Another LA Times Editor Fired
Los Angeles Times editor James O'Shea has been fired after refusing to cut $4 million from the budget for the newsroom budget. He follows former editor Dean Baquet who resigned in 2006 after also refusing to cut the budget.
LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Times fired its top editor after he rejected a management order to cut $4 million from the newsroom budget, 14 months after his predecessor was also ousted in a budget dispute, the newspaper said Sunday.
James O'Shea was fired following a confrontation with Publisher David D. Hiller, the Times reported on its Web site. The story didn't say when the confrontation took place.Times spokeswoman Nancy Sullivan said the newspaper would have no comment.
O'Shea's departure comes just a month after the Times' parent, Chicago-based Tribune Co., was taken private in an $8.2 billion buyout by real estate magnate Sam Zell.
The departure also follows that of his predecessor, Dean Baquet, who was forced to resign after he opposed further cuts to the newsroom budget in 2006.
O'Shea, then the Chicago Tribune's managing editor, was brought in to replace him.
At the time, he asked the news staff not to see him as "the hatchet man from Chicago" and promised to fight to ensure the Times would "remain a major force in American journalism."
"If I think there is too much staff I will say so," O'Shea told the paper's editors and reporters in 2006. "And if I think there is not enough I will say that, too."
O'Shea is the third Times editor to leave the newspaper since 2005, all of them departing in disputes with management over how much to cut the news budget.
I know there will be much mourning of the agonies in the MSM by the readership here at the Crabitat. I'll just point out that I personally thought the LA Times has been doing a bit better since Baquet left. Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but a bit better. I actually linked them on several occasions – and not to bash them.
By feeblemind, January 20, 2008 @ 7:38 pm
Boo hoo! I am looking for my black armband. Heh heh.
By Chris, January 21, 2008 @ 7:05 am
While I cannot help but feel a certain amount of schadenfreude at the struggles of newspapers in today’s market, I admire Mr. O’Shea’s commitment to his employees. The president of our company also acts as a bulwark from the bean counters at corporate headquarters. Of course, we’re making a profit.
By jpg, January 21, 2008 @ 3:27 pm
Stench of the imagination, actually. jpg
By NortonPete, January 21, 2008 @ 5:54 pm
I read last year that a Sacramento paper had outsourced all local reporting to India. Here is how it worked, the paper contracted for 3 500 word articles a week from an outfit in India. The paper sent pictures of the area and would send things like the minutes of a town meeting or a police report. The “reporters” in India, who had never been to the US, would write a story as if they had actually been there and interviewed people. I kid you not. I guess that is a little better than asking reporters to just plain make stuff up.
By Gaius, January 21, 2008 @ 6:07 pm
I posted about that, NortonPete.
By NortonPete, January 21, 2008 @ 6:24 pm
Sorry if I recalled it incorrectly it was straight from memory.
You see there was BBCB (Before Blue Crab Boulevard ) and ABCB.
So I need to start reading the archives if I’m ever going to be considered a scholar here. I’ll go out tomorrow and get some Monk’s cloth in the meantime.
By Gaius, January 21, 2008 @ 6:44 pm
Heh. No need for the sackcloth and ashes. I remembered it when you posted the comment.