Los Angeles Times Names Two Managing Editors, One Associate Editor

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 11, 2005 – The Los Angeles Times today announced three masthead-level appointments forming the core of the newspaper’s leadership team: Doug Frantz, investigative reporter based in Istanbul, and Leo Wolinsky, deputy managing editor, have been named managing editors, and Deputy Managing Editor John Montorio was elevated to associate editor.

All three positions will report to Los Angeles Times Editor Dean Baquet.

In explaining the two managing editor positions, Baquet said, “I wanted 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, this would be enough work for more than one person.”

Frantz will oversee The Times’ major newsgathering operations, including foreign, metro, national, Washington, business, sports, science and obituaries. He will begin the transition to his new position immediately and become full-time managing editor in November. He has spent a total of nine years with The Times.

Wolinsky, who joined The Times in 1977, will continue to chair the paper’s Page One operation, and will assume responsibility for the newspaper’s efforts to attract more readers and gain circulation. He will work with the entire Times organization to grow readership and will also oversee newsroom resources, including staffing and budgeting.

Montorio will assume a larger leadership role at the paper, in addition to continuing to manage The Times’ features sections. He will be responsible for a variety of special news projects, including the encouragement of more newsmaker profiles in the main news section and better coverage of trends throughout the newspaper. He joined The Times in 2001.

Doug Frantz, managing editor

“Throughout his career Doug has been a leader on news, enterprise, and investigations,” said Baquet. “At the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, he has covered some of the biggest local, national and international stories, including the illegal arming of Iraq, corruption in the Teamsters union, and insider trading on Wall Street.”

Frantz served as city editor of the Albuquerque (N.M.) Tribune from 1975 to 1978. He then joined the Chicago Tribune as a metro reporter and later served as a Washington reporter. In 1987, he joined the Los Angeles Times as a business reporter, and eventually became an investigative reporter in its Washington bureau. From 1994 to 2000, Frantz was an investigative reporter for The New York Times, later becoming the paper’s investigations editor. He rejoined the Los Angeles Times in May 2003, as an investigative reporter based in Istanbul.

Frantz is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and was recognized for a Los Angeles Times series chronicling the arming of Iraq before the Gulf War, and for a New York Times series on the Church of Scientology. His other investigative reporting honors include a 1995 and 1997 Worth Bingham Prize and a 1993 Goldsmith Prize.

Frantz, with his wife, Catherine Collins, are currently working on a biography of AQ Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program. They also have co-authored “Death on the Black Sea: The Untold Story of the Struma and World War II’s Holocaust at Sea,” “Celebration USA: Living in Disney’s Brave New Town,” and six other nonfiction books.

He earned a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.

Leo Wolinsky, managing editor

“With Leo’s appointment, we are placing one of our most accomplished and thoughtful editors over one of our most significant programs, one that will affect virtually every part of the paper,” said Baquet. “He – and a soon-to-be appointed Page One editor – will continue to encourage the evolution of the front page, making it livelier and harder-hitting.”

With The Times since 1977, Wolinsky spent more than 12 years as a staff writer before holding a variety of editing positions. He has served as The Times’ executive editor, managing editor of news, assistant managing editor, metropolitan editor, city editor, California political editor, assistant city editor and deputy Sacramento bureau chief.

Wolinsky directed the coverage of the Los Angeles riots and the Northridge earthquake, which both won Pulitzer Prizes for local spot news reporting.

He earned a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Southern California.

John Montorio, associate editor

“John is one of the country’s most accomplished features editors. His promotion reinstates a storied title at The Times – one held in the past by Jim Bellows, among others. This appointment is testament to his leadership of our features sections,” said Baquet. “But more than that, it reflects his larger leadership role in the paper.”

Montorio has overseen the launch of Home and Outdoors sections and the relaunch of Calendar, Food, Health and, shortly, the Sunday magazine.

Before he joined The Times in August 2001, Montorio worked at The New York Times for 15 years. There, he oversaw the launch of several of the paper’s signature feature sections, including Dining, House & Home, Sunday Styles, The City, and The Living Arts. He served as associate managing editor, editor of the Style department, editor of The City section, editor of the Weekend section, editor of The Living Arts, assistant editor of the Sunday business section, and deputy editor of the Home section. He also was executive editor of The Newsday Magazine from 1983 to 1988 and editor of The Washington Star’s Sunday Magazine from 1977 to 1981.

Montorio earned a bachelor of arts degree, cum laude, from Seton Hall University and a master’s degree from the University of Virginia.

The Los Angeles Times, a Tribune Publishing company, is the largest metropolitan daily newspaper in the country and the winner of 37 Pulitzer Prizes, including two this year. The Times publishes five daily regional editions, for the Los Angeles metropolitan area, Orange County, Ventura County, the San Fernando Valley, and the Inland Empire of Riverside and San Bernardino counties, as well as a National edition. Additional information about The Times is available at www.latimes.com/mediacenter.

Contact:
Martha Goldstein
213-237-3727
martha.goldstein@latimes.com