Talk About a Tough Sell

By Kirstin Heinle on October 22, 2009 8:00 AM

Los Angeles Times editor Russ Stanton spoke with a class of USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism students on Oct. 21 about his efforts to resurrect the newspaper, his goals for the future and how he keeps morale high during a notoriously difficult time.

“It’s like flying a 747 with three engines out,” Stanton told the Entrepreneurship and New Media class of approximately 20 graduate students.

In order to keep his employees on track during a major transitional period, Stanton stressed the importance of creating “the right environment.” He said he strives to accomplish this by “hiring terrific people,” “empowering them to do their jobs” and “rewarding them accordingly and holding them accountable.”

A Times employee for the last 12 years, Stanton was promoted in February 2008 as the paper’s 14th editor from his former post as innovation editor. He promptly brought his innovation expertise to the Los Angeles Times Media Group, requiring every member of the staff to participate in an Internet 101 course.

“I was the guy with the gavel, and I just started pounding it,” Stanton said. “I’ve tried to shake the place up a fair amount.”

Creating a more Web-savvy staff was only one step in redesigning the Times. Stanton also reevaluated the company’s mission by setting specific goals such as creating innovative coverage of the 2008 election.

“Readers like to participate with other readers and our editors and sources. We tried to create a new vehicle for that,” said Stanton of Top of the Ticket, the Times’ popular political blog that covered the presidential election. “This is something we’re incredibly proud of,” he said.

Stanton also wanted to create a cost-effective paper or magazine that would appeal to younger readers. From this came Brand X, a free weekly paper distributed primarily in downtown Los Angeles. Run by a staff of three, the paper consists mostly of repackaged stories from the Times with a hipper design.

One of the most common criticisms of the Times when Stanton became editor was its lack of focus on Southern California. As part of an effort to concentrate on local issues, Stanton and his team created an interactive map on the Web site called Mapping L.A. that defines 113 Los Angeles neighborhoods. In the near future, the site will launch a Los Angeles crime database that will coordinate with the neighborhood map.

“We have tried to really hone in on things that are being covered here,” Stanton said.

The economy has not treated newspapers well, but Internet readership continues to grow. LATimes.com has grown its audience by 65 percent in the last year, which far exceeds the nation’s other top newspaper sites.

“We were late to the dance,” said Stanton about the Times’ delayed response to the Web. “But there’s no one even close to growing as much as our site has.”

David Westphal, executive in residence at USC and former Washington editor for McClatchy Newspapers, asked how Stanton is keeping his employees’ morale high despite a large number of layoffs.

Stanton admitted it has been difficult, but that he makes an effort to go to lunch with someone from the staff every day in addition to sending daily notes to writers after well-reported stories. He also said he highlights the paper’s strengths: foreign, entertainment and sport coverage.

“As we’ve been forced to get smaller, I’ve tried to reinforce the reasons why I love working there,” he said.

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