Tang, previously the top editor for the editorial page, steps into the role during a period of turmoil for the newspaper following the resignation of a top editor and significant layoffs. (Ricardo DeAratanha/Los Angeles Times)
The Los Angeles Times announced Tuesday that it was laying off at least 115 people — or more than 20% of the newsroom — marking one of the largest workforce reductions in the history of the 142-year-old institution. The move comes amid projections for another year of heavy losses for the newspaper.
Los Angeles Times managing editors Shani Hilton and Sara Yasin have stepped down amid continuing negotiations on staff layoffs. Hilton and Yasin were two of the four editors leading the paper after the exit of executive editor Kevin Merida earlier this month.
The newsroom, which is working under an expired labor contract, will strike for a day and hold a “Rally to Save Local Journalism” in downtown Los Angeles.
Exclusives
The L.A. Times Guild called an emergency meeting on Thursday after leadership was told that the newspaper intends to “imminently execute another major round of layoffs,” according to a memo. The Bargaining Committee told members that it can’t say exactly how many staffers the company is intending to lay off, however, in the memo obtained by the New York Times, the union says “This is the Big One.”
The Los Angeles Times has opened up its offer to buyout the contracts of editorial staffers to anyone who wishes to volunteer as the newspaper moves forward on plans to lay off dozens of employees amid declining advertising revenue.
“The restructuring stems from the same persistent economic headwinds facing news media across the country,” the executive editor said in an email to the staff.
L.A. Times’ ‘Hear Me Out’ Turns Letters Into Video Gold
Hear Me Out, a Los Angeles Times feature that spins letters to the editor into video segments, offers a novel example of user-generated content for broadcasters to emulate.
One of the biggest newspaper jobs goes to a groundbreaking journalist who spent two decades at The Washington Post.
She may not be on the masthead, but Soon-Shiong has become a regular voice in the Los Angeles Times newsroom. That might normally be cause for tension, but many staffers say it’s a welcome change.
Congress modified the PPP rules so that local newspapers and broadcasters could receive the money. The Times received the maximum amount.
Patrick Soon-Shiong, the owner of The Los Angeles Times, is denying reports that said he was exploring selling the company. The denial on Friday came after The Wall Street Journal reported that the billionaire investor was exploring selling the company just three years after he bought the Times along with the San Diego Union- Tribune and other weeklies from Tribune Publishing in 2018 for $500 million.
L.A. Times Owner’s Videos Blur Ethical Line
The Los Angeles Times’s ongoing video series about the science behind the novel coronavirus has a lot to recommend it. It is a wide-ranging, probing and factual account of the origins and biology of the pandemic. It also features an unlikely host: Patrick Soon-Shiong, a physician and billionaire biotech entrepreneur. Soon-Shiong happens to be the owner and executive chairman of the Los Angeles Times.
In an industrywide changing of the guard, other big newsroom jobs that have come open include the No. 1 slots at Vox, HuffPost and Wired. Above, Martin Baron, the executive editor of The Washington Post, announced this week that he was stepping down after a 45-year career.
Growing chatter that Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron could soon retire is complicating searches for several other high-profile top news jobs, including the quest for a new head of the Los Angeles Times, media sources say.
The Los Angeles Times and Tribune Publishing have jointly agreed to pay $3 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought by multi-ethnic group of journalists who claimed that they were systematically paid less than their white male counterparts.
His resignation comes after a summer of criticism about a lack of staff diversity and incidents of toxic and poor leadership.
Two years after the Los Angeles Times reverted to local ownership, the country’s largest metropolitan daily newspaper is facing a painful internal reckoning over glaring deficiencies and missteps regarding race and representation in its pages and its staff.
The Los Angeles Times is offering its staff voluntary buyouts less than two years after biotech billionaire Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong swooped in to buy the beleaguered newspaper in hopes of turning it around. In an email to staffers on Wednesday, The California Times, the company that owns the paper, announced voluntary buyout packages to employees who have worked at the company for least two years.
A federal judge on Tuesday lifted a controversial order requiring The Los Angeles Times to delete information in an article published over the weekend. U.S. District Judge John Walter walked back his original decision after the Times protested with the support of newsrooms across the country, citing First Amendment concerns.
Scott Kraft becomes managing editor. Kris Viesselman, on Monday joined The Times in the newly created position of chief transformation editor and creative director. Kimi Yoshino, 46, who has served as business editor for the last four years, becomes deputy managing editor, overseeing sports, business, arts, entertainment and lifestyle coverage.
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, who will soon take over the newspaper, dropped a bombshell to employees on Friday: He is moving the offices to El Segundo.
Former Los Angeles Times editor-in-chief Lewis D’Vorkin and dozens of other employees of Tronc Inc. were dismissed on Thursday. The cuts, which were made in a joint meeting with all the laid off employees present, included Tribune Interactive’s Los Angeles-based video and online content teams, which operate separately from the Los Angeles Times. No information on the total number of layoffs was immediately available.
Inside Tronc’s Sale Of The Los Angeles Times
Tronc is getting a big premium for its flagship asset, and the Times is getting a return to private, local ownership. But a lot of questions remain about where Patrick Soon-Shiong will take his new prize.
Biotech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong has agreed to purchase the Los Angeles Times from its parent company Tronc, restoring local ownership and perhaps ending a turbulent period for the storied 136-year-old institution. Chicago-based Tronc on Wednesday announced the sale of The Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune to Soon-Shiong’s investment firm Nant Capital for nearly $500 million in cash. In addition to the purchase price, the deal includes the assumption of $90 million in pension liabilities.
The owner of the Los Angeles Times is close to a deal to sell the newspaper to Patrick Soon-Shiong, a billionaire Los Angeles doctor, two people familiar with the negotiations said Tuesday. The $500 million deal comes amid months of turmoil at the Times, including upheaval in the editorial and management ranks. The transaction would include the Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune, these people said. Soon-Shiong is a major shareholder in Tronc, the parent company of the Times.
After years of painful, protracted decline, the Los Angeles Times has recently descended into chaos: There have been three editors-in-chief in less than six months; the publisher has been put on leave for prior sexual harassment allegations; and the newly unionized staff already fears that the owner is trying to bust up their union. Mistrust is high, morale low. The ultimate fate of the paper is an open question in the newsroom.
Jim Kirk, the former publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times, will take over as editor in chief. He will replace Lewis D’Vorkin, whose tenure roiled the newsroom.
The newsroom employees of the Los Angeles Times have voted to form a union for the first time amid growing turmoil at the storied paper. The National Labor Relations Board counted the ballots in downtown Los Angeles; the final vote count, according to the union and supporters and observers who were in the room and tweeting during the vote, was 248-44.
Los Angeles Times’ parent company, Tronc, said Thursday that it had opened an investigation into past conduct of Times Publisher Ross Levinsohn following a detailed report by NPR. NPR’s media writer David Folkenflik reported that Levinsohn has been a defendant in two sexual harassment lawsuits and that the executive engaged in “frat-boy” behavior in work settings before joining the Times in August.
Journalists at the paper, in the middle of organizing a union, disagreed with the new editor’s call to lie low on social media.
In a statement Tuesday, Disney said it was restoring access to the newspaper after “productive discussions with the newly installed leadership” at the Los Angeles Times. Disney had barred the Times from its screenings after the paper published a two-part investigative series on the company’s business dealings in Anaheim, Calif., where Disneyland is.
