TIMES’ BOYER TO JOIN CBS NEWS AS A MEDIA CRITIC

Peter J. Boyer, Atlanta bureau chief for The Times and formerly its national television reporter, is joining CBS News on Feb. 4 as a media critic, principally for “The CBS Morning News.” The 32-year-old reporter will be based in New York.

A CBS source who Thursday confirmed the appointment said CBS will formally announce Boyer’s hiring early next week. The source said that Ron Powers, also a media critic for CBS News, will continue there. Powers mainly appears on the CBS News “Sunday Morning” show.

Boyer, born in Los Angeles and reared in Mississippi, attended the University of Mississippi, received a BA from UCLA and did graduate work at the USC School of Journalism. He began his news career in 1976 as a general assignment reporter in the Los Angeles bureau of the Associated Press. He became AP’s TV critic two years later.

He joined The Times in 1981, reporting initially on the motion picture industry, then on television. Boyer also was a TV critic and commentator on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition.” He was named The Times’ bureau chief in Atlanta in November, 1983.