L.A. Times editor fired

Los Angeles Times editor James O'Shea has been fired just 14 months after assuming the post, over a budgetary dispute with publisher David Hiller. "The dispute arose from Hiller's desire to cut the newsroom's expense budget during the heated presidential campaign, a time when such expenses usually spike," writes Richard Perez-Pena in the New York Times. O'Shea was Chicago Tribune managing editor before joining the Times in November 2006 as executive vice president and editor. Hiller was named publisher a month earlier. He had held the same position at the Chicago paper. The Wall Street Journal was first to report O'Shea's dismissal.

The removal of the editor, James E. O’Shea, by the publisher, David D. Hiller, mirrors the odd spectacle of a little more than a year ago, when the previous publisher, Jeffrey M. Johnson, was fired for refusing to eliminate newsroom jobs as directed by the paper’s owner, the Tribune Company. In each case, a longtime Tribune executive was expected to rein in costs at the paper, but instead sided with the newsroom and lost his job for it.

The removal of the editor, James E. O’Shea, by the publisher, David D. Hiller, mirrors the odd spectacle of a little more than a year ago, when the previous publisher, Jeffrey M. Johnson, was fired for refusing to eliminate newsroom jobs as directed by the paper’s owner, the Tribune Company. In each case, a longtime Tribune executive was expected to rein in costs at the paper, but instead sided with the newsroom and lost his job for it.



Click on the headline to read the New York Times piece by Richard Perez-Pena