dream-factory dreamer

David Geffen wants a new toy, the Los Angeles Times. Nikki Finke has the scoop on what he’d like to do with it once he buys it:

Here’s what he’s saying to friends: He’ll pour money into more hires. He plans to staff — more like stuff — the paper with name writers and journalism stars. (Of course, he’ll raid The New York Times, where Frank Rich and his wife, Alex Witchel, are his good friends and occasional overnight guests. So are Nora Ephron and Nick Pileggi. So are a lot of literati.) He’ll demand quality. He’ll ratchet up the Web site (even though he hates how prohibitively expensive it is to do that). He’ll figure out a way to bring in Latinos as readers. Geffen loathes how boring, badly written, inconsequential and pedestrian the L.A. Times’ editorial and opinion section is. He thinks nobody reads it. He knows nobody talks about it. Most of all, he wants his newspaper to be talked about. He’ll put the newsroom ahead of the ludicrous profit margins demanded by Wall Street and the Tribune Co. That’s not to say he wants to lose money, just that he thinks it’s a good investment already (though not if its stock price keeps dropping).

If this is anywhere near true, the idea that Geffen is looking for Glamour and Buzz and Fun in the Future in a newspaper is…well, it’s beyond sad. At a time when every newspaper in America is finally facing the grimmest realities about the future of media, Geffen wants to resurrect the lost dream of the cohort. I know he means well. But he’s nuts.Just ask the Sulzberger family.