Assistant Managing Editor

As Assistant Managing Editor, David Lauter oversees The Times' coverage of news across California, heading the news organization's largest editing and reporting staff.

Lauter joined The Times Washington bureau in 1987, where he spent eight years covering national politics and the White House under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He was awarded the paper's Publisher's Prize for excellence in reporting in 1991 and the award for sustained excellence the following year.

In 1995, Lauter moved to Los Angeles and also switched from reporting to editing, directing coverage of the 1996 presidential election cycle. He moved to the Metro desk as editor in charge of California government coverage in 1997, and then held a series of editing assignments, becoming Deputy Metro editor in 2001. He oversaw coverage of California's recall election in 2003 and also played a central role in guiding reporting of the massive wildfires that swept through the region that fall, coverage for which The Times received a Pulitzer Prize. Lauter became Deputy Foreign Editor in 2006, where he helped guide Times Baghdad-based reporters through the most difficult parts of Iraq's civil war. As California Editor since October 2007, he led the effort to reorganize The Times' state and local coverage to meet the demands of the internet and the 24-hour news cycle.

A graduate of Yale, Lauter lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.