Janet Clayton Assistant Managing Editor

Janet Clayton has been assistant managing editor of the Los Angeles Times since 2004. She is in charge of California and local news coverage and the largest staff at the paper, with reporters based in greater Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco and San Diego.

Clayton’s work has been recognized throughout her career. She is the editor of a three Pulitzer Prize-winning Times series: first, a series of groundbreaking Times editorials on the homeless mentally ill in 2002; next, a series of editorials on the dysfunction of California government in 2004. She also was a key editor of the paper’s investigative series on the serious problems leading to needless deaths at King-Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles. That series also won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for public service, as well as the Sigma Delta Chi and Kennedy Awards.

A Los Angeles native, Clayton began her career with The Times as an intern at the newspaper’s Washington, D.C., bureau. She then worked in Los Angeles as a general assignment reporter and political reporter for 10 years before moving to the Op-Ed pages as an articles editor. Clayton became an editorial writer and later was named assistant editorial page editor. She was editor of the Editorial Pages from 1995-2004.

Clayton received her B.A. in journalism, Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Southern California. She was selected to participate in the Cambridge University study program after her graduation from USC. In addition, she was a fellow at the British-American Conference sponsored by Johns Hopkins and the Royal Institute and a fellow at the Williamsburg Conference in Hong Kong.