Times Mirror Names Chiefs at 2 Papers

Times Mirror Co. appointed new top executives at two of its newspapers Thursday. Michael J. Davies, currently editor, publisher and chief executive at the Hartford Courant, will succeed Reg Murphy as publisher and chief executive of the Baltimore Sun.

Raymond A. Jansen Jr., the Hartford paper’s senior vice president and general manager, will become the publisher and chief executive of the Courant.

Michael E. Waller, 49, the Courant’s executive editor, will become editor.

The changes are effective immediately, according to David Laventhol, president of Times Mirror and publisher of the Los Angeles Times.

The moves come the same week that the company named Richard T. Schlosberg III, president of The Times, to be group vice president-newspapers, a new position. Both Davies and Jansen will report to Schlosberg.

“Reg Murphy has been an outstanding leader of the Baltimore Sun for the past decade, both before and after Times Mirror’s acquisition of the paper in 1986,” Laventhol said in a prepared statement. “He has been a journalistic innovator, leading the paper to two Pulitzer Prizes and record-breaking circulation gains.” Laventhol said Murphy requested the change. “Earlier this year, Reg indicated that he wanted to step aside but stayed at our request to ensure a smooth transition.”

Murphy will continue to represent Times Mirror on the board of directors of Newspapers First, a national advertising sales organization.

Murphy, 56, joined the Baltimore Sun in July, 1981, after serving as editor and publisher of the San Francisco Examiner since 1975. From 1961 to 1975, he was with the Atlanta Constitution, joining as political reporter and editor and moving up to editor of the newspaper in 1968. Murphy began his newspaper career with the Macon Telegraph and News in Georgia in 1955.

He attended Mercer University and Harvard University and is a native of Gainesville, Ga.

Davies, 46, came to the Hartford Courant in 1983 from the Kansas City Star and Times, where he had been president and editor since 1978. Before that, he spent two years as managing editor of the Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky., and was managing editor of the Louisville Times from 1971 to 1976. His journalism career began in 1961 as a reporter for the Savannah Morning News in Georgia.

Davies was born in England and moved to the United States with his family in 1957. He is married and has two children.

Jansen, 51, joined the Courant in 1982 as vice president, advertising, following a 22-year career in advertising sales and management at Newsday, another Times Mirror newspaper.

Times Mirror publishes The Times, Newsday and New York Newsday, the Baltimore Sun newspapers, the Hartford Courant, the Morning Call in Allentown, Pa., and the (Stamford) Advocate and Greenwich Time in Connecticut. The company also has interests in broadcast and cable television and in book, magazine and other publishing.