Next Monday at 9:00 PM brings the broadcast of the new documentary by Peter Jones, Inventing LA: The Chandlers and their Times.
The documentary lays out the story of the Chandler family, who ran the Los Angeles Times from the 1880's until the turn of the last century. The Chandlers both witnessed and shaped the explosive growth of Los Angeles from rural town to sprawling metropolis.
From it's inception the L.A. Times was a newspaper designed to represent local interests - including the interests of its owners. The first owner of the Times, Harrison Gray Otis, is remembered as a both a visionary and a man willing use his paper to wage on war on his enemies, which included unions and anyone who didn't fit into his vision of L.A. as "the White Spot." Harry Chandler came to work for Otis and became his right hand man, eventually marrying Otis's daughter and inheriting the paper from him. Harry shrewdly used the newspaper to support his own financial ventures in real-estate and land development. This laid the foundation for the Chandler family's wealth and its subsequent generations of influence.
Using a trove of archival footage, Inventing L.A.: The Chandlers and their Times tells the story of Los Angeles' first family, warts and all. You watch a preview of the documentary below. and you can also visit the Inventing LA site.:
Will this be rebroadcasted?
Hi there,
We don't know if or when we will rebroadcast "Inventing L.A.", but you can watch the full documentary in segments online:
http://video.kcet.org/program/1218239996/
I was a copyboy for the Times when Norman Chandler was publisher and, as I recall, when Otis was made publisher his motive for turning the paper into a more progressive publication was not because he was an inherent liberal, as the documentary suggests, but to attract the Democrats who subscribed to the left-leaning Los Angeles Daily News, published by Manchester Boddy, that folded. It was a business decision, and producer Jones missed the boat on this fact.