage of Schwarzenegger, I see 'actor.' He's not running as an actor. He's running as a businessman."
As of Saturday evening, about 1,000 readers had canceled their subscriptions to protest the handling of the Schwarzenegger story. In addition, the newspaper had received as many as 400 phone calls critical of its coverage -- many angry, some profane.
About 800 people had written to praise the newspaper's coverage, many apparently motivated by a liberal Web site that urged readers to register their support.
Jamie Gold, who has served as The Times' readers' representative since August 2001 and is responsible for responding to complaints, said she was aware of few events that have ever triggered such anger by the newspaper's readers.
