L.A. Times Editor Confirms Demise of Editorial-Led Magazine

Los Angeles Times editor Russ Stanton has confirmed The New York Times’s report that the news department will no longer be in charge of the Los Angeles Times magazine. He denied, however, that an editor has already been hired for the publication.

His memo to staff follows a NY Times report Monday that said the paper’s magazine would soon fall under the control of the paper’s business ops. The story also said that Annie Gilbar, former host of a show on Home Shopping Network and former editor of InStyle magazine, had been hired as editor.

“…It is my understanding that the group has yet to hire a staff for this publication, including an editor,” Stanton said in the memo. The editorial department will no longer be able to be able to produce the magazine, he wrote (via Broadcasting & Cable), claiming that, even as a monthly, “the magazine is something we cannot afford to continue at a time of diminishing newsroom resources. So the editorial department will stop producing it after the July issue, and we’ll be looking to find jobs for the magazine staff within the paper.”

“At the same time,” he wrote, “the company has been looking at possible ways to continue to publish a magazine, but outside of the direction of the editorial department.”

An L.A. Times spokeswoman pointed out in a statement that The Los Angeles Times Media Group already publishes several other titles outside the newsroom, including Hoy, MetroMix and the Times Community Newspapers.

The Broadcasting & Cable article includes the entire text of the memo.