Portal:Greater Los Angeles/Selected article/23

The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country. In 2000, the Tribune Company, parent company of the Chicago Tribune and the area's KTLA, purchased the Los Angeles Times.

The Times was first published on December 4, 1881, as the Los Angeles Daily Times under the direction of Nathan Cole Jr. and Thomas Gardiner. It was first printed at the Mirror printing plant, owned by Jesse Yarnell and T.J. Caystile. Unable to pay the printing bill, Cole and Gardiner turned the paper over to the Mirror Company. In the meantime, S.J. Mathes had joined the firm, and it was at his insistence that the Times continued publication. In July 1882, Harrison Gray Otis moved from Santa Barbara to become the paper's editor. Otis made the Times a financial success.

In an era where newspapers were driven by party politics, the Times was directed at Republican readers. In an extreme example of partisan tilt, the newspaper waited several days to report the 1884 victory of Democratic presidential candidate Grover Cleveland. more...