Thank You, Otis Chandler

He may not be as widely known to current Angelenos as recently-departed Chris Penn, but Los Angeles lost one of the people that lifted the city beyond tinsel to the relative esteem it now holds as cultural mecca.

Otis Chandler, former publisher of the Los Angeles Times, died at age 78 this morning.

To truly appreciate Chandler's importance, reread The Powers That Be by David Halberstam.

Not surprisingly, the LA Times was the first on the story, putting up a full obit 1 hour and forty minutes after the time of death (at least that's when we first noticed it). Also interestingly, the rush job left at least one newspaper faux pas live on the site...at least 20 grafs into the piece, reporter Mitchell Landsberg left a CQ. In journalism, that's a fact he wanted his editor to check. And in this case, Landsberg wondered if Chandler still read the newspaper:

To the surprise of many, Chandler praised the deal, saying it offered the best chance for The Times to return to the excellence he had long demanded. And well into the illness that claimed his life (CQ?), he continued to be a devoted reader of the newspaper that had been his birthright and his legacy.

RIP, Otis Chandler.