We reconvene the Ludlow Seminar this morning because I see by the disingenuous Los Angeles Sentinel, which purports to be the reasoned voice of the black community, that

Mr. Ludlow is really a sweet chap who may have taken an extra glass of lemonade at dinner last night. He is one of ours. Therefore he cannot have misfunneled campaign funds.

            Ethnic newspapers, largely disreputable these days, have become havens for have-been or never-was journalists. The two worst publishing samples I know in this town are the Jewish Journal and the Los Angeles Sentinel, the cabooses in their field. Neither caters to serious purveyors of news in its community. If there is a strong journalist at either weekly, he is buried so deeply his voice has been reduced to a squeak.

            And so one Yussef J. Simmonds, identified as the Assistant Managing Editor of the Sentinel,  wrote a bleached review of the disgraced Mr. Ludlow’s carnival-like departure last week  from the World of the Respectable. The publisher of the newspaper is Danny Bakewell, who has made more noise than sense when I have seen or read about his numerous protests. So perhaps this should not be surprising. Where does a seeker of sober, objective news about the community turn?

            The Ludlow story is tragic, but no evidence has surfaced suggesting the wounds are anything but self-inflicted. Isn’t there a truthteller anywhere in Los Angeles journalism?

            Reading Mr. Simmonds’ unfortunate account of events, I was reminded of the feeling when removing a sweater that is too tight or too wet to slip off smoothly. In your struggle, the sleeves turn inside out.

            Mr. Simmonds took the sleeves of the fallen Mr. Ludlow’s sweater. Awkwardly, he   turned them inside out, naively converting Mr. Ludlow’s acknowledged wrongdoing into a thing of beauty.

 
Making a Fallen Figure Look Good

 

            In the tradition of foolish public figures who have humiliated themselves, their families and their institutions, Mr. Ludlow summoned his version of the chorus of the faithful to foist one more fatuous one on a fawning public — and there stood Mr. Simmonds eager to fall for it.

            First, you lasso a couple of clergymen. They always are good for fueling flim-flam, misdirection. They will make everyone think you are actually a Boy Scout who oopsed. Mr. Ludlow brought in a Bishop and a pastor. Deliver your family and everybody who  ever drove by your house to say good things about you — even if you have to pay them. You must have money left from your alleged hijinks. Have your favorite lackey announce you won’t take questions, the better for a felon-in-training to practice his getaway maneuvers.

            By the published accounts, Mr. Ludlow is not a victim of anything other than himself.

            In his awe-driven description of Mr. Ludlow’s baloney farewell to public life, Mr. Simmonds of the Sentinel performed at the same ankle-low level of decency. By even the most minimal standards of homerish journalism, Mr. Simmonds was guilty of a ghastly disservice to his readers.

            Picture a random subscriber of the reconstituted Sentinel that now is far more attractively laid out than ever before. He comes home from work in the evening after reading in the Los Angeles Times about Mr. Ludlow’s campaign funds problems with the Feds, how he is said to be desperately negotiating a deal to avoid jail time. Our Random Reader picks up the Sentinel , hoping for insight and analysis of Mr. Ludlow’s spectacular and swift pratfall.

            Instead, he encounters Mr. Simmonds’ unprofessional report, where the reporter violates the most important fundamentals of newswriting. Openly, he sympathized with the fallen Mr. Ludlow.

            Someone ought to open a black newspaper that pursues honest reporting more vigorously.

If this had been the Presbyterian Bugle, no one would have cared. Presbyterians do not make news because they are Presbyterians. Jews and blacks make more news in this town every day than the next five cultures combined. But Jews and blacks searching for serious news about their worlds are stripped naked by the gonifs, phonies and misanthropes who thrive in their ethnic enclaves.