NYT: LA Times Editor Openly Defies Owner’s Call for Job Cuts

[DeepModem Mom]

Los Angeles Times Editor Openly Defies Owner’s Call for Job Cuts
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
Published: September 15, 2006

The editor of The Los Angeles Times appears to be in a showdown with the paper’s owner, the Tribune Company, over job cuts in the newsroom.

In a highly unusual move, Dean P. Baquet, who was named editor last year, was quoted yesterday in his own newspaper as saying he was defying the paper’s corporate parent in Chicago and would not make the cuts it requested.

The paper’s publisher, Jeffrey M. Johnson, said he agreed with Mr. Baquet. “Newspapers can’t cut their way into the future,” he told the paper.

The number of jobs at stake is unclear but the paper, the fourth largest in the country, has eliminated more than 200 positions over the last five years from an editorial staff that now numbers about 940....

***

It is rare for an editor to go public with a position on internal budget battles and for the editor’s own newspaper to report on it. The decision by The Los Angeles Times to take its battle against Tribune public may signal that Mr. Baquet is trying to rally support on the paper’s behalf, at a time when Tribune is in turmoil and some local businessmen have expressed interest in buying the paper....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/15/business/media/15paper.html?ex=1158897600&en=89412fb042a62a6f&ei=5099&partner=TOPIXNEWS

[Syrinx]

1. Lou Grant would be proud

:)

[MrPrax]

2. Good for him...

Class act...acts like this do much to restore the credibility of newspapers and can go along way in building back readership. I don't mind giving a company a buck or two if there is some integrity in the approach of management towards their workers and their profession.

:applause: