L.A. Times' Editor Forced Out

The L.A. Times reports that Dean Baquet, their editor, was forced to resign “at the request of the publisher after he refused to agree to further cuts of his editorial staff”:

Times Publisher David D. Hiller, who took over from Johnson one month ago, and Baquet had a series of conversations last week in which Hiller made plain that cuts are on the way. Baquet repeated his position that he would not oversee further reductions. He said such cuts would harm the paper’s ability to cover the world, national affairs and a huge and diverse local community.

Hiller, who spoke briefly to the newsroom after Baquet, said there will be no layoffs this year but warned of future cutbacks companywide.

“This is, I think, one of the, if not the, greatest papers in the country,” Hiller said.

Wow–that could be one of the saddest commentaries on the current state of Big Media I’ve ever read.