Tribune is owned by Republicans...

From the NY Times:

Publisher Is Fired at Los Angeles Times
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
Published: October 5, 2006

Jeff Johnson, the publisher of The Los Angeles Times, was fired today after refusing last month to go along with cutbacks at his paper ordered by The Tribune Company.

Al Seib/The Los Angeles Times, via Associated Press
Jeffrey M. Johnson
RelatedFacts About the Los Angeles Times

The company asked Dean Baquet, the paper’s editor, who had also resisted the cuts, to stay at The Los Angeles Times, and he has agreed to do so. Colleagues said he saw an opportunity to start fresh with a new publisher and to make his case for why the staff should not be cut back as much as Tribune has proposed. But one colleague noted that Mr. Baquet still retained the option to leave.

David D. Hiller, publisher of The Chicago Tribune, has been named as a replacement for Mr. Johnson.

Scott Smith, president of Tribune Publishing, based in Chicago, flew to Los Angeles and fired Mr. Johnson this morning.

“Jeff and I agreed that this change is best at this time because Tribune and Times executives need to be aligned on how to shape our future,” Mr. Smith said in a statement.

In a memo to the staff this morning, Janet Clayton, an editor, wrote: “Sorry to tell you that we are told that Jeff Johnson is out as publisher of The Los Angeles Times.”

Mr. Baquet and Mr. Johnson last month said publicly in the pages of The Los Angeles their newspaper that they would not draw up a budget plan for cuts that Tribune, based in Chicago, had ordered. They included increasing the paper’s profits by 7 percent, or about $17 million.

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