Missing: Wonderful eccentrics

L.A. Times‘ David Shaw gets it right: He has pinpointed the precise reason newspapering stinks in the early 21st century. Newspapers were once a haven for talented eccentrics who made their newspapers fun to read. But …

… Times have changed, though. Newspapers are increasingly part of large conglomerates run by men with MBAs on their walls, rather than printer’s ink in their veins. In a time of increasing competition for the reader’s time and the advertiser’s dollar, newspapers and their parent corporations don’t think they can afford characters, risk-takers, people who might embarrass them and damage the price of their stock.