To the editor: I looked forward to reading the Los Angeles Times almost every day since I arrived at LAX decades ago. While waiting to be picked up at the airport, another traveler told me, “Here, I'm done with this,” and dropped the LA Times into my lap. (“Historic printers print LA Times for last time as production moves to Riverside,” March 10)
I have never seen an article filled with such excellent content and so many diverse opinions. It was December 1976.
Since then, I have not always agreed with his editorial opinions. But I have seen how their reporting has become some of the best in any national newspaper.
Your work (that is, my work) has always been very important to me. Almost every news story in Southern California begins with a story in The Times. Only a print newspaper has the editorial power to impose accuracy and other similar standards in its reporting.
Some of my favorite sections of the newspaper have disappeared over the years and I miss them dearly. I still look forward to my digital Los Angeles Times every day.
I wish the newspaper the best of luck, despite having to move from its former Olympic printing plant in downtown Los Angeles.
George Cowie, orange
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To the editor: It was a coincidence that the Sunday print newspaper published the news of the closure of the Olympic printing press. The day before, I overheard the following conversation at my local supermarket:
A worker probably in his 30s asked an older worker what kind of jobs he had done before. The older worker said that he had been in the newspaper distribution business, to which the younger worker sincerely asked, “Are they still around?”
The older employee listed several local newspapers he had worked for; among them was The Times.
Newspapers that have already closed may never be resurrected, but the importance of local newspapers to our communities cannot be underestimated. Just look at the coverage of the multitude of local elections and how that journalism affects our communities.
We ignore this young worker's lack of knowledge about the newspapers that still exist and are in great danger.
Paula Schaefer, Huntington Beach
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To the editor: Here at 71, I doubt there were many my age who didn't take a high school tour of the Times Olympic plant to see how a newspaper was made.
My friends and I would even go to the loading dock at 9 pm to buy issues of the truck to get the results of the Santa Anita horse races in the days before the Internet.
I was at the grand opening of the Olympic Plant and also toured the printing plants in Orange County. No one ever imagined The Times would abandon its newsroom and administrative offices in Times Mirror Square in downtown Los Angeles or the incredible Olympic plant.
A sincere thank you to the men and women who stayed up all night to print and package The Times.
Jeff Prescott, La Jolla
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To the editor: With no money, no office, and not even a computer, I gathered a dozen high school students around my kitchen table and told them we were launching a newspaper.
LA Youth, the newspaper written by and about Los Angeles teens, gave young people a place to tell their stories. In our first year, 1988, we published only two issues, with a circulation of 2,500 copies.
By 1992 we had grown beyond our wildest dreams. The Los Angeles Times began donating printing and distribution. Twenty-five years later, we were publishing six issues a year with a circulation of 70,000 copies and an estimated readership of 400,000 per issue.
In 2013 I closed the door. Foundation grants were hard to come by and The Times could no longer donate prints. I was devastated. We address topics such as racial discrimination, street life and foster care.
The Times staff — reporters, photographers, production, truckers and executives — kept the press running for us. We wouldn't have had this success without The Times, which gave teenagers the power of the press.
Donna Myrow, Palm Springs
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To the editor: My wife and I were very saddened to learn of the closure of the Olympic Printing Press. We've had the daily edition in our hands virtually every morning since we moved here in 1975.
But we were happy to read about the people who work at the plant. We wish them the best and are filled with gratitude for their labor of love over the years.
Steve Tarzynski, Santa Monica
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To the editor: My first job after graduating college was at the Independent, a daily newspaper from the Long Beach Press-Telegram. It was 1970.
In the basement were the printing presses, as big as locomotives. At the beginning of each shift, printers tore off a sheet of newspaper and folded it into a square, origami-like hat. They gave me one when I toured the place on my first day of work. I wish I still had it.
The newspaper published five editions a day. The entire company, from the basement to the executive offices on the top floor, seemed purposeful and important.
Was. I am grateful to have experienced that time and place.
David Boule, Torrance
