Baquet Names Two Managing Editors

By: E&P Staff Dean Baquet, who succeeded John Carroll as editor of the Los Angeles Times this past summer, named his managing editors today. They are Leo Wolinsky, a longtime editor at the paper, and Doug Frantz, best known as a top investigative reporter. In addition, John Montorio gets the nod as an associate editor with what Baquet called "enhanced responsibility."

A memo from Baquet to his staff was first published today at the LA Observed Web site.

Baquet wrote that he chose a pair of MEs because he wants "an aggressive way to address the issue of declining readership, to have someone focus on it. And I wanted someone to run the newsroom day to day. For a newspaper of our scope and complexity, it seemed this would be enough work for more than one person."

Frantz, the paper's international investigative reporter, and currently in Istanbul, will oversee the paper's major newsgathering operations, including foreign, metro, national, Washington, business, sports, science, and obituaries, Baquet explained. Frantz has won several top prizes reporting for the paper, as well as The New York Times, and Chicago Tribune, and has written several books.

Wolinsky will continue to lead the paper's page one operation, and "will also be our primary student of readership, taking the lead in what will be a renewed effort to attract more readers and gain circulation," Baquet wrote. He has been with the paper since 1977, serving as everything from reporter to executive editor.