The Los Angeles Times accelerates its death-spiral into complete irrelevance today by running a front page story in which intrepid reporter Scott Collins… has a private cooking class with Gordon Ramsay. Just in time to promote the season finale of Ramsay’s Fox show Hell’s Kitchen, Collins tries to make pasta with the chef and ends up getting called mean names. But the complete lack of substance isn’t the worst thing here. The front page placement isn’t either, although it comes just hours after the similarly-placed exclusive interview with Farah Fawcett they’ve been sitting on for eight months until her publicist approved publication (or whatever their ludicrous rationalization is). No, the worst part comes in this paragrah:

In the rarefied world of fine dining, the 42-year-old Ramsay is a very big deal. His eponymous restaurant at the London West Hollywood hotel is part of a mini-empire that has vaulted him into the ranks of celebrity chefs. His restaurants have earned a total of 13 of the elusive Michelin stars, a measure of critical acclaim that places Ramsay in the company of Alain Ducasse and Joel Robuchon. His Gordon Ramsay Holdings controls multiple outlets in the U.S. and the United Kingdom. Britain’s Sunday Times in 2007 estimated his personal fortune at more than $100 million.

Now I will say I’m a huge fan of Ramsay’s shows — particularly the British ones where he’s two thirds chef and only one third cartoon character.  And everything Collins wrote is or at least once was true… technically. But Ramsay’s restaurant empire has been in serious trouble lately. And on top of the financial, legal, and tax issues, there were British press reports that he’d had an affair for seven years, jeopardizing his image as the loving father to an adorable family. He’s even fallen out of favor with Posh and Becks. And that “eponymous restaurant at the London West Hollywood?” Well, it’s still eponymous… but it’s not his anymore. He sold it months ago. And I happen to know this piece of information that Scott Collins was unable to unearth — because I read it in the Los Angeles Times.

Even if this fluff had run in the food or Calendar section, it would have been appropriate to have a little actual information about the man being fluffed. But to put this on the front page and then ignore a year’s worth of news about its subject is the equivalent of printing press releases. I realize the LA Times doesn’t actually believe in the importance of either writing or reporting these days — if they did, they’d never publish Jonah Goldberg. But is it asking too much that they learn how to use Google?