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Stunned by Watts riots, Times struggled to make sense of violence

Almost all of them are dead now.

When I joined The Times in 1970, they were the giants of the newsroom, still sharing the glow of the Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the Watts riots five years earlier.

Forty-five years later, I looked back on how they told Los Angeles' most tumultuous story of that era, and my first reaction was, "How could this coverage have won a Pulitzer Prize?"

I'm not suggesting the work was unworthy. I read the stories with admiration for the reporters' newswriting skill and for the courage of many white reporters who headed into the conflict zone.