Times Names Bill Boyarsky New City Editor

Veteran Times columnist Bill Boyarsky was named The Times’ city editor Wednesday in one of a series of promotions that management said were aimed at strengthening the paper’s regional coverage.

Boyarsky, 63, who wrote “The Spin” column twice weekly, replaces Lennie La Guire, 41, the former deputy metropolitan editor and city editor.

La Guire was promoted to editor of the newspaper’s Orange County edition.

Times Editor Michael Parks praised both, saying: “Bill Boyarsky brings to the job of city editor a deep knowledge of Los Angeles and its people based on nearly 30 years of reporting. He is a leader in the newsroom and in the community, and his appointment reflects our commitment to Los Angeles.

“Lennie La Guire is one of the sharpest of a generation of new editors in American journalism. La Guire is going to bring a fresh eye and journalistic courage to the Orange County edition, an edition that is integral in The Times’ service to Southern California.”

La Guire replaces William Nottingham, 47, who was promoted to a new position as senior editor for regional editions.

In his new role, Nottingham will work on better integrating the paper’s full-run and zoned coverage and on developing new ways to cover community news that involve The Times and California Community News, a subsidiary of the Times Mirror Co., which also owns The Times. California Community News publishes daily and weekly community newspapers in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Also promoted was Topy Fiske, 56, who will become senior editor for news desks and production. Fiske, who has been operations editor on the paper’s metropolitan staff, will continue work she has already begun assessing news and copy desk staffing. She will also continue to supervise the Metro news and copy desks.

Boyarsky began his career as a copy boy and then reporter at the Oakland Tribune. He served as a state and national political writer for the Associated Press before joining The Times in 1970. At The Times, he wrote about local, state and national politics and served as the paper’s Los Angeles city-county bureau chief before becoming a columnist in 1989. He is the author of two books on Ronald Reagan and coauthor with his wife, Nancy, of “Backroom Politics,” an expose of corrupt local governments around the country.

La Guire, a former reporter at the Orange County Register and the now-closed Los Angeles Herald Examiner, came to The Times as an assistant editor in the paper’s San Gabriel edition in 1989. She was named city editor in Los Angeles in 1996. In her new job, she will oversee The Times’ 170-person editorial staff in Orange County.

Nottingham joined The Times in 1985 as a reporter in the paper’s Long Beach section after 11 years as a staff writer in the business section of the St. Petersburg Times. He was named city editor of the Orange County edition in 1991, managing editor in 1995 and editor in 1996.

Fiske came to the paper in 1990 as managing editor of Orange County operations after 13 years as a news reporter, features writer and editor at the Chicago Tribune and 10 years as assistant managing editor for graphics at the San Francisco Examiner.