Los Angeles Times editor to step down this month; layoffs may be the cause

Los Angeles Times editor Russ Stanton will step down this month and be replaced by the managing editor for news, the newspaper has announced. Stanton has been editor since 2007, guiding the paper during a tumultuous period in which its parent, Tribune Co, has been mired in bankruptcy proceedings and the newsroom has weathered multiple rounds of layoffs. Once among the most influential news organizations in the world, the Times has suffered severely from the financial problems that have afflicted most big-city newspapers in the age of the Internet. One person familiar with the situation told anews agency that further layoffs were expected and that may have been a factor in Stanton's departure. During Stanton's tenure as editor, the newsroom staff has fallen from more than 900 people to about 550, the paper reported on its website.