Austin Beutner is out and Timothy Ryan is in at the Los Angeles Times. Ryan is replacing Beutner, who was the paper's publisher and chief executive for about a year.
"I think he's going to have a lot to prove to people in Los Angeles, both on the business side and in the newsroom side," NPR media reporter David Folkenflik told KPCC's AirTalk, "that he will support the kind of journalism that [...] readers expect and rightly expect for Californians and for the Southland, and I think he'll have to convince people on the business side that he's got some sort of philosophy or vision for how the paper and how its digital properties can prosper, under pressure, not only from the things afflicting the industry, but from their bosses in Chicago as well."
Angelenos will have to wait and see how much of what Beutner was doing at the Times will continue under Ryan.
"It's not clear to me the extent to which Beutner's passions and his initiatives, and those that he supported in the newsroom that weren't necessarily of his own devising but that people spent a lot of energy on in recent months …[are] going to receive the same degree of financial support and energy," Folkenflik said. "I think that's really up for grabs."
Here's what we know about the Times' new head honcho:
- Ryan had been the publisher and chief executive of the Baltimore Sun Media Group since 2007, where he headed The Baltimore Sun and its website, along with two other daily papers, 30 community newspapers and magazines and related digital assets.
- Ryan led the Baltimore Sun's acquisition and incorporation of the Annapolis Capital Gazette (along with some other suburban papers in the area) into the Sun's coverage, just as he'll have to do with the San Diego Union-Tribune.
- He clashed with former Baltimore Sun editors at times due to the additional financial pressures the Sun faced during the recession, Folkenflik said.
- Ryan was the vice president of circulation and consumer marketing at the Chicago Tribune before his stint at the Sun, reported Reuters in 2007.
- From July 2000 to February 2005, Ryan was the Sun's vice president of circulation and operations, according to the Chicago Tribune.
- While heading the Baltimore Sun Media Group, Ryan also became the publisher and chief executive of the Allentown, Pa. newspaper The Morning Call in 2010, according to The Morning Call. He had been the paper's fifth publisher since 2010.
- According to the Chicago Tribune, Ryan began his career at the Tribune in 1982. "During his most recent hitch at the Chicago Tribune, Ryan's responsibilities included overseeing sales, marketing and distribution of the Tribune, as well as oversight of RedEye, the Tribune's free weekday tabloid targeting younger readers," reported the Tribune in 2007. In 1993, he started a 7-year stint as the vice president of circulation at the Philadelphia Inquirer.
- Ryan earned his Bachelor's degree in political science at the University of Notre Dame and a master's degree in business administration at Northwestern University.
This story has been updated.
