I'm posting less here due to the distractions of other projects — sorry, folks — and the desire for a bit of a break from the relentless news cycle, but this was a more interesting day than usual on the local media front. First, I drove over to El Segundo for a guest appearance on the new Spectrum News 1 channel, where anchor Alex Cohen (the former KPCC host) was devoting her hour-long nightly show Inside the Issues with Alex Cohen to the current state of local news in Southern California. I don't know that I was all that insightful, but we did touch on the resurgence of the Los Angeles Times as well as changes at Los Angeles Magazine, LA Weekly and the smaller local print news outlets. Other segments on the show featured USC emeritus professor of journalism Judy Muller, LA Taco editor in chief Daniel Hernandez and LA Business Journal publisher Anna Magzanyan.

Cohen — who complimented Susan LA Tempa's recent Native Intelligence piece on old-time Los Angeles newspapers — said the early internal numbers look promising on the Spectrum News 1 programming. It turns out Monday was Cohen's first night in a new 8 p.m. slot — she was moved to make room for a new hour-long show, L.A. Times Today, which debuted Monday night. Spectrum anchor Lisa McRee hosts from the Times newsroom across El Segundo. It's not fair to judge any news program by its first day, so I'll hold off on any kind of review. The first show had an interview with Times executive editor Norman Pearlstine, and it looks like the shows will mix pre-recorded segments on food and softer features, some with McRee at the center, with Times reporters and editors amplifying on stories from the paper. Plus a copious amount of sports and contributions from Patt Morrison and other columnists. L.A. Times Today airs daily at 7 p.m.

If you missed our 8pm show, do not worry! We are back at 11pm. Tonight, Kevin Roderick of @LAObserved speaks about #media and how hyper-local newspapers are "much smaller and weaker than they used to be." More on #LosAngeles #news @SpecNews1SoCal @alexcoheninla pic.twitter.com/Bj3iHMqhNR

— Inside the Issues (@IssuesOn1) February 12, 2019

After the taping, and lunch on the lovely small-town side of El Segundo beachward from Pacific Coast Highway, I got back to my desk to find email from the Times announcing in one big batch a bunch of new hires and promotions that were rolled out in the newsroom in recent weeks. They include the paper's first designated obituary writer in quite a while, a health and science writer snagged from the New York Times, a Seattle bureau chief and a new LAPD beat reporter hired from the Tampa Bay Times. I've reported some of these previously on the LA Observed Twitter feed, which is turning into my go-to day-to-day outlet for short news items that don't merit a full post here.

Also announced were the return of some more returning Times veterans who had left in the last few years, when things looked darkest under Tronc and the previous editorial regime. Alice Short has returned to the Times newsroom with the title of Senior Editor, working on the revived Column One front-page showcase for top stories. Paul Feldman has returned to the foreign-national desk as Assistant Editor.

Monday's memo to the newsroom from executive editor Pearlstine and managing editor Scott Kraft explains that the paper, in the eight months since Patrick Soon-Shiong took ownership, has "been on a mission" to fix the damage from the Tribune and Tronc years. "Our editorial staff, though still significantly smaller than we were three years ago, has grown by more than 25% since Patrick acquired The Times in June," they write. "Meanwhile, we continue to develop new areas of coverage for new audiences on new platforms." An interview with Soon-Shiong by Spectrum News 1 anchor Giselle Fernandez also aired Monday.

Here is the entire memo. It misspells the name of new hire Emily Baumgaertner.

From: Pearlstine, Norman
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2019 4:17 PM< br/> Subject: Staff Announcement

Dear Colleagues,

Over the eight months since The Times was returned to private ownership under Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, we’ve been on a mission.

We’ve moved quickly to strengthen our daily newsgathering operation and restore many of the signature pieces of journalism that distinguish The Times from other great publications.

We’ve promoted, recruited and hired as we rebuild and expand areas of coverage that are of value to our community and for which The Times can and should be seen as the authoritative source.

During this process, we’ve had many occasions to celebrate the elevation of dedicated colleagues, the return of respected alumni, and the arrival of sought-after talent.

Today stands out, as we welcome industry-leading editors, a Pulitzer winning writer, and investigative reporters who have won awards for their work nationwide, from Sacramento and Portland to Tampa Bay and Baltimore.

Please join us as we begin by congratulating these valued editors on their new roles.

Jack Leonard, who recently took on new responsibilities as metro’s investigative editor, will take on an expanded role, coordinating metro’s investigative efforts as well as accountability work across the paper. As senior editor/investigations, Jack will continue to work with metro investigative reporters but also will coordinate investigative work in other departments as well as investigative partnerships with other organizations. Jack’s role will be to coordinate the award-winning investigative work that has been a hallmark of our staff for decades, and is done in every department at the paper. He has been both an investigative reporter and editor. He was part of the reporting team that exposed fraud and abuse in California’s conservatorship system and another that revealed how early releases from L.A.’s jail system perverted justice and fostered more crime. As an editor, he has guided, among other major investigations, a sweeping expose of corruption in the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department that helped lead to the conviction of the sheriff.

Mary Ann Meek, a deputy metro editor, will become one of our senior editors responsible for A1 and top stories. As many of you know, Mary Ann has been doing a good part of this job for more than a year, overseeing A1 three days a week, and working with top stories both for online and print. She will continue to have A1 and top story responsibilities, working alongside Ashley Dunn, senior editor/weekends. Her expanded duties will include a larger role in the A1 process, and she will have more time to devote to helping guide our best work online as well as in print. Mary Ann has been an editor at The Times for 25 years, showing a steady hand in some of the biggest stories. On her first day flying solo as an assignment editor in National, federal agents in Texas stormed the Branch Davidian compound. She has been an essential part of helping guide our coverage of four presidential elections, the Oklahoma City bombing, the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina. After leaving national to become executive news editor, she was in the A1 chair the night U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden. She is an L.A. native and graduated with a journalism degree from USC, beginning her career at PBS and the (departed) Herald Examiner.

Steve Marble, an assistant editor on the Foreign/National desk, will take on a new assignment that will be familiar to him — obits editor. Steve will manage, freshen and add to our store of prepared obituaries. He also will work across the paper, assigning editing and occasionally writing obits, and be the assigning editor for obits written off the news. Steve is a native Californian (from Pasadena) who began his career at the Daily Pilot and Long Beach Press Telegram. He joined The Times in 1999 as an assistant city editor and spent time at the Orange County edition as well as the city desk in L.A. He was one of the primary editors on the series of stories about corruption in Bell that won the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2011. Since 2017, he’s been an assistant editor on the foreign/national desk.

And please join us in welcoming this group of talented journalists to The Times...

Emily Baumgartner – Health and Science reporter

Emily, who currently works in the New York Times Washington Bureau, is coming onto our health and science team. Her reporting experience includes stories on disease outbreaks, breaking news and health policy. For three years, she was a correspondent and project coordinator for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, where she reported for the Atlantic, Foreign Policy, the Washington Post and Scientific American from Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo. She has a master’s degree in public health and a bachelor of science in public health from George Washington University and is the author of two publications for scientific journals on cancer genes and traditional medicine in Madagascar.

Anita Chabria – Sacramento reporter

Anita, assistant managing editor at the Sacramento Bee, is joining us as an enterprise reporter in the Sacramento bureau. As a reporter for the Bee, she covered race, immigration, criminal justice and social justice, focusing on accountability journalism as well as breaking news and analysis. She broke and covered the shooting of a mentally ill black man by police in 2016 – stories that led to a new police chief and major reforms in Sacramento. Her previous work has appeared in the Guardian U.S., USA Today, the L.A. Times and Voice of San Diego, among other publications. She has an undergraduate degree from UC Santa Cruz and a graduate degree in journalism from UC Berkeley.

Paul Feldman – Assistant Editor, Foreign/National

Paul, long a mainstay of our Spring Street newsroom, is returning to The Times as an editor in Foreign/National. His familiar bearded face reappeared in the El Segundo newsroom a few months ago when he returned on a contract to help us out, displaying his wit, incisive editing touch and a very small slice of his famous book collection. We quickly realized how much we had missed him. Paul started at the paper in 1983 as a reporter in the South Bay edition, later moving downtown to cover various beats and amass more than 1,500 bylines, including some on the coverage of the L.A. Riots and the Northridge earthquake, both of which won spot news Pulitzer Prizes. He went on to become an assistant Metro editor, deputy Metro editor and assistant Foreign editor before leaving in late 2015. His career also included stops at the Lawrence (Mass.) Eagle-Tribune, the (Madison) Wisconsin State Journal and the Bergen (N.J.) Record. After leaving The Times, he worked as a staff writer for Fair Warning, a consumer journalism website.

Stuart Leavenworth – Assistant Metro Editor

Stuart joins the metro assignment desk from the McClatchy Washington, D.C., bureau, where he was a national correspondent covering environment, science, energy, climate change and Asian affairs. He was previously Beijing Bureau Chief for McClatchy, and his work has appeared in the New York Times, National Geographic, the Guardian and the Christian Science Monitor. Earlier in his career, he worked at the Sacramento Bee, as a reporter and, for four years, editor of its editorial page. This background makes Stuart an ideal editor to help us chronicle California and keep The Times at the center of the conversation about its future. He has a bachelor’s degree from UC Santa Cruz and a master’s in journalism from Columbia University. His reporting has won several awards, including the National Press Foundation’s Thomas Stokes award for energy writing in 2003.

Richard Martin – Assistant Metro Editor

Richard joins our metro assignment desk from the Baltimore Sun, where he has been senior editor for criminal justice and education since 2014 and guided the paper’s coverage of the death of Freddie Gray and its aftermath. Richard has deep experience guiding accountability journalism, fighting for access to public documents and bringing nuance and context to the many issues facing the criminal justice system today. His previous experience includes stints as an assistant metro editor at the Tampa Bay Times and Seattle Times. Previously, he was city editor at the Californian in Salinas and an editor at Florida Today in Melbourne, Fla., and at the Pacific Daily News in Guam. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Guam and is a member of the Asian American Journalists Assn.

Michael Ordoña — The Envelope, reporter

Michael, a longtime Times freelancer, is joining us as a reporter on The Envelope, where he’ll work with Elena Howe on our coverage of film, television and music awards and award contenders. Michael has written for our Calendar and Envelope sections for 12 years, and has extensively covered film, television and music – with special interests in awards season, the Marvel Comics Universe and animation. He has also been a regular contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle, and his movie reviews can be found on Common Sense Media. A versatile writer, Michael’s most notable stories include a joint interview with Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Thomas Anderson, plus deep dives into the "Hurt Locker" sniper scene and the climactic transformation in "Black Swan." More recent standout features include Envelope cover stories on Rami Malek and Alfonso Cuarón, and a Chronicle column on whitewashing in the MCU. Michael earned his degree from USC’s Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism but still roots for Bay Area teams even though he’s lived in L.A. twice as long as in Berkeley. He is also the proud father of twin 10-year-olds (a boy and a girl), who, he notes, now write film reviews as well.

Mark Puente – LAPD reporter

Mark joins Metro to cover the Los Angeles Police Department. Mark is a longtime investigative reporter who produced a string of big scoops at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Baltimore Sun and most recently the Tampa Bay Times. He specializes in law enforcement accountability, and his stories have exposed wrongdoing and corruption. His digging into brutality in the Baltimore Police Department led to widespread outrage, a federal investigation and served as a bellwether for the Freddie Gray scandal that would later grip the nation. In Florida, Mark exposed weak regulators who allowed job placement services to rip off the public. Mark is a shoe-leather reporter known for his relentlessness and drive. He became a journalist after working as a truck driver for 14 years – an experience, he says, that "has helped me connect with sources from all walks of life." He has a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Richard Read – Seattle correspondent

Rich joins us as our Northwest correspondent based in Seattle. Rich spent more than two decades at the Oregonian in Portland, where he won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting for a series that illustrated the domestic impact of the Asian economic crisis by profiling the local industry that exports frozen French fries. He was part of a four-person team (including our own Kim Christensen) that won the Pulitzer for public service for a series detailing INS abuses in 2001, and was a 2008 finalist, with a team, for stories on the semiconductor industry expanding in China. Since 2016, he was one of three members of an investigative team at NerdWallet, uncovering student-loan debt-relief scams and exposing conflicts of interest in the USDA’s enforcement and regulation of the organic food industry. While at the Oregonian, he was Asia bureau chief, based in Tokyo, for five years and, upon returning to Portland, covered international business as well as education. He’s a graduate of Amherst College, with a degree in English, and did graduate study in economics and law at Harvard.

Alice Short — Senior Editor/Column One

Alice, one of the paper’s finest editors, is rejoining us as a senior editor. She will work with Steve Padilla on Column One as well as other major enterprise. Throughout her career, as a reporter and editor, Alice has shown an exceptional flair for narrative writing and editing, showcasing her expertise on an extraordinarily broad range of subjects. She spent seven years as assistant managing editor for features, overseeing travel, books, fashion, food, home and health, before her departure in January 2016 to work as a freelance writer. During her time away, she continued to guide special projects for the paper, including the popular and successful Year End section. She also wrote delightful pieces for Travel, including stories from Malta, Sicily, San Antonio, New Orleans and Mexico. Earlier at The Times, she assisted in the birth of the daily feature section that was then called Life & Style and was editor of the Los Angeles Times Magazine for five years. She also has been daily Calendar editor and was an editor in metro working with some of our finest writers. Her stint as the assignment editor for our late food critic Jonathan Gold earned her screen time, as well, in the heralded documentary “City of Gold.” Alice, who is a past president of the Society of Features Journalism, has a bachelor’s degree in history from UCLA. She and her husband, Steve, live in Mar Vista.

These latest additions fill positions that have long been vacant. Our editorial staff, though still significantly smaller than we were three years ago, has grown by more than 25% since Patrick acquired The Times in June. Meanwhile, we continue to develop new areas of coverage for new audiences on new platforms.

We recognize that our legacy print business remains in secular decline, and the recent round of layoffs announced by some of the most prominent digital media companies, suggests that many of the new businesses they – and we – are developing, while promising, aren’t yet profitable.

We shall continue to add to the staff in coming months -- even as we review all our operations to see where we can be more efficient – all with an eye toward rebuilding while investing in new opportunities for growth.

We are incredibly optimistic about our future because we see so many opportunities for talented journalists to pursue great ideas and great stories.

Norm and Scott

That's a lot of new movement at the LAT since the last time I rounded it all up. Here below are the relevant internal memos, leading with the hiring of Arellano and returning former Times veteran Maria LaGanga.

From: "Pearlstine, Norman"
Date: November 19, 2018 at 10:43:16 AM PST
To: yyeditall
Subject: Metro Staff

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce the following additions to the Metro staff, thanks to the fine recruiting efforts of Assistant Managing Editor Shelby Grad and his editors.

Maria LaGanga has returned to Metro as a general assignment reporter. Over the years, Maria was one of The Times most respected bylines, serving as our longtime San Francisco bureau chief and later as a national correspondent. In her new role, Maria will work out of the El Segundo office, helping us expand our California coverage, both by helping anchor breaking news and traveling the state chronicling the people, issues and ideas of our time. Maria will help with rewrite, deploy on the fires, floods and other big stories we've come to set our watches to, as well as write for Column One. Maria comes to us after stints at the Guardian U.S. and the Idaho Statesman-Review.

Gustavo Arellano is joining The Times as a features writer. Gustavo has already established himself as one of Southern California's most astute, creative and prolific chroniclers of our cultural fabric. He will build on that work in his new role, with a special emphasis on the diversity of our region. Gustavo plans to cover this beat at street level, exploring communities and subcultures that often get overlooked, and profiling the people and places that make modern Los Angeles tick and how they manifest themselves in politics, demographic change, art, food and economics. Gustavo's work will appear in the California section as well as Page 1 and Column One. He will also contribute to the food section, Calendar and other departments.

Gustavo was most recently a columnist on The Times' Op/Ed page. Prior to that, he spent about a decade as editor and publisher of the OC Weekly, where he oversaw an impressive wave of investigative and cultural reporting. He has authored three books: The best-selling “Ask a Mexican” (2007), “Orange County: A personal history.” (2008), “Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America” (2012).

Melody Gutierrez is joining Metro as a reporter in the Sacramento bureau. Melody is one of the most respected members of the Sacramento press corps, skilled at both breaking legislative news and investigative journalism. She is currently the Sacramento bureau chief of the San Francisco Chronicle, where she's juggled coverage of Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers with some public accountability projects and data journalism. Before the Chronicle, she spent nearly a decade covering the state legislature for the Sacramento Bee. Before that, she was a sports reporter for the Bee, writing about the Kings and, yes, the Sacramento River Cats.

Erika D. Smith is joining Metro as an assistant editor. She comes from the Sacramento Bee, where she served as the paper's associate editor and an Op/Ed columnist. Her columns tackle some of the essential issues facing California today with insight and originality: Police use-of-force, gentrification, the housing crisis, homelessness and diversity. Before coming to the Bee, Erika was a Metro columnist for the Indianapolis Star, where she wrote unflinchingly about the challenges facing the city, and the struggles and triumphs of its urban areas. She was also both a reporter and copy editor at the Akron Beacon-Journal.

Reed Johnson is rejoining The Times as an assistant editor for Metro. Reed comes from Zocalo Public Square, where he served as managing editor. Before that, he served as a Brazil correspondent for the Wall Street Journal and a Mexico-based reporter for The Times. He spent many years as an arts and features writer in the Calendar section. Reed is a student of Southern California, with a keen interest in the demographic, political, cultural and economic issues that are at the core of our coverage. His years of reporting in Latin America will help us sharpen our immigration coverage. Before The Times, Reed worked at the Detroit News and Los Angeles Daily News.

Laura Newberry is joining Metro as a breaking news and general assignment reporter. Expect to see a lot more of Laura's already prolific byline. In her new job, she will be on the frontline of how we attack the California report, getting breaking news online quickly and then developing those story lines over hours and days. She will work with the LA Now desk, with a focus on getting to the scene of news and trying to report out the most interesting, compelling and important stories going on around California. During her summer internship, Laura proved herself a tireless reporter with an eye for news and an ability to elevate stories to the front page. Before coming to The Times, she worked at the Tampa Bay Times, Reading Eagle and MassLive.com.

Please join us in welcoming Maria, Gustavo, Melody, Erika, Reed and Laura!

Norm and Scott

Scott is managing editor Scott Kraft. LaGanga already made a big splash over the weekend with this dispatch from a nursing home in the Camp fire zone in Paradise.

The new foreign editor is Mitchell Landsberg. The Times hasn't had a dedicated FG editor in recent years and hadn't really needed one until this summer's addition of a number of overseas correspondents and bureaus.

From: "Pearlstine, Norman"
Date: Monday, November 19, 2018 at 11:59 AM
To: yyeditall
Subject: Mitchell Landsberg

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce the promotion of Mitchell Landsberg, acting Foreign and National Editor, to the position of Foreign Editor of the Los Angeles Times.

In his new role, Mitchell will oversee our global correspondents, guiding the work of the growing international staff as he has done so skillfully since taking on his interim duties in March. We plan to eventually divide Foreign and National into separate departments as we expand our coverage of the nation and the world, focusing especially on the issues of vital interest to California. But, as we search for a new National Editor, Mitchell will continue to oversee National as well as the Foreign/National editing desk in Los Angeles.

Mitchell brings a wealth of experience to his new role. He has been an editor on the Foreign/National Desk since 2012, including the last three years as deputy department head. Before joining the desk, he was a staff writer for a dozen years, during which he covered religion, education and national politics. His work also included coverage of the Haiti earthquake, the Florida recount and the California gubernatorial recall, and he has long been a go-to writer for rewrite on major news.

Mitchell was also one of four reporters who uncovered deadly abuses at the inner-city hospital King/Drew Medical Center – work that won the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2005. And he was the lead writer on a 70-plus-member team that won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in breaking news for coverage of California wildfires.

Before joining the Times, Mitchell spent 19 years at the Associated Press, where he was a national writer based in New York and, later, a foreign correspondent in the AP’s Moscow bureau. He got his start with AP in the Reno bureau and previously worked at the Ukiah Daily Journal and the Beverly Hills Independent. He has a bachelor’s degree in history from UCLA. He and his wife, Mary McVean, a former Times staffer who now runs an urban farming collective, have two grown children.

Please join us in congratulating Mitchell on his well-deserved promotion.

Norm and Scott

The new food writing team was announced in a press release from the Times offices in El Segundo. Risky move, perhaps, to invest the future of a key cultural beat in the hands of journalists who are new to Los Angeles. Bears watching.

The Los Angeles Times has named Bill Addison, Eater’s national critic, and Patricia Escárcega, formerly the food critic for the Phoenix New Times, the new restaurant critics who will cover the vast and diverse dining scene in Southern California and beyond. Lucas Peterson, former host of Eater’s “Dining on a Dime” and Frugal Traveler columnist for the New York Times, will report and host a new video series and contribute to the Food and Travel sections. The three new hires, who all start in December, join recently-named Contributing Editor Peter Meehan, Acting Food Editor Jenn Harris, Test Kitchen Director Noelle Carter, and Staff Writers Andrea Chang and Amy Scattergood.

“From our vantage point in Los Angeles – one of the most culturally and ethnically diverse cities in the world – we are uniquely able to tell the story of California food, cooking, and dining,” said Times Executive Editor Norman Pearlstine. “Today’s announcements demonstrate our continuing commitment to expand our coverage and our ability to attract some of the world’s best food writers and critics.”

“We are thrilled to bring Bill Addison’s authoritative voice and enthusiasm for L.A.’s enviable dining scene to our readers,” said Senior Deputy Managing Editor Kimi Yoshino, who is overseeing the coverage. “Patricia Escárcega is a talented food critic who grew up in Southern California and we can’t wait to see her take on the traditions and innovations that define Los Angeles.”

Addison has been the national critic at Eater since 2014 and compiled many of the food site’s popular best-of restaurant lists. His most recent lineup of America’s 38 Essential Restaurants included four in L.A.: Mariscos Jalisco, Park’s BBQ, Here’s Looking at You and n/naka. He previously reviewed restaurants for Atlanta magazine, the Dallas Morning News and the San Francisco Chronicle.

“I can think of no other city I’d rather call home than Los Angeles, because Los Angeles is the capital of American food in the 21st century,” Addison said. “It’s where so much is happening that steers the conversation of what we think about with food today, and how it reflects who we are and how we relate to one another through dining.”

Escárcega is a food writer at the Arizona Republic and was the restaurant reviewer at the Phoenix New Times, an alt weekly, for three years. The job will be a homecoming of sorts for Escárcega, who was born and raised in Riverside. Escárcega and Addison will bring weekly restaurant criticism back to The Times, which has been missing since the death of critic Jonathan Gold.

“Jonathan Gold was a longtime writing hero of mine, and what I enjoyed was how deeply omnivorous and egalitarian he was,” said Escárcega. “He would eat anything and anywhere, and I really admired the way he acknowledged that no one food is better than another. That’s pretty much my ethos.”

“Food and dining is a huge part of how people express and experience culture,” continued Yoshino. “Lucas Peterson will help us expand how we cover this vital subject, and make our coverage and the many cuisines represented in Los Angeles more accessible.”

In addition to hosting “Dining on a Dime” and writing the Frugal Traveler column, Peterson is a “Jeopardy” champion and former actor. He has traveled extensively, seeking out affordable and exotic meals, and speaks multiple languages, including Mandarin, Spanish and German.

“I am very excited to be joining the food team at the L.A. Times in what is a renaissance of sorts for this beloved institution,” said Peterson. “I am truly looking forward to helping improve the already outstanding coverage of L.A.’s incredible food scene and bring some new dimensions to our coverage including different video and multimedia projects.”

The hiring of Addison, Escárcega and Peterson represents a significant expansion of the Los Angeles Times’ coverage of food, dining and cooking. The Times is currently developing additional platforms to produce and share coverage and building a new state-of-the-art test kitchen. In addition, Times food coverage extends to its signature food festivals – The Taste and Food Bowl – as well as several live events, video projects and radio appearances throughout the year. Over the next several months, The Times plans to continue expansion of its food coverage and staff across multiple platforms and to regions across California and the West.

There's also been an abrupt exit from the Times masthead: Kris Viesselman, just hired in June with the newly created title of chief transformation editor and creative director, reporting to Pearlstine. She stopped tweeting on Nov. 11 and has left the building. Chatter inside the newsroom speculates it's related to troubles at the San Diego Union-Tribune, where she had been managing editor.

Pearlstine subtly acknowledged her departure in a memo last week announcing a reorganization of the paper's top editors, along with some promotions.

From: Pearlstine, Norman
Sent: Monday, November 12, 2018 10:10 AM
To: yyeditall
Subject: Realignment of Editorial Responsibilities

Dear Colleagues,

We are realigning responsibilities among editors reporting to me, effective immediately.

MANAGING EDITOR SCOTT KRAFT: Metro, California, National, International, Washington, Michael Whitley’s Design group, Top Stories/Page One, Column One, Enterprise and Investigations report to Scott, as do all other editorial functions in my absence.

SENIOR DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR KIMI YOSHINO: Arts and Entertainment, Business, Tech, Features and Sports report to Kimi.

DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR SEWELL CHAN: News Desk (aka Digital Hub), Multiplatform Editing Desks, Data Desk, Audience Engagement, Newsletters and Tribune News Service/Los Angeles report to Sewell.

I'm also pleased to announce that LOREE MATSUI, who continues to be responsible for the Multiplatform Editing Desks, has been promoted to ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR, reporting to Sewell. Loree has distinguished herself as an editor and manager during more than 26 years at The Times.

DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR COLIN CRAWFORD: Photography, Events, Library, Hoy, Los Angeles Times en Español, Times Community News, Labor Relations, News Operations, Technology and Development, including Metpro, report to Colin.

ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR LEN DEGROOT: Development of Content Management Systems (CMS), Data Visualization and Graphics, Podcasts, Digital Design and Digital R&D report to Len.

EDITORIAL PAGES EDITOR NICK GOLDBERG: Editorial and Opinion pages report to Nick.

Kris Viesselman is no longer with The Times. We thank Kris for her service and wish her well in her future endeavors.

In addition to Scott, Kimi, Sewell, Colin, Len and Nick, Readers’ Representative Judy Cramer and John McCutcheon, our Deputy Editor for Video, report to me.

The new structure is meant to foster collaboration and faster decision making. As anyone working at the Los Angeles Times knows, the creation of content from many sources for distribution across multiple platforms requires a reporting structure with many straight and dotted lines. Should you should have questions about how these changes may affect you, workflow in the newsroom, or projects currently in development, I encourage you to contact Scott or me, so we may address them.

Norm

In addition, books editor Carolyn Kellogg announced on social media that as he will be leaving the Times in December. She says she has plans that involve writing, but can't announce them yet. Earlier, Pearlstine announced a new Metro columnist and podcast.

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce that Frank Shyong is shifting to a new role in Metro, writing a column as well as co-hosting a new Times podcast on Asian Americans with Jen Yamato.

Frank’s column will debut in November and the podcast in early 2019. His column aims to chronicle the ways immigration and demographic change are rapidly reshaping Southern California. It will build off his groundbreaking coverage over the last six years of the San Gabriel Valley and the Asian American community. We’ll be sharing more details on the podcast in coming weeks.

Frank has written about how Cambodians became the kings of a beloved South L.A. fried chicken chain, a dying mother who shot her schizophrenic son, the only Chinese-speaking cop in Monterey Park, voter corruption in the City of Industry, and how Chinese investors used a little-known visa to transform the county’s economic development.

As with his past first-person accounts about living with his mom (he no longer does) and Asian Americans during the Olympics, Frank plans to tell stories through the lens of food, family, culture, politics and identity as well as his personal explorations of the city.

We are excited to add Frank’s distinct and unique voice to our lineup of distinguished columnists.

Norm, Scott and Shelby

Update: And two more today.

From: "Pearlstine, Norman"
Date: Monday, November 19, 2018 at 1:25 PM
To: yyeditall
Subject: Multiplatform Editing Department

Dear Colleagues,

We are delighted to announce two additions to our multiplatform editing department, on the recommendation of Loree Matsui.

Amy Hubbard is returning to The Times today and rejoining the AM copy desk. She has been at NerdWallet for the last three years. During her time at the personal finance website, she worked as a copy editor, assistant assigning editor for Small Business and as assigning editor for the Banking team.

Amy has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. Her journalism career includes working as a copy editor at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and the Hollywood Reporter. She was also a copy editor and assistant Travel editor at the Los Angeles Daily News before joining the Los Angeles Times.

While at The Times, Amy worked as a copy editor and copy chief. Before detouring to personal finance, she spent the last several years here as SEO chief/editorial, and then senior editor/digital/Metro. Amy says that she’s always been a copy editor at heart, and is looking forward to returning to the desk.

Matt Tustison will be joining the news copy desk on December 3rd. Matt joins us from the Washington Post, where he worked on the sports and news copy desks as a copy editor and slot. Before that, he worked at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Baltimore Sun and the Palm Beach (FL) Post. He was also a freelance sportswriter for the Associated Press in Minneapolis, and has written more than 10 sports history books for young audiences.

He is a native of St. Paul, MN, and graduated from his hometown University of St. Thomas with a degree in print journalism. His hobbies include collecting vinyl records and CDs, and he’s looking forward to exploring the Los Angeles record store scene. He also maintains sizable collections of books as well as TV shows on DVD. This will be Matt’s first time living on the West Coast. He is eager to learn about L.A. and is sure that he will appreciate the Southern California weather.

Please join me in welcoming Amy and Matt.

Norm

That's all for now. More later.

KCET's flagship and award-winning news program "SoCal Connected" will return next month for a ninth season — with a new format focusing on long-form investigative documentary pieces. The station also is bringing back "Lost LA," the innovative half-hour show hosted by Nathan Masters that ties the city we live in now to past events and trends that shaped the place.

The latest refresh of the SoCal Connected form will devote each half hour to long-form dives into single topics, documentary style. The executive producer is investigative reporting veteran Karen Foshay.

The first episode, airing for the first time on Tuesday Oct. 9 at 8 p.m., will go inside local newsrooms to explore the past year of intense disruption in local journalism. The Los Angeles Times is a main focus, and it looks as if they interviewed new Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong for the piece. (I was interviewed as well — not sure if my little part is included in the piece.)

To stay on the local media topic, KCET will also re-air the award-winning Peter Jones documentary, "Inventing LA: The Chandlers and Their Times," later the same night, at 9 p.m.

The season's second SoCal Connected episode, scheduled for Oct. 16, will tell the story of a Dorsey High School athlete, Antonio Carrion, who the show's materials say "was on a path to the NFL but instead became the poster child for what’s wrong with L.A.’s mental health system." Later shows in the season will look at how gerrymandering by local politicians has been used to dilute minority voting power, at profiteering on diseases, and the new California normal of more frequent and severe wildfires, among other topics. View the trailer above.

The SoCal Connected team this season also includes Vince Beiser, Robert McDonnell, Katie Cooper, Gina Pollack, Stuart Sender, Tori Edgar, David Egen, Michael Ray, and Peggy Holter.

Lost LA will follow SCC at 8:30 p.m. on Tuesdays. The show is hands down the best local history program on LA television (not that there's much competition in that space.) Masters, who works for the USC Libraries, is able to draw on the library's photos and document archives to bring stories to life.

It looks as if the first episode is about Yosemite National Park and its conflicts between nature and people.

Previous episodes are airing in the 8:30 Tuesday slot until the new season begins. They also are on the web at KCET.org.