Posted on deadlinehollywooddaily.com: My latest LA Weekly column, Baquet’s Billionaire Boys’ Club, examines whether the Los Angeles Times editor, “Dean of Arc”, is playing a dangerous game with the newspaper’s integrity. Here’s how it begins:

“Not long after Dean Baquet became editor of the Los Angeles Times, influential entertainment mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg sought a meet-and-greet. It was during this lunch that Katzenberg purposefully let slip big news: His DreamWorks partner David Geffen really wanted to buy the newspaper. Baquet was shocked. “How’s he going to feel the first time we review a movie or music produced by a friend of his?” Baquet asked. Katzenberg just laughed. That was a year ago, and, since then, Geffen’s pursuit of the Tribune Co.’s troubled outpost not only hasn’t flagged, it has fired up, and not just because the paper’s 20 percent profit margin is so much better than the 6 percent earned on bonds. I’m told he’s “very serious” and “pretty confident” about purchasing it someday soon. “He believes that he’s going to be the owner,” an insider explains. That, even though there’s a growing list of fat-cat Angelenos lining up, including Eli Broad and Ron Burkle. But anyone familiar with Hollywood knows how relentless Geffen can be: What David wants, David gets. Says another source: “He has never stopped doing anything until he’s done.” … Baquet, meanwhile, has never met Geffen. “But if David Geffen called me up tomorrow and said, ‘I want to have lunch,’ I’d probably have lunch with him,” Baquet was overheard saying. “After all, I’m the editor of the L.A. Times.” That’s exactly why this is all such an ethical dilemma, too.

…The Times’ most pressing problem isn’t whether Geffen or someone else buys it, or Tribune sells it, or Baquet gets fired. Instead, the widespread media coverage has ignored the dangerous game being played with the paper’s integrity between this billionaire boys’ club and Baquet or his surrogates behind closed doors. I’ve even looked into accusations that the Times buried an investigation into one of the potential buyers. It’s all so unseemly: There, in August, was the Times’ own West magazine’s Power Issue giving high placement to every past and present rich guy who’s ever expressed interest in owning the paper: Eli Broad (No. 2, fortune valued at $5.6 billion, photo right), Philip Anschutz (No. 6, $6.4 billion), Haim Saban (No. 10, $3.1 billion), Ron Burkle (“who just missed our Top 10,” $2.5 billion), David Geffen (“another enormous name who barely fell out of our Top 10 list,” $4.6 billion) and even Peter Ueberroth (the poorest of the bunch, worth only $50 million). To top it off, Baquet’s name was included on that exclusive roster, thus giving the disturbing impression that he’s playing on their polo field. Yet it’s a fact that he’s hanging with them at their exclusive business clubs…