Tim Rutten

Timothy Calder Rutten (April 8, 1950 – September 8, 2022) was an American journalist, employed by the Los Angeles Times from 1971 to 2011. He received in 1991 an award from the Los Angeles Press Club for editorial writing and in 2007 was honored by the Anti-Defamation League for advancing the ideals of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

• When the social and political history of Los Angeles in the late 20th century comes to be written, it’s likely that two men will stand out as fundamentally transformative leaders. One will be Tom Bradley, the five-term mayor who changed the city’s politics and realigned its economic course; the other will be Cardinal Roger Mahony, the Hollywood-born prelate who has led what is now America’s largest Roman Catholic diocese as archbishop for the last quarter-century, a post from which he will retire Sunday on his 75th birthday, as church law requires.
  • (February 26, 2011)"Cardinal Mahony and the city he shaped". Los Angeles Times.

• One of American politics’ most comforting nostrums is the notion that we always are united by far more than what divides us. It’s a sentiment Barack Obama repeats frequently in his speeches, and both the president and California Gov. Jerry Brown are relying on it to help them move toward resolution of government’s worst budgetary crisis in generations.
  A comprehensive new survey of the American electorate by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, however, indicates that the most politically engaged Americans now are fundamentally opposed to compromise, divided on virtually every basic national question and separated from each other by everything from their race to the choice of where they get their news. Moreover, the increasing numbers of independents, who’ve theoretically pushed national politics to the center with their preference for middle-of-the-road policies, no longer are particularly moderate. California has traversed this sort of political landscape for more than a decade, and now the rest of the nation seems poised to discover that it’s a difficult and discomforting place.
  • (May 7, 2011)"Snapshot of a split America".

• The Christian worldview teaches that there is a short tether binding beliefs to the values and behaviors that flow from them. If the beliefs are false, then the behavior will eventually — but inevitably — be warped....
  • (June 1, 2011)"A religious ‘test’ for Mitt Romney". Los Angeles Times.

• ... Mr. Rutten ... really does know what he's talking about when it's come to religion ... Not to make it too intimate, too warm or friendly ... the critical thing is this: what is most important to him is most hateful to me.
  • Christopher Hitchens, "Only Hitch parts: Christopher Hitchens with Tim Rutten, June 4, 2007 @Los Angeles Public Library". The Hitch, YouTube. (quote at 0:48 of 1:03:20)

• During a 40-year career, Rutten moved seamlessly across The Times’ newsroom — city bureau chief, metro reporter, editorial writer, assistant national editor, book critic and columnist. He was part of The Times’ team of journalists that won the Pulitzer Prize for the paper’s coverage of the 1994 Northridge earthquake.
  “Original in thought and lyrical in print, his work is witty, well-reported, passionate, yet staunchly nonpartisan,” Times staff writer Thomas Curwen wrote in the paper’s 2005 Pulitzer nomination of Rutten for commentary.
  Rutten used his “Regarding Media” column to untangle the complexities of L.A., the nation’s culture wars and the eccentricities of media stars.
  • Steve Marble, (September 12, 2022)"Tim Rutten, longtime Times columnist and editor with a flair for original thinking, dies". Los Angeles Times.