McManus responds to LAT staffer's memo

Topic: Letters Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 11/1/2008 5:07:45 PM
Title: McManus responds to LAT staffer's memo
Posted By: Jim Romenesko

From DOYLE McMANUS, Washington bureau chief, Los Angeles Times: The October 31 memo gives a distorted and incomplete account of what I told our staff. In some cases, it attributes words to me that were actually uttered by others in the heat of a vigorous discussion. I did tell our staff that the new Tribune bureau in Washington will be a jointly-managed operation to serve all of Tribune’s newspaper, interactive and broadcast outlets -- not only the Los Angeles Times. That has been clear for months, but I was worried that some of my colleagues weren’t getting the message. I said I believe the new Tribune Bureau will be fully capable of producing the kind of first-rate coverage that the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and other Tribune bureaus now produce, and I urged skeptics among my colleagues to give the new organization the benefit of the doubt. And I said the leadership structure of the bureau (and, for that matter, its name) have not yet been determined. I regret that this internal discussion has been made public, especially in this distorted form.

SOURCE: Jim Romenesko