LA Times...Is their time really up? The PBS documentary

This evening, I watched 'Inventing LA' a PBS documentary about the history of the families that made and ran the LA Times newspaper. After just arriving home from Los Angeles myself a couple of weeks ago, I made sure that I reserved two hours with my Television, which is rare. In the first hour of the two hour-documentary, I did find the history era of 1890's Los Angeles very interesting. As the family story unravelled more through the second hour, I put aside the 'soap opera' family disagreements and found something more deeper that made watching this program worth my two hours of my time. The Corporation giants takes and destroys what it reaps.

I came to this conclusion when the owner of the company decided (with his family not in agreement) to take the LA Times newspaper public on the Stock Exchange. From there, the company rapidly took a steady dive and now one of the most famous newspapers of our times has declared Chapter 11 in 2008. What is it, with gigantic corporations taking over a companies that were thriving and just letting them die in it's own defeat? Is there no personal responsibilities of board members today who make ill fated choices? Could it be that we can conveniently put part or full blame not on a person in charge but rather onto a name of a company. I guess it seems much easier to lay blame on a material name than it is to a personal name. From the 1980's, more and more reputable business' that have been bought out by bigger corporations have been closed within a couple of years. Politics? Maybe. Greed? Probably. It sure gives the term, 'Living in a disposable era', a new credibility.