James O’Shea is the fourth senior executive to depart over a budget dispute in recent years.

By Thomas S. Mulligan and Dawn Chmielewski, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
January 21, 2008

The editor of the Los Angeles Times will leave the paper in a dispute over newsroom cuts, becoming the fourth senior executive in less than three years to depart after resisting budget reductions.

James E. O’Shea, editor since November 2006, said Sunday that he was forced out after disagreeing with Times Publisher David D. Hiller’s plan to shrink the newsroom budget.

“We did not share a common vision for the future of the L.A. Times,” O’Shea said.

Hiller disputed the notion that O’Shea had been fired, saying his exit was part of a larger reorganization plan being put in place under The Times’ new ownership. The paper’s corporate parent, Tribune Co., was bought out last month in an $8.2-billion deal engineered by Chicago real estate baron Sam Zell.

“Think of it as the changes made at the start of a new presidential term,” Hiller said. “In the context of these changes, Jim and I decided we no longer saw things the same way about how to take the company forward.”

O’Shea had told senior editors that he opposed the constant drumbeat of cuts in response to falling advertising revenue.

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