Washington DC Post, Reuters and Los Angeles Times Search for New Top Editors
A generational changing of the guard is coming to the news industry.
Top journalists who were still in school when newsroom giants born in the 1940s and 1950s like Norman Pearlstine and Martin Baron were making their reputations are now in talks with headhunters and news executives, hoping to land one of many big editorial jobs that have improbably come open at the same time.
A series of recent retirements and departures means there are top positions to be filled at Reuters, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, HuffPost, Vox Media and Wired. Of the three legacy news organizations — Reuters, The Post and The Times — The Times is the furthest along in its search.
Mr. Pearlstine, 78, who brought some stability to the Los Angeles daily during a two-year run as its top editor, stepped down in December. He had announced his decision in October, a few weeks after his paper published an article on the lack of diversity in its newsroom. The same article reported on doubts among some staff members concerning Mr. Pearlstine’s leadership.
Karen Danziger, the managing partner of the executive search firm Koller Search Partners, is working with The Los Angeles Times’s executives and its owners, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong and Michele B. Chan. They have identified some internal candidates and more than a dozen external candidates, according to a person with knowledge of discussions, who was not authorized to talk about them publicly, as well as others involved in recent talks.
The internal candidates include a managing editor, Kimi Yoshino, 49; the editorial page editor, Sewell Chan, 43, a former editor at The New York Times; and Julia Turner, 42, a deputy managing editor who was previously the top editor of Slate. Executives have also discussed Gustavo Arellano, 41, a columnist at the paper who was the editor of OC Weekly, an alternative publication in Orange County.
The executives have also spoken with a number of outside candidates. They include Janice Min, 51, an editor and news executive known for her savvy remaking of The Hollywood Reporter; Sally Buzbee, 55, the top editor of The Associated Press; and Anne Kornblut, 47, who led The Post’s political coverage before becoming Facebook’s head of global curation, including news.
In addition to those three, decision makers at The Los Angeles Times have discussed Kevin Merida, 64, who is ensconced at the Walt Disney Company as a senior vice president and the editor in chief of The Undefeated, the ESPN platform that reports on the intersection of sports, race and culture. Mr. Merida started his career at The Milwaukee Journal and The Dallas Morning News before joining The Washington Post. He spent more than two decades at The Post, rising to managing editor, and left for The Undefeated in 2015.
Los Angeles executives have also considered two high-level editors at The New York Times: Carolyn Ryan, 56, a deputy managing editor who has led the paper’s political coverage, metro reporting and Washington bureau, and Marc Lacey, 55, a former national editor who was promoted to assistant managing editor in December and has been put in charge of live news coverage.