Baquet Begins - Web Exclusive Update

There was never any doubt that Dean Baquet would lead the Los Angeles Times.The only question was the timing, and today that was answered when budget-cut-weary editor John Carroll moved out of, and the ambitious managing editor will move into, the third-floor Spring Street power office. L.A.Weeklyhas learned that a mastermind of the changeover was new publisher Jeff Johnson, who himself had replaced John Puerner just four months ago. With the announcement a day old, there is no doubt either that the paper Baquet is about to lead will be a shell of its former glory, thanks to parent Tribune Co. Carroll denied his own newspaper's Web site report that he was retiring — telling EditorandPublisherhe's taking an "open-ended vacation" and will then "find something else" in journalism — and dissed the paper's parent company for all the slashes in resources and budgets mandated in recent years that eliminated more than 60 editorial positions last year alone. For some time now, his friends atop the media world had been hearing his complaints about Tribune Co. wanting to dismantle the improvements he'd made, both editorial and morale, and tsk-tskedback about how it was a national tragedy. Actually, the real tragedy here is local: the LATnow does an even crappier job covering Los Angeles than ever, and that may be the root of its readership problems. While Carroll had his eye mainly on Pulitzer Prizes, he overlooked the needs and desires of readers wanting to know what was really going on in their own backyard. This is the guy, after all, who mutated and mutilated the Metro section into "California." Already, insiders tell L.A.Weekly,Baquet will refocus attention here at home as much as hither and yon.