2014 Bob Dornan Scary OC Hall of Fame Inductee: Aaron Kushner!

By Gustavo Arellano Fri., Oct. 31 2014 at 8:03 AM

Illustration by D. W. Frydendall

Gollum Kushner, gone mad with the precious

To coincide with our annual OC Scariest People issue, behold the 2014 entry into the Bob Dornan Scary OC Hall of fame...Orange County Register owner Aaron Kushner!

Has anyone in Orange County history ever had a more dramatic, sudden fall from grace than Aaron Kushner? A bit over two years ago, the Boston millionaire strode into town announcing he was going to save the Reg from the newspaper industry's death throes by staffing up and fattening the paper. And he stuck to his word, garnering national media praise and being hailed as a journalism Jesus at an Orange County Press Club mixer in November 2012.

Just four months later, the Kush missed a delivery payment, and he told his investigative team that he didn't believe in comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. And that's where the REAL fun began.

You can find all of Kushner's many, many sins at our OC Register Death Watch column--many. All we'll add right now is that when Kushner finally leaves back to Beantown--and he absolutely will, given he never brought over his family to a county he professed to love and reputedly still lives in the same fancy Newport Beach hotel suite he first set his tent in--he'll join Frank McCourt and Dave Henderson as the most loathed Bostonians to ever pass through Southern California. And Kushner deserves extra scorn for building up the hopes of hundreds of Register employees with his lofty, empty rhetoric, then leveling the paper to virtually the same scorched Earth Grand Avenue was before he came into town--except at least back then, the Reg owned their own building and delivered their paper on time.

Mitigating factor: Our 2012 coverage of Kushner has won us a slew of awards, and we're counting on our 2014 coverage to do the same...HA!

Previous inductees:

1998: Dr. Bernard Rappaport (deceased), former head of the county's Children and Youth Services
1999: Gloria Matta Tuchman, vendida Santa Ana schoolteacher behind the anti-bilingual education Proposition 227
2000: Jim Silva, former county supervisor and state assemblymember, eternal dope
2001: Lou Sheldon, director of the Traditional Values Coalition
2002: The confirmed offspring of Bob Dornan
2003: Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackaukas
2004: Larry Agran, boss of Irvine and the Great Park
2005: Inductee lost in one of our many website revamps
2006: Greg Haidl, convicted rapist
2007: Catholic Diocese of Orange Bishop Tod D. Brown (awarded retroactively for his pedo-priest protecting ways)
2008: Disgraced, felonious, adulterous ex-Sheriff Mike Carona (awarded retroactively for the whole indictment thing)
2009: Santa Ana Mayor-for-Life Miguel Pulido (awarded retroactively for a career that saw him go from Aztlanista to the supreme vendido in Orange County--and in a county where Republican Mexicans have a group called the Hispanic 100, that's saying something)
2010: Orly Taitz, Birther Queen supreme
2011: Barbara Coe, Walking Cigarette/Anti-immigrant godmother
2012: Orange County Register readers
2013: Dana Rohrabacher, slob congressman

Email: garellano@ocweekly.com. Twitter: @gustavoarellano.

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20ftjesus topcommenter

Serious question: Suddenly, you're CEO of the OCR; how do you save it? (Or is it not salvageable?)

fishwithoutbicycle topcommenter

@20ftjesus

A CEO that's COMPETENT would certainly help...

n2bigmuscle topcommenter

@20ftjesus They will save it how they saved my home town newspaper...sell it and make it a free weekly paper and call it, "The OC Register Weekly"

JiveTalkin

@20ftjesus It's Stage IV, best you can do is hope it's comfortable as it drifts away.

Besides the obvious demise of newspapers, I'd say the lack of any customer service after the delivery switch, and loud unanswered complaints, effectively murdered any goodwill the paper might have had with the -- everyone say it together -- community.

Content wise, the career Reg'ers, the heart and soul of the team, were purged in the Jan. layoffs, and the Jun. and Sept. layoffs furthered the publication's tailspin into mediocrity. The exclusive, hyperlocal coverage that Spitzie said would make the Reg a viable subscriber draw a la HBO or Sirius just isn't there.

With no sweeping changes over the last few weeks -- and the non-delivery complaints still flooding in -- it`'s clear that Mirman is a figurehead, whose appointment was only to swerve the public into thinking changes were a coming.

Prediction: Kush & Spitzie will continue jive talking until they cash out whatever remaining real estate assets the paper has, and will probably be comfortably throwing back Gansetts at Fenway by Opening Day, bwahahaing the carnage they left behind in the land of orange groves.

JBinOC topcommenter

@JiveTalkin @20ftjesus

Actually, one thing in the Register's favor is what I feel is the forgiving nature of Orange County's conservative, lame, aging population. There are plenty of war veterans who want to open up a local broadsheet when they stop in for coffee at Paul's Coffee Shop or Cafe Westminster, there are plenty of women who want grocery coupons and Kohl's Bucks offers, there are plenty of moms and dads in South County who want to see profiles of junior in varsity sports ink. Unfortunately, the conservativeness and lameness of the populace will more likely breed forgiveness than a switch to the LA Times...which, by the way, offers excellent coverage of OC, at least 2 books of grocery coupons every Sunday, and, via local properties like the Daily Pilot, comprehensive high school sports roundups.

JiveTalkin

@JBinOC @JiveTalkin @20ftjesus I'm skeptical the aging-South County population you speak of is enough to offset all of the lost subscribers due to the delivery fiasco, or those who are wary of renewing or subscribing because of it. (A lot of the Facebook complaints to the OCR's Facebook indicate both of those groups have been stung by the delivery issues -- lots of angry comments from Tustin residents, adult children of local seniors, and those linked with nursing homes.)

Even if it is, and the paper's numbers stay consistent with the pre-delivery imbroglio, it was still in major financial distress prior to that, as evidenced by the Jun.-Sept. layoffs and non-payments to the Times.

I just don't see any scenario where it gets back on track with Kushner and Spitz at the helm -- odds are at this point they're more focused on their exit plan, and getting their golden parachutes intact, than anything that would revive the product.