Los Angeles Times Editor Davan Maharaj memo to Staff

Davan Maharaj 
Editor and Executive Vice President,
Los Angeles Times

Comrades:

Each year, the Emmy Awards give us a chance to showcase our skill at covering a major awards event using our expanding set of journalistic tools -- breaking news alerts, quirky asides, sharp analysis, engaging videos, colorful photo galleries, Twitter feeds and more.

This year’s coverage was exceptionally successful. The journalism was outstanding, and it found a wide audience. Emmys traffic on Sunday and Monday was up 29% over last year. On Monday, Calendar’s Emmy-fueled Showtracker blog set a one-day record.

In print, the Calendar team produced an A-1 story and six robust pages of stories and photos.

There are many people to thank for this great work, starting with our TV team led by Martin Miller, the architect of the coverage. At the Nokia Theater, Yvonne Villarreal, Nardine Saad, Jessica Gelt and Amy Kaufman worked the scene from the red carpet to the press tent. In the newsroom and other locations, Glenn Whipp, Susan King, Rene Lynch, Patrick Day, Greg Braxton, Meredith Blake, Steve Zeitchik, Scott Collins, Booth Moore, Mary McNamara and Robert Lloyd provided smart stories and commentary.

On the Company Town team, Meg James, Joe Flint and Dawn Chmielewski contributed an insightful follow-up story and party coverage.

Stacey Leasca, Amy Hubbard, and Tenny Tatusian live-blogged the event, and Stacey moderated a post-Emmys webcast with Mary McNamara and Glenn Whipp.

All that work went through an editing team of Laurie Ochoa, Rich Nordwind, Elena Howe, Alice Short, Sherry Stern, Lee Margulies and Martin Miller.

Photographers, photo editors and a videographer captured the crucial visual side of the spectacle. Organized by Cindy Hively, the contributors were Robert Gauthier, Al Seib, Larry Ho, Jay Clendenin, Al Schaben, Christina House, Ken Kwok, Hal Wells, Kirk McKoy, David Muronaka, Jason Neubert, Calvin Hom, Jerome Adamstein, Kathy Pyon and Don Kelsen.

The copy-editing team led by Loree Matsui straightened out the kinks. With Judy Cramer as lead slot, the copy desk for the big night was Steve Elders, Bobbi Olson, Ruthanne Salido, Alison Dingeldein, Mark Geers, Blake Hennon, Marina Levario, Daryl Miller and Mark Sachs.

Our print readers were treated to one handsome page after another thanks to Steve Hawkins’ design group. Judy Pryor was the lead designer, joined by An Moonen, Jan Molen and Clare Jensen.

Through it all, our web team led by Scott Sandell made the online presentation sparkle. Jevon Phillips, Noelene Clark, Lily Mihalik, Andrea Wang and Christy Khoshaba from the entertainment group kicked it into high gear, assisted by Dianne DeGuzman, Jason La, Kari Beal and Tracy Brown from Features.

On the home page, Soo Oh, Mark McGonigle and Dave Johnson gave the event the play it deserved.

Thanks to all for an inspired performance.

Davan

 

SOURCE: Brett Levy