But during an extraordinary moment of social upheaval in Los Angeles in the early 1900s, Progressive reformers and the labor movement rebelled against the city’s slanted newspapers, including The Times, and pushed for a more civic-minded vision of journalism.
As Robert W. Davenport wrote in the California Historical Society Quarterly:
One day in April, 1912, an unusual newspaper appeared on the door steps of thousands of Los Angeles homes. On its logotype it declared that it was "A Newspaper Owned by the People!' On its editorial page the Los Angeles Municipal News proudly announced that it was the first commercial-type newspaper ever published by a city. Unlike its contemporaries, this paper was not private property; it was a public press, voted into being by more than fifty-seven thousand people at the city election in December, 1911. It was a local protest against the excesses of yellow journalism, and its sponsors hoped it would improve the product of the Los Angeles press.
Union carpenter and later L.A. City Council member Fred C. Wheeler, a passionate advocate for public ownership, had persuaded his central labor council (today’s L.A. County Federation of Labor) to lobby for the the Municipal News’ creation, according to historian Jeffrey D. Stansbury’s excellent history of Los Angeles’ labor-driven reform movement between 1900-1915.
George H. Dunlop, the former mayor of Hollywood and a Progressive direct democracy advocate, later persuaded City Council to put the question on the ballot. The initiative laid out some pillars for the new municipal paper:
The function of the paper was to centralize the city’s political arguments into a place where the public could see them. As Dunlop recounted in 1912:
When any municipal question is actively under discussion before the people, that is to say, before the official policy of the city has been determined in the matter, The Los Angeles Municipal News appoints two special writers, each of whom writes a special column — one on each side of the question under discussion — and the two columns are published side by side properly headlined as the arguments for and against. The two special writers, though appointed and paid by the paper, each consult freely with the friends of the side of the controversy which they represent, and in a very large measure present the arguments for that side in accordance with the wishes of the leading proponents thereof. This provision for a hearing for each side of active public questions is one of the most highly appreciated features of the paper.