Times names new editors for California and D.C.
Ashley Dunn, a veteran reporter and editor at the Los Angeles Times, has been named California editor, supervising the newsroom’s largest group of journalists.
He succeeds David Lauter, who is becoming chief of Tribune Co.’s Washington bureau, which provides news coverage for The Times, Chicago Tribune and other Tribune news organizations.
Lauter replaces Kerry Luft, who is returning to the Chicago Tribune as a senior editor.
Dunn, who will guide state and local coverage, has spent more than 20 years at The Times, including positions in the Metro, Business and Science sections. Most recently, he was deputy editor of the National desk. In his new role, he is also being named an assistant managing editor.
Dunn has played a central role in the coverage of some of the biggest national stories of recent years, including last year’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the 2008 election of President Obama.
He joined The Times in 1986 as a suburban reporter in the San Gabriel Valley before moving to the Metro section, where he participated in coverage of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
After a stint at the New York Times, Dunn in 1998 returned to Los Angeles, where he was a reporter and editor in The Times’ Business section. He later was named to run the Science section.
For Lauter, becoming Washington bureau chief marks a return to the city where he began his 24-year Times career.
Lauter spent eight years in the capital, covering national politics and the White House during the terms of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. After moving to Los Angeles in 1995, he directed the paper’s coverage of the 1996 presidential campaign.
Lauter joined the Metro desk in 1997 to supervise coverage of California government.
He oversaw the paper’s specialist writers from 1998 to 2001, when he was named deputy Metro editor. He helped guide coverage of the California wildfires, for which The Times earned a Pulitzer Prize in 2004.
Lauter became deputy foreign editor in 2006 before being named California editor in October 2007.
He has overseen groundbreaking work during his time as California editor, including the corruption scandal in the city of Bell and the “Grading the Teachers” series.
