LOS ANGELES TIMES MUST DISMISS MANAGING EDITOR DOUGLAS
FRANTZ
01-05-2007 20:30:00 | USA | Articles and Analyses
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
When a company discriminates against an employee on the
basis of his or her ethnic origin, it violates Title VII of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits "employment
discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national
origin."
It appears that such a breach of the law took place when
Douglas Frantz, the Managing Editor of the Los Angeles Times,
blocked the publication of an article on the Armenian Genocide
written by Mark Arax, a distinguished journalist of Armenian
origin, who has worked at the Times for 20 years.
On April 11, 2007, in an e-mail to Arax, Frantz accused him
of having "a conflict of interest that precludes you from
writing about the Armenian genocide, and particularly about an
ongoing congressional debate about it. ...Your personal stance
on the issue, in my view, prohibits you from writing about the
issue objectively."
To justify his discriminatory action, Frantz used the
pretext that Arax and five other reporters at The Times had
signed a joint letter in September 2005, reminding the editors
that the newspaper was not complying with its own policy of
calling the Armenian Genocide, a genocide. The editors, at that
time, had no problem with that letter. On the contrary, they
thanked all six reporters -- five Armenian-Americans and one
Jewish-American -- for the reminder and pledged to comply with
the paper's policy on this issue.
To make matters worse, in his e-mail, Frantz falsely
referred to the above-cited letter as a "petition," and on that
basis accused Arax of taking "a position" on the Armenian
Genocide. He thus implied that all six letter-writers -- Mark
Arax, Ralph Vartabedian, Robin Abcarian, Greg Krikorian, Chuck
Philips, and Henry Weinstein -- were political activists rather
than independent journalists.
By "prohibiting" Arax from writing on the genocide issue,
Frantz, by implication, was also prohibiting all six
journalists, among them a Pulitzer Prize winner, of ever
reporting on this subject. In other words, Frantz was not just
blocking one particular article and its author, but all future
articles on the Armenian Genocide that may be written by any of
these six journalists, thus practically issuing a gag order that
silences all Armenian Americans working at the Times.
By the same logic, Frantz is implying that Latinos will be
barred from writing on illegal immigrants, African American
journalists from covering civil rights, Jewish-American
reporters from writing about the Holocaust and Asian-Americans
covering issues peculiar to their community.
Sadly, Frantz's misrepresentation of the joint letter as a
"petition" initially helped convince other editors at The Times
that Arax had an ethnic bias, thus gaining their support in his
decision not to run his article. Only days later did these
editors take the trouble to investigate the matter and
discovered that they were misled by Frantz. Jim O'Shea, the top
editor of the Los Angeles Times, in a meeting with this writer
last week, said that the letter signed by the six journalists
was not a "petition" at all, and that there was nothing improper
about it. In fact, he admitted that the letter upheld existing
L..A. Times policy.
Amazingly, even after discovering the truth, rather than
reversing themselves and publishing the Arax story, The Times'
editors continued to endorse Frantz's censorship and compounded
the discrimination. They did this by assigning their Washington
reporter, Richard Simon, supposedly to update Arax's story. Even
though Frantz, in his April 11 e-mail told Arax that he had "no
questions" about his "abilities as a reporter and writer," he
did use the excuse that Arax and Washington editor, Bob Ourlian,
had gone around the "established system for assigning and
editing stories." Obviously, this was a red-herring. The editors
in the chain of command both in Washington and Los Angeles were
aware of Arax's article and none of them had any questions or
complaints about procedure or content. In fact, not even Frantz
himself cited a single factual or bias problem with the story.
The only problems he did point to were that Arax had taken a
"personal" stand on the Armenian Genocide, which allegedly led
him to have a "conflict of interest," presumably because of his
Armenian heritage. Arax has written countless major
investigative stories over the course of his 20 years at the Los
Angeles Times, including several on the Armenian Genocide, but
never had a single one of them "killed" by any editor. But that
was before Frantz entered into the picture, moving from Istanbul
to Los Angeles to become the newspaper's Managing Editor in
November 2005.
The thrust of Arax's story was not only about the clash
between Turks and Armenians over the congressional resolution on
the Armenian Genocide, but also about the split in the Jewish
community between those who sympathize with the victims of the
Armenian Genocide and those who put a higher premium on Israel's
strategic alliance with Turkey.
Richard Simon, on the other hand, proceeded to write a
completely different story which was published in The Times on
April 21. His article covered the conflicting political
pressures affecting the adoption of the Armenian Genocide
resolution by the Congress and its "uncertain" chances of
approval. There was no reason to kill the Arax story to run
Simon's. Both articles could have been published, one as a
sidebar to the other. In a vain attempt to appease Arax and
defuse a looming controversy that is sure to anger the
half-a-million strong Armenian community in Southern California,
a handful of paragraphs from Arax's article were incorporated
into Simon's story. The editors told this writer that they were
dismayed that Arax refused to have his name jointly appear on
the byline for Simon's story. Even then, despite Arax's
justified protests, the editors added a tagline at the end of
the article, stating that Arax "contributed to this report."
An investigation of this matter in the past two weeks has
led this writer to believe that rather than Mark Arax having an
ethnic bias, Douglas Frantz himself seems to be the source of
the problem. Based on discussions with individuals familiar with
various aspects of this controversy, conversations and meetings
with top executives at the Times, and a contentious phone call
with Frantz himself which he initiated, it appears that he has
strongly held personal views on Armenian-Turkish issues which
have clouded his professional judgment, causing him to take
actions which are improper and possibly illegal:
1) In a discriminatory e-mail, Frantz falsely accused Mark
Arax and five other Times' reporters of signing a "petition" on
the Armenian Genocide. This accusation was used as a pretext to
block Arax's story on the Armenian Genocide.
2) Frantz has reportedly made comments to at least one
co-worker at The Times that he personally opposed the
congressional resolution on the Armenian Genocide. He also said
he believes that Armenians rebelled against the Turks, an
argument used by Turkish denialists to justify the genocide.
3) Frantz was stationed for several years in Turkey, first
working for the New York Times as Istanbul Bureau Chief and then
for the Los Angeles Times during which he may have developed
very natural friendships with Turkish individuals and
officials..
4) The Turkish Consul General in Los Angeles has reportedly
bragged about his close friendship with Douglas Frantz and said
that he turns to him whenever he has a problem with The Times.
5) This writer was told by the editor of The Times, Jim
O'Shea, who has known Frantz for many years from their time
together at the Chicago Tribune, that Frantz has a very abrasive
personality. No wonder he was short-tempered and abrupt during a
phone conversation that he initiated, falsely accusing this
writer of threatening him, when in fact he was simply being told
that the controversy regarding the Arax article might upset the
Armenian community, if it turned out that the story was blocked
due to the Armenian background of the journalist.
6) Frantz is scheduled to moderate a panel at a conference
in Istanbul, May 12-15, on "Turkey: Sharing the Democratic
Experience." The panelists are asked to discuss: "Can the
Turkish experience be emulated by other countries in the region
and beyond?" Among the speakers at the conference are the
President, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Turkey. One of
the participants on the panel chaired by Frantz is none other
than Andrew Mango, a notorious genocide denialist. Despite being
sponsored by the International Press Institute, the conference
does not cover the lack of freedom of speech in Turkey, the
jailing and killing of journalists such as Hrant Dink, and
draconian laws on "denigrating Turkishness." O'Shea told this
writer that the Los Angeles Times will be paying Frantz' airfare
to participate in this conference. Would The Times pay for
Frantz's trip, if he were moderating a panel that included David
Irving, the infamous Holocaust revisionist?
Arax has filed a discrimination complaint with The Times
against Frantz. He is also considering a Federal lawsuit for the
possible violation of his civil rights. The Times executives are
expected to make a decision this week on what action, if any,
they would take against Frantz.
The Publisher of The Times, David Hiller, and the Editor,
Jim O'Shea, reassured this writer last week that they would not
tolerate any executive who has a bias against the Armenian
Genocide and discriminates against Armenian-American employees.
Once the internal investigation is complete, the expectation is
that the top management of The Times would do the right thing
and find an appropriate way of eliminating the hostile working
environment created by Douglas Frantz at one of the nation's
greatest newspapers.
It is hard to imagine how Frantz could continue working at
a newspaper in a community where more than half a million
Armenians reside, given his unfavorable actions against his
Armenian-American colleagues and his negative views on the
Armenian Genocide.
The Armenian community highly values the special
relationship it has developed in recent months with the
publisher and other executives at the Los Angeles Times. The
opinion column written by Matt Welch, the Times' assistant
editorial page editor, published on Sunday, April 22, is another
indication of the newspaper's solid position on the facts of the
Armenian Genocide. The Frantz episode is an aberration and has
to be dealt with as such. His continued presence at the highest
echelons of this venerable newspaper would only serve to
antagonize the Armenian community and all those who care about
the upholding of equal rights for all employees regardless of
their race, color, religion, sex and national origin.
Readers can communicate their views on Douglas Frantz and
his mistreatment of Mark Arax by sending their e-mails to:
Publisher David Hiller: David.Hiller@latimes.com, and Editor
James O'Shea: James.oshea@latimes.com.