L.A. Times’ Innovation Editor May Replace Ousted O’Shea

Russ Stanton, innovation editor at the Los Angeles Times, is the frontrunner to be appointed editor now that James O’Shea has been fired, according to a source close to the situation.

Stanton is currently in charge of editorial content at latimes.com and has been innovation editor since last January, writes Editor & Publisher.

Publisher David Hiller did not actually cut the newsroom budget, the source avers, but rather kept it flat after O’Shea had requested a $4 million increase.

According to the Associated Press, however, Hiller says he asked for a 1 percent cut in the 2008 news budget, while O’Shea requested a $3 million increase.

“They were proposing an increase in a year when, like all newspapers, revenue was down dramatically,” Hiller told the Wall Street Journal. “The idea that a newsroom budget would be increased was regrettably totally unrealistic.”

While O’Shea claims he was fired, Hiller says the decision was mutual, adding, “The fact is, we didn’t see eye-to-eye.” Hiller says that even before the current situation, he had envisioned O’Shea as a transitional editor, serving only a year or two.

In a memo to the newspaper’s staff (via The New York Times), O’Shea wrote that he disagrees completely with “the way this company allocates resources to its newsrooms, not just here but at Tribune newspapers all around the country.”