Last week marked another change in the masthead at the Los Angeles Times, but the shuffling of titles isn’t over yet.
Dean Baquet was formally installed as the newspaper’s new managing editor, displacing Leo Wolinsky as the second highest-ranking person in the newsroom behind Editor John Carroll. A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter in 1988 while at the Chicago Tribune, Baquet was until recently national editor at The New York Times.
Wolinsky, who was promoted to the newly created position of executive editor in January by Carroll’s predecessor Michael Parks, is now deputy managing editor. John Arthur and Karen Wada, both previously managing editors, are now assistant managing editors. The executive editor position was abolished.
Carroll said the moves reflect his decision to bring the newsroom back to a “standard newsroom hierarchy,” with one managing editor in charge of all newsgathering. Parks set up a system under which there were four managing editors with separate duties (one of whom, John Lindsay, left the paper earlier in the year).
“There was a lot of title inflation in the newsroom,” Carroll said. “It was unusual to say the least.”
But while Wolinsky, Arthur and Wada now hold lesser titles than before, Carroll disputed the contention that they have been demoted. “I wouldn’t say that. I don’t intend to cut anyone’s pay,” he said. “I think highly of them all.”
But the duties of all three editors are still being sorted out. Characterizing the hierarchy as “fairly Byzantine,” Carroll said further changes will be made as Baquet settles in.
Wolinsky still oversees much of the Times’ day-to-day newsgathering, Arthur is in charge of the paper’s regional operations in Orange and Ventura counties as well as sports news, and Wada oversees the national, international and page-one news desks.
Carroll’s appointment in April and Baquet’s arrival means that the top two editorial positions will be occupied by people who didn’t work their way up through the ranks internally. Carroll was brought in from the Baltimore Sun in the wake of the purchase of Times Mirror Co. by Chicago-based Tribune Co.
But instead of resentment, the reporters at the paper seem to appreciate the professionalism both men bring after a year in which the newspaper was tarnished by an agreement to share revenue from one of its Sunday magazines with Staples Center, the subject of the issue. Parks, then-Publisher Kathryn Downing and then-Times Mirror Chief Executive Mark Willes all came under heavy criticism from both within and without. Morale at the paper has risen of late.
“When the Tribune took over, it was clear there were going to be some changes,” said Bryce Nelson, professor of journalism at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and a former L.A. Times and New York Times reporter. “The people who are really involved in the coverage of the news have a great deal of respect for John Carroll.”
“There are two very good people running the newsroom,” agreed Times legal affairs reporter Henry Weinstein, a critic of the paper’s handling of the Staples Center scandal.
