Objectivity

Re "Partisan '9/11' Signals New Era for Documentaries," by David Macaray, July 12): Documentary 101 in college will start with the "rude awakening" that, by merely turning the camera to focus on a subject, the documentarian is already making a "statement" film -- namely, that the film's subject warrants attention. Leni Riefenstahl knew and documentarians today know that the "raw" footage can be collated, edited and combined to propound many points of view. "Woodstock" raw footage could have easily been used to demonstrate the decay of modern civilization in a bacchanal of drugs and self-indulgence instead of a celebration of youth, music, tolerance and love.

The pace is picking up on the massive conservation project in process at the Southwest Museum in Mount Washington. The end is almost in sight: Only 36,000 objects to go! In 2003, when the poverty-stricken institution merged with the more affluent Museum of the American West under the umbrella of the Autry National Center in Griffith Park, the first priority was to save the Southwest's collection of about 250,000 Native American artworks and artifacts. Second only to the holdings of the National Museum of the American Indian inWashington, D.C., the collection had been inadequately housed for decades and further damaged by earthquakes, water and insects.

Allan Little, a veteran foreign correspondent for the British Broadcasting Corp., remembers the dread he felt in the summer of 1995 as ethnic Serb soldiers approached the Muslim town of Srebrenica. His editors called from London and asked what was going to happen. He predicted the worst, a massacre. "They will all die," Little told his bosses over the phone. But he did not go on the air and tell the world.

John Gray, who rode off into retirement about 16 months ago after 11 years as president of the Autry National Center of the American West, is making an unexpected return astride one of the world's most-visited cultural institutions: He's been named director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History inWashington, D.C. "His passion for American history and scholarship is obvious, and it's what will make him a great leader...

The Clinton affair has spawned a new oxymoron: congressional objectivity. ADRIAN M. WENNER Santa Barbara

Howard Zinn died last week. Since 1980, his controversial "A People's History of the United States" has sold more than 2 million copies, and it has given Zinn -- a professor, social activist, shipyard worker and World War II bombardier -- his own shot at being more than a footnote in the march of time. Marjorie Miller Marjorie Miller interviewed his colleagues to start history's assessment. Sean Wilentz Princeton University, "The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008" What he did was take all of the guys in white hats and put them in black hats, and vice versa.

Rosenberg's commentary in "Stop the Charges: No Double Standard in 'Church' Stance" (Calendar, Sept. 16) was read with interest and appreciation for the balance of perspectives. The usually cogent objectivity of viewpoints--so characteristic of Rosenberg's writings--is a welcome contribution to media output. DON PERLEY, Yorba Linda

As a former newspaper journalist and occasional political writer, I learned early that, when covering the news, it doesn't pay to wear your personal allegiances on your sleeve. It is the quickest way I can think of to damage credibility. I also have concluded that the most ethical and able reporting is practiced by those who keep the needle of their journalistic compasses pointed at the big "O"--OBJECTIVITY. Unfortunately for The Times and its readers, political writer Jeff Perlman's compass needle seems to be out of control.

Re "Otis Chandler Assails Times' Top Executives Amid Controversy," Nov. 4: Bravo to Otis Chandler. Why not repeat it on the front page? Providing news is not the same as selling cereal or soap (or soap operas). ROY A. FASSEL Los Angeles Regarding the recent articles that mention a Times policy for "eliminating the traditional 'wall' between the newspaper's news staff and its business executives--a measure designed to preserve journalistic objectivity and credibility" (Nov.

Re "A Lot of People Want This Woman Silenced" (July 16): I am a subscriber to The Times and am deeply disturbed at the lack of balance and objectivity in your article on Taslima Nasrin. Nasrin is free to have her opinions, but it is the responsibility of a newspaper to balance outrageous remarks with comments from other sources. Muslims are not in favor of censorship. We only ask that media outlets adhere to journalistic standards of fairness, accuracy and objectivity. The article says Nasrin is a self-declared atheist.

Deo Man Limbu sat in a veterans hall lined with pictures of old soldiers and reflected on his years of service, his battles and his dreams. The retired major with Britain's legendary Gurkhas faced the Argentines in the 1982 Falklands War, when being a member of one of the world's most feared fighting forces had its advantages. Well before hostilities started, British military planners had encouraged photographs of Gurkhas sharpening their fearsome curved knives — no one seemed to ask why you'd bring a knife to a gunfight — and media stories about their fighting prowess.

The housing market's boom and bust exposed stunning flaws in the housing finance system, from lax underwriting to sloppy record-keeping to incompetent loan servicing. California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris is pushing lawmakers to incorporate some of the lessons learned into a new state law governing foreclosures, but lenders are resisting, arguing that the mortgage meltdown was just a "temporary" crisis that doesn't justify a permanent change in law. That's wishful thinking, and legislators should give troubled borrowers more protection against lenders' procedural shortcuts.

Dick Clark Productions has won its legal fight against the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. over the television rights for the Golden Globe Awards show. The Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., owner of the Golden Globe Awards, had sued Dick Clark Productions, the program's longtime producer, over a $150-million deal Dick Clark Productions struck in 2010 to keep the show on NBC through 2018. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., or HFPA, claimed that Dick Clark Productions, or DCP, had entered into that agreement without its approval and thus had violated the contract.

Developers in the Mojave Desert last month were so keen on going forward with their project that they didn't consult with Native Americans about the ancient objects that might lie underground or conduct the required archaeological work in a thorough way. This has happened before: It happened most recently in downtown Los Angeles last year at the site of one of the area's oldest burial grounds. Now it's happening again 200 miles east, in the desert. But there's a key difference between the two. In the case of La Plaza de Cultura y Artes, the new cultural center honoring Mexican and Mexican American history in L.A., there was little legitimate reason to rush the job once remains from a 19th century cemetery were discovered.

A plan to expand the Los Angeles Police Department by adding public safety officers from another city agency would leave 37 fewer officers to patrol the city's libraries, parks, buildings and zoo, officials said Friday. Under the proposal, which drew objections from several city employee labor unions during a City Council committee meeting, the LAPD would assume control of scores of sworn police and civilian security officers now working for the General Services Department. About 40 transferred General Services officers would give up their assignments and become full-fledged LAPD officers.

When Steve Soboroff gets one of them in his sights, he goes into what he calls "emergency overdrive. " He has been known to bug estate lawyers, hoping to move in and make an acquisition before someone else has the same idea. Sometimes, his enthusiasm gets the better of him. That's what happened when Walter Cronkite died in 2009 and Soboroff got a little too pushy too soon. PHOTOS: Typewriters click with history "Let the body cool off," huffed a lawyer for the famed TV anchor before hanging up. That one got away, but Soboroff, a Los Angeles real estate investor and civic leader, has bagged 15 others.

I commend David Shaw for his article "Negative News and Little Else," (four-part series on minorities and the press, Dec. 11-14). I am 27 and a black male and even though I am college-educated and have never been incarcerated, my image is the epitome of a drug addict, drug dealer and rapist perpetuated by the press. Ultimately, objectivity must be the goal of any journalist if the press is to inform and educate. But objectivity can only be achieved if there is "integrity" in the reporting of facts and context.

The media institutions of today have so grown in stature as to become a virtual unelected fourth branch of government. That they have finally taken sides in a struggle for power and control of ideas is inevitable; that they have turned a deaf ear to honest criticism is not. The loss of journalistic integrity and objectivity by our press makes us all immeasurably poorer. TRENT K. ROLLOW Santa Ana

The judge in the George Zimmerman murder trial announced Friday that her husband works at the law firm that recommended the defendant hire his current attorney. In a brief televised hearing, Circuit Court Judge Jessica Recksiedler explained the relationships and gave Zimmerman's attorney, Mark O'Mara, and the office of special prosecutor Angela B. Corey until next week to file any objections. The judge said she had an ethical obligation to disclose the relationships. A bond hearing is scheduled for April 20 for Zimmerman, charged with second-degree murder in the Feb. 26 shooting of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin.

WILMINGTON, Del. - The sale of the Dodgers to a group fronted by Lakers icon Magic Johnson was approved in U.S. Bankruptcy Court on Friday, despite strong objections from Major League Baseball. In six hours of tense and contentious arguments, MLB tried to re-assert control over the Dodgers, saying the Commissioner Bud Selig should have control moving forward - just as he would over any other team. The Dodgers argued many of those decisions still belonged with the court under terms of a settlement reached earlier between MLB and outgoing owner Frank McCourt when he agreed to sell.