New Deputy Business Editor at LAT

To: The Staff
From: Russ Stanton, Business Editor

Sallie Hofmeister has been named deputy business editor and will oversee the entertainment and technology industries, a critical and -- not coincidentally -- large segment of the Business section.

Sallie became an assistant business editor in April after a distinguished and decade-long run as one of the section's top reporters, chronicling the complicated and fast-changing media landscape. Since then, she has done a terrific job leading our coverage of the biggest media stories this summer: the Tribune-Chandler feud and Viacom's dismissal first of Tom Cruise, then its CEO, Tom Freston.

Sallie brings to this job a deep knowledge of the entertainment business and an ability to tap industry leaders, attributes that are exceeded only by her arsenal of fashionable glasses and spiffy shoes.

Before joining The Times, Sallie was an editor at the New York Times, where she improved the copy of a host of reporters including some guy named Baquet. Before that, she was a staff writer at Venture magazine. Sallie is a 1980 graduate of Kansas State University.