Yesterday, after months of speculation, the LA Times appointed its next executive editor. The paper has given the job to Kevin Merida, the editor in chief of The Undefeated, an arm of ESPN that reports on the intersection of sports, race, and culture; prior to working there, he spent twenty-two years at the Washington Post, including as a managing editor, and also worked as a reporter at the Dallas Morning News and Milwaukee Journal. Merida, who is Black, will be just the third top editor of color in the history of the LA Times; his hiring follows a public promise that Patrick Soon-Shiong, the owner, made last year to diversify the paper’s ranks. Merida will be tasked with growing the paper’s digital-subscriber base, which currently lags those of bigger rivals, as well as its own goals. “I see nothing but opportunity,” he told Meg James, an LA Times reporter. “I think this can be the most innovative media company in the country.” Merida, who is sixty-four years old, is respected across the media industry, and the reaction to his appointment was broadly positive. Dean Baquet, a former LA Times executive editor who now holds the same post at the New York Times, called Merida a “really good choice.” Colleagues from Merida’s days at the Post—including Dan Balz, Philip Rucker, and Wesley Lowery, who has since left that paper and sharply criticized its overall leadership—were similarly effusive; Michelle Ye Hee Lee, a Post reporter who is also president of the Asian American... Continue reading at 'Columbia Journalism Review'
[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2021-05-04 12:30:57 UTC ]
Written By: Gayle Feldman Publication Date: Thu, 26/05/2011 - 08:52 Thriller writer Barry Eisler, who turned his back on a two-book deal for half a million dollars from St Martins Press, has decided to accept six figures from Amazon and become one of its first frontlist authors. The Eisler... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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