The Alternative Z-Man

You knew him when. David Zahniser, writing for the Daily Breeze, was a very diligent scribe who had a tendency towards towards bobo-suburban sentiment. Out in Torrance, it was no problem for Z to crank out a story on, say, how Fernando Guerra was guilty of lobbying while Latino. No problem---we expect that in our farflung suburbs.

But now Z-man is a cosmo, alt-press kinda guy. And now at the LAWeekly, he's got his hands full of Union, with two stories today that touch Labor's time of troubles in town.

Here's Z-man's story on Chris Arellano, with a chilling quote at the very end:

But García supporters also made clear that they view their candidate as unstoppable, with one privately saying UTLA could put up $1 million and still not overcome their candidate’s powerful connections and tremendous momentum.

That's the lede most days; for sure it's the most dramatic statement of the whole campaign to-date; it's certainly the most expressive of both the problems of Chris Arellano, and also of the sinister dimension of the big machine behind Monica Garcia. But in this time of trouble for LA's unions, Zahniser drops the quote down to the very bottom, obliging UTLA head A.J. Duffy first, making sure you understand that Chris Arellano is the Union candidate, and giving of all people the head of the UTLA, A.J. Duffy, more ink than anyone else in the whole story, more than the Arellano campaign itself, or for that matter, more even than Monica Garcia, who happened to come in first place on Tuesday, handily.

Speaking of ledes, check the other Z-man union article this week, on Martin Ludlow:

NOTHING QUITE GRABS THE ATTENTION of a prosecutor like a politician carrying a package full of cash. And in the criminal investigation of former Los Angeles City Councilman Martin Ludlow — now the ex-head of the powerful Los Angeles County Federation of Labor — Ludlow’s delivery of $1,300 quickly became one of the most eye-popping details to emerge from the state and federal probe, which deals largely in arcane campaign-fund-raising rules.

"A package full of cash!" It's the visual that sells it. How big of a package can 13 hundred dollar bills possibly represent? People who currently have 13 ones in their wallet or purse---please don't answer, that's cheating.

With visual images like that, you get to convict Ludlow not just in deed, but in the mind's eye as well. The truth is that $1300 represents not so much a sensational "package full of cash" as a tiny church collection plate on any given Sunday. The truth is that the "eye-catching" package of cash is a sum that wouldn't keep, say, a Federal prosecutor alive for two days.

It's a tough time to be a union apologist, granted. You have to be a very forgiving soul. The choices made when the ranks were thinning were not always prudent ones.

But isn't it odd, even ironic, to be reading so much union-sensational stuff in the LA Weekly of late? The would-be alternative voice of LA?

It used to be the alt press could at least be depended on to squeeze in other villians. But between the addition of the Z-man and Marc Cooper's assaults on the UFW, the whole frame has changed. It's now the alt press that serves as management's de facto media point-people, availing their precious column inches to problem after problem, often at the exclusion of other news.

Union this, union that, union bad, union going down. We know, and it's sad for some, and boring for others. But really--anything else going on in town worthy of scribbling about lately? Or can we now depend on the LA Weekly to tell us every week about how bad bad bad those big bad crumbling unions are?