Change of Control at the Los Angeles Times Magazine

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The Los Angeles Times has made plans to transfer control of its monthly magazine from its newsroom to its business operations and to replace the magazine’s entire editorial staff, according to two executives at the newspaper, the New York Times reports.


The arrangement would flout the tradition at most newspapers, which keep business operations, like advertising and circulation, completely separate from the editorial department, which controls decisions about the contents of news and feature pages.


The plan for the magazine was set in motion months ago. A new editor and others were hired, future issues were planned, and mock-up covers were made , all without the knowledge of anyone in the newsroom, including the top editor, Russ Stanton, the executives said. Mr. Stanton and other high-ranking editors learned of the plan last week, they said.


But the executives who described the plan cautioned that it might have changed since last week, after editors raised objections.


They said that Mr. Stanton, after hearing about the move, asked the publisher of The Times, David D. Hiller, and the president of the newspaper, Jack D. Klunder, to change the name of the publication, which is now called Los Angeles Times Magazine. He argued that to keep the name would lend the newsroom’s credibility to a product it did not control.


A spokeswoman for The Times, Nancy Sullivan, said that she, Mr. Hiller and Mr. Klunder would not comment on the subject. Mr. Stanton also declined to comment.


The Los Angeles Times is one of the large metropolitan dailies owned by the Tribune Company, which was bought in December by the real estate developer Samuel Zell. He has articulated an unconventional view of the newspaper business and its future, and recently announced plans to cut back news pages at the papers he owned to create parity with the space allotted for advertisements.



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