Los Angeles Times Announces New Integrated Approach to Content and News Gathering

Los Angeles Times Announces New Integrated Approach to Content and News Gathering

Names Two Senior Executives to Lead Multimedia Efforts

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- The Los Angeles Times Media Group today announced several organizational changes to enhance and integrate news- gathering and reporting across multiple media channels.

"We are rebuilding our business to reflect how readers, users and advertisers are using media today," said David Hiller, publisher and CEO of The Times. "People choose different platforms and products to meet their varying news and information needs throughout the day, and we are positioning The Times to be there when they turn to us."

To accelerate the integration, the company has named current Business Editor Russ Stanton to the newly created position of Innovation Editor, reporting directly to Jim O'Shea, editor of The Times. In that role, Stanton will work with editors and reporters across all news and features desks to transform the newsroom into a 24/7 operation that continuously breaks news online, and publishes in print the analysis, personality and utility that great writers and editors can provide in that medium. Stanton joined The Times in 1997 as a reporter in the Orange County edition and has been Orange County Business Editor, Technology Editor and Deputy Business Editor. As business editor, he oversees the paper's coverage of technology and the business of entertainment, two key components of The Times multi-media strategy. Named a Fellow of the Herbert J. Davenport Economics Program at the University of Missouri, he also earned his B.A. at California State University.

Additionally, The Times has named Robertson Barrett, currently General Manager of latimes.com, to be a Vice President of the Los Angeles Times Media Group. Barrett has led The Times online efforts since 2005 and has served as a senior new media executive at Primedia Inc.'s Channel One Network, ABCNEWS.com and TIME Online. He began his career as a staff writer for The News & Observer in Raleigh, NC, and earned a B.A. from Duke University and an M.A. from Harvard University.

"Russ and Rob will work closely together in guiding and integrating our efforts across print and online," said Hiller. The two will also lead a company-wide team to assess and recommend changes across all departments to retool the whole enterprise for the web and print.

"Our philosophy going forward is 'Break it on the web, expand on it in print,'" said O'Shea. "We have to change what we are doing online, and also in print, to better engage readers and users who can choose every day among myriad sources for their news and information. The old print publishing model by itself doesn't cut it anymore."

latimes.com will lead with breaking news to provide readers immediate access to multimedia content as stories develop, as well as offer vastly increased personal utility. The Times print edition will focus more on editorial analysis, broader investigative reporting, exploration of trends and a wealth of features. Every journalist on staff will be responsible for reporting for both print and Web and the result promises a dynamic, round-the- clock source for indispensable and uniquely differentiated news and information in Southern California.

The changes announced today are based, in part, on the work of the Spring Street Project, an effort organized in the newsroom last Fall to find ways to engage and grow the Los Angeles Times audience in print and online. Several product debuts herald the company's new approach to content development, beginning today with the launch of MyLatimes.com. A free, personalized service utilizing the fast-growing RSS technology, the MyLATimes.com site (http://my.latimes.com/) is designed to give consumers a faster, easier, and more flexible way to view The Times content that is most important to them, and also allow access to a select group of news sites that Los Angeles Times editors have chosen.

In late February a completely redesigned and integrated Travel offering will be unveiled with print and online components targeted toward local and regional destinations and will include a viral, self-sustaining travel community supporting user-generated content. A similarly re-imagined Calendar Weekend/CalendarLive.com product will be introduced in late spring and additional products will roll out through the year to serve the news and information needs of people in Los Angeles and Southern California.

About the Los Angeles Times

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Los Angeles Times is the largest metropolitan daily newspaper in the country, with a daily readership of nearly 2.2 million and about 3.3 million on Sunday. The Los Angeles Times and its media businesses and affiliates -- including latimes.com, TheEnvelope.com, Times Community Newspapers, Recycler Classifieds, Hoy, and California Community News -- are read by approximately 8.1 million or 62% of all adults in the Southern California marketplace every week.

The Los Angeles Times, has been covering Southern California for over 125 years and is part of Tribune Company (NYSE:TRB), one of the country's leading media companies with businesses in publishing, the Internet and broadcasting. Additional information about the Los Angeles Times is available at www.latimes.com/mediacenter.

Source: The Los Angeles Times

CONTACT: Nancy Sullivan of The Los Angeles Times, +1-213-237-6160,
nancy.sullivan@latimes.com

Web site: http://www.latimes.com/
http://my.latimes.com/

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