John Montorio’s 2008 LA Times exit — and what Russ Stanton’s first weeks signaled

By Jordan Vega · Originally reported by Kate Coe (2008) · Wayback archive →

In mid-February 2008, with Russ Stanton newly installed as LA Times editor after James O’Shea’s firing, John Montorio — the last of what FishbowlLA had been calling the Baquet boys — got pushed out. Montorio told the paper it was “my destiny.” Ad Age was simultaneously reporting that the American media workforce had hit a 15-year low at 886,900 employed.

Then

Stanton had taken over only weeks earlier and was moving fast. Montorio, the deputy managing editor for features under Dean Baquet’s tenure, had been the obvious next domino after Doug Frantz’s June 2007 departure. The Baquet generation at the LA Times — the editors who had been brought in or elevated under Baquet’s editorship — was substantially gone by mid-2008.

Now

John Montorio continued in editorial roles after his Times exit. The Baquet generation mostly migrated east — Dean Baquet himself became NYT executive editor 2014-2022. Russ Stanton ran the LA Times through the Sam Zell bankruptcy before being succeeded in late 2011. The newsroom workforce contraction the 2008 Ad Age data was tracking has continued — U.S. newsroom employment is now substantially lower than the 2008 figure that already represented a 15-year low.

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