Los Angeles Times to discontinue LA, its Sunday magazine
The Los Angeles Times said its Sunday magazine, facing tough challenges, will cease publication.
LA, Los Angeles Times Magazine will print its final issue June 3, Kathy K. Thomson, president and chief operating officer, said in an email Tuesday to employees.
The magazine came out weekly until 2008, when the paper’s editorial department stopped publishing it. The Los Angeles Times Media Group then put out the magazine in a monthly format.
“The entire magazine industry has been faced with a very challenging environment,” Thomson wrote. “We are not immune to the challenges.”
In 2010, U.S. News & World Report switched to a digital-only format, and Portfolio, a glossy Conde Nast business magazine, folded in 2009. A website, Magazine Death Pool, even popped up to track the closures.
There have been a few exceptions. The Wall Street Journal has ramped up its WSJ Magazine, and the New York Times its T magazine, to target luxury consumers and attract high-end advertisers.
The L.A. Times is developing a quarterly publication focusing on luxury, fashion and style, Thomson said.
The Sunday magazine won a national prize as recently as last week when the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights announced that Times photographer Michael Robinson Chavez won the international photography category for his work “Broken Promise: Gold Mining in Peru’s High Andes.”
