Austin Beutner is out as L.A. Times publisher
Tribune Publishing Co., parent of the Los Angeles Times, has fired Austin Beutner, the civic leader and former Wall Street investment banker who became publisher and chief executive of the newspaper last year.
Tribune executives met with Beutner on Tuesday morning.
A Tribune spokesman declined to comment on the firing or on who would succeed Beutner.
Within the past few weeks, Los Angeles philanthropist Eli Broad approached Tribune with an offer to purchase the Los Angeles Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune and operate the two papers as a separate company. The proposal was rejected.
Beutner had engineered Tribune’s purchase of the San Diego paper in May, part of a strategy to consolidate Southern California newspapers under common ownership as a way to reduce production and distribution costs and generate revenue for digital initiatives. The two papers comprised the newly formed California News Group under Beutner.
Beutner, 55, was named publisher of The Times in August 2014. In seeking to offset the decline of print advertising revenue, he launched multiple initiatives: email newsletters on topics such as the California drought, public events centered on Times journalism and coverage initiatives known as “verticals,” narrowly focused on such subjects as public education and California politics.
Beutner said these ventures were intended to develop an audience of regular, deeply engaged visitors to latimes.com, the paper’s website, in the belief that advertisers would pay more to reach passionate “communities of interest.”
Beutner surrounded himself with outside talent, often from the world of Los Angeles and national politics. His hires included Benjamin Chang, a former U.S. Foreign Service officer who had worked at the National Security Council; Johanna Maska, who served in the White House Press Office under President Obama; and Nicco Mele, an Internet strategist and entrepreneur who served as the digital advisor to former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign.
Chang was brought in to organize public events for The Times, Maska is vice president for communications and Mele is deputy publisher, responsible for various digital initiatives.
The Chicago Tribune, one of the newspapers within Tribune Publishing, reported Tuesday morning that leaders of the company were unhappy with the financial performance of The Times and with Beutner’s high-profile hires.
During Beutner’s 13 months as publisher, The Times won two Pulitzer Prizes — for cultural criticism and for feature writing — along with other national journalism awards for coverage of the California drought, the plight of Mexican farm workers and other stories. The California Newspaper Publishers Assn. awarded The Times its 2015 general excellence award.Austin Beutner is out as L.A. Times publisher - LA Times: