When he joined The Los Angeles Instances as its prime editor almost three years in the past, Kevin Merida was hailed as a pacesetter who would restore calm to a newsroom that had been buffeted by cost-cutting and company possession battles.
Now, he’s exiting with little warning, an abrupt departure that leaves the biggest information group within the West in a state of flux.
Mr. Merida advised employees members on Tuesday that he was stepping down “after appreciable soul-searching about my profession.”
He didn’t specify precisely why he was leaving, however he did say that his final day could be on Friday.
Patrick Quickly-Shiong, the biotechnology billionaire who owns The Instances, mentioned in a notice to the newspaper’s employees that he and Mr. Merida had “mutually agreed” that Mr. Merida ought to depart.
“Given the persistent challenges we face, it’s now crucial that all of us work collectively to construct a sustainable enterprise that permits for progress and innovation,” Dr. Quickly-Shiong wrote.
In current months, Mr. Merida has been at odds with members of the Quickly-Shiong household on quite a lot of issues, together with editorial selections and enterprise priorities, in line with two folks with information of the scenario.
Mr. Merida and the Quickly-Shiong household have clashed over his resolution to limit journalists who signed a letter condemning Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 assaults from overlaying the battle in Gaza, the folks mentioned.
Some members of the Quickly-Shiong household raised objections to Mr. Merida’s resolution, one of many folks mentioned, and so they have been unable to succeed in a decision with Mr. Merida and even mentioned promoting the newspaper.
Budgeting for 2024 has additionally led to conflicts, in line with the folks.
A spokeswoman for The Los Angeles Instances declined to touch upon tensions between Mr. Merida and the Quickly-Shiong household, including that The Los Angeles Instances wasn’t on the market.
“We imagine in The L.A. Instances and are dedicated to its future,” the spokeswoman mentioned.
Mr. Merida, 66, was named the highest editor of The Instances in Might 2021, after beforehand working as a prime editor at The Washington Submit and ESPN. On the time, he was considered as a stabilizing power within the newsroom, which had been buffeted by the painful erosion of its conventional enterprise mannequin and its stature because the pre-eminent information group on the West Coast.
Underneath his management, the information group received three Pulitzer Prizes, together with two in 2023, for breaking information reporting and have images. Nonetheless, like a few of its friends within the media trade, The Instances has struggled to offset the declines in its print enterprise with digital subscriptions and promoting.
These issues have been exacerbated final 12 months in Los Angeles, the place one of many main industries, Hollywood, was shut down for a lot of months due to the actors’ and writers’ strikes. That took a toll at The Los Angeles Instances: The newspaper reported on Tuesday that it had fallen wanting its digital-subscriber targets.
Mr. Merida was handpicked by Dr. Quickly-Shiong, who bought the corporate in 2018 for $500 million. The acquisition was greeted with aid by many journalists on the newspaper, who had been by years of cost-cutting on the behest of company house owners together with Tronc.
Dr. Quickly-Shiong mentioned he was buying the newspaper for social causes and promised to revive it as a civic establishment for the folks of Southern California.
However the going has been tough for the Quickly-Shiongs, because the paper has grappled with headwinds which have the whole media trade. The household offered The San Diego Union-Tribune, a sister paper, to Alden International Capital, a monetary agency recognized for its cost-cutting. At one level, The Wall Road Journal reported that Dr. Quickly-Shiong was exploring a sale of The Los Angeles Instances, which the corporate denied.
In June, The Los Angeles Instances introduced it was chopping greater than 10 p.c of its newsroom employees of greater than 550, citing financial headwinds.
In his notice to the employees on Tuesday, Dr. Quickly-Shiong mentioned that The Instances would undertake a seek for Mr. Merida’s successor that would come with inner and exterior candidates.
Within the meantime, he wrote, the newspaper’s current management workforce would proceed to supervise the newsroom.
