The United Farm Workers union, founded by the late Cesar Chavez, is firing back at the Los Angeles “By God” Times over last month's four-part series alleging all kinds of financial shenanigans and union ineffectiveness. But the UFW won't have that series' writer, Miriam Pawel, to kick around anymore. As LA Observed reports, Pawel applied for the employee buyout back in November and was accepted. Her departure was delayed so she could see the UFW series into the paper. LAO observes that with Pawel's imminent depature, “There's some concern at the Times that the union will try to claim it forced her out or spin her exit as a bad reflection on the stories. To that I say: you think? They're pissed.”
Observed later confirmed from LAT Editor/rabid LAO reader Dean Baquet that Pawel's departure has “absolutely nothing to do with the UFW series. I thought it was a terrific piece of journalism, and her decision to leave came before publication of the story.” Indeed, it was such a terrific piece of journalism that Baquet refused to meet with UFW officials who wanted to vent their concerns–until some high-powered Angelinos intervened and got 'em all to the table, where we have it on good, made-up authority that migrant-picked table grapes were served.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.