Whoever winds up owning the LA Times once parent Tribune’s fate is determined will have a very different newsroom based on plans announced today. Publisher David Hiller and Editor James O’Shea, the team imported from Chicago after the LAT’s top execs balked at deep cuts, are implementing major changes. O’Shea’s first step: moving business editor Russ Stanton to the new post of innovation editor responsible for remaking the LAT into a 24/7 news operation. He’s also instituting a crash course to teach reporters how to post to the web. The moves follow the delivery of a scathing internal report of an internal report by a newsroom committee appointed by Shea predecessor Dean Baquet to examine the the paper’s operations; it was first dubbed “The Manhattan Project” and then “Spring Street committee after the LAT’s address. According to the LAT story by reporter James Rainey, the seven-page report delivered late last year and seen only by a few top editors and execs demands an emphasis on internet news. Some of the findings:
-- “To put it bluntly, as a news organization, we are not web-savvy. If anything, we are web-stupid.”
-- a number of impediments standing in the way of latimes.com’s sucess including low staffing (18 editorial employees) and “creaky technology”
-- the failure to integrate the print newsroom with the online staff, leading to delays in breaking news.
-- a difference of philosophy between latimes.com GM Rob Barrett, who wanted to go hyperlocal, and senior editor Joe Sappell, who preferred “communities of affinity” and multimedia. Sappell, whose appointment was seen at the time as a sign that online was being taken seriously by the print side, will leave the site to focus on long-form journalism.
-- fights between local management and Tribune Interactive stalled expansion.
Changes ahead: A new travel site with ecommerce is slated for launch next month. The LAT will try yet again to make its Calendar print section pay off online, this time as a destination for personal entertainment choices. The paper will experiment with hyperlocal journalism. It all has to happen without more funding.
Barrett promoted: One symbol of change: Barrett is now a VP of the LAT Media Group, reflecting the emphasis being placed from the top.
O’Shea’s prepared remarks | Hiller memo (via Romenesko)
E&P: Predictably, some of the “rank and file” are saying it can only be done with more resources. Washington Bureau Chief Doyle McManus takes a more reality-based approach: “It’s long overdue. We all know that if we are going to survive and continue to be able to produce journalism of the quality we are known for, we are going to have to succeed online.”
Related:
-- LAT Starts Innovation Project Compared To Making Atomic Bomb