Times Appoints New Business Editor

The Los Angeles Times has appointed Rick Wartzman as business editor. Wartzman had been a writer and editor at the Wall Street Journal’s Los Angeles bureau until resigning to join The Times and finish writing a book.

He succeeds Bill Sing, who has been named senior editor in charge of editing and creating special editorial sections for the paper. Wartzman and Sing will assume their new posts in mid-September.

“Rick is a highly talented writer and editor with a deep knowledge of business,” said John Carroll, editor of The Times. “He combines the strengths of hard-news reporting and analysis with a sharp interest in enterprise reporting.”

Wartzman had been on the Journal staff for nearly 15 years. He has covered the steel industry, aerospace, the national economy, Washington lobbying and the Clinton White House. Wartzman edited feature stories for the Journal and wrote a monthly column. He was the founding editor of the Journal’s weekly California edition, and he also served as Houston bureau chief. He joined the Journal in 1987 in its Pittsburgh bureau.

As business editor since 1996, Sing, 44, oversaw an unprecedented expansion of financial coverage in The Times. He supervised the most important financial stories of the last decade, increased the size of the business staff (it now has 89 reporters, editors, designers and support staff) and made the business feature story a staple of the front page.

During his tenure as editor, The Times’ business section won a Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting.

Wartzman and Sing will report to Dean Baquet, managing editor.