EDITORS NOTEBOOK

A friend of mine once left his job for no apparent reason. He loved

his work, had a loyal staff and was well-liked by his boss.

“Why’d you do that?” I asked.

“I never wanted to be the last one at the party,” he replied.

I’m still not sure what he meant, but I always thought it was odd --

maybe because I wouldn’t have minded being the last one to turn out the

lights at the Daily Pilot.

But that’s not going to happen. After nearly 10 years as editor, I’m

leaving the party. Wednesday was my last day. Before you panic or

rejoice, there’s more. I’ll still be hanging around the Pilot newsroom.

Here’s the deal.

When the Los Angeles Times bought the Daily Pilot about six years ago,

it soon found out that delivering a community newspaper with The Times

did wonders for circulation. And so The Times began a bold experiment to

create mini-Daily Pilots -- called Our Times -- in communities across

Southern California.

We now publish 22 community newspapers, and the results have been

promising. People from Ventura to Rancho Santa Margarita and from Santa

Monica to Rancho Cucamonga have discovered the same thing Pilot readers

have known for years -- injecting very local news into a world-class

newspaper gives subscribers the best of both journalism worlds.

And so, for the past few years, I’ve juggled two jobs: editor of the

Pilot and editor of the rapidly expanding Times Community News. We

started with 30 employees. We’re now approaching 300.

And I’m sure I clung to the Pilot job longer than I should have, but

it’s hard to let go.

*

When I came to the Pilot, the newspaper was dying. The newsroom had a

few quality reporters and editors, but was mostly filled with

unremarkable and cynical journalists -- young and old -- who had contempt

for the community they were supposed to serve.

When circulation dipped to under 10,000, a disgusted publisher told

me, “I guess we haven’t found a way to piss off our last 9,000 readers.”

It got worse. The news pages contained just two ads. At its nadir, the

Pilot hemorrhaged $250,000 in red ink a month.

Publisher Tom Johnson arrived shortly after me, and -- with no other

options and time running out -- we rethought everything.

We first decided to concentrate on our core market -- Newport Beach

and Costa Mesa -- and stopped covering and delivering to places such as

Irvine, Lake Forest and Huntington Beach.

We rebuilt both the sales and editorial departments with quality

people who cared about the Pilot and the community. Soon after, sales

began rising (and haven’t stopped since), and we started winning

statewide journalism awards by the armful, including best community

newspaper in California.

And finally, we embraced the community. We volunteered everywhere,

served on boards, spoke at Rotary Club lunches, gave money to good causes

and sponsored worthwhile community events.

It all worked. Each year, we cut our deficit in half. And last year --

for the first time in more than two decades -- the Pilot turned a profit.

This year, we’re doing even better.

I was lured to the Pilot by a publisher who asked, “Wouldn’t it be

great to save your hometown newspaper?”

And that’s what happened. And it was great.

*

Over the past couple of years, I’ve slowly reduced my day-to-day role

at the Pilot as I helped start community newspapers for the Los Angeles

Times. I still directed the Pilot’s editorial coverage and edited the

more sensitive articles and all the editorials, but I’ve had less and

less time to really be the editor the paper deserves.

Which, by the way, will come as a shock to a few conspiracy theorists

out there who contend I’ve plotted their demise through the news pages of

the Pilot.

An amusing example: there was one councilman who thought I -- just to

drive him crazy -- had ordered our sports department to deliberately

misspell his son’s name. He didn’t know that our sports department is

perfectly capable of misspelling names all by itself.

If you don’t like to give up that easily on your conspiracies, I’ll

give you this. I’ll still be actively involved in the Pilot. I own a home

on the East Side of Costa Mesa, am raising my family here (we’re

expecting our fourth in January) and have no plans to ever leave.

And besides, the Pilot will still fall under my direction, although

I’ll be distanced from my favorite hometown newspaper by a couple of

steps on the corporate ladder.

One more thing before I officially sign off. I want to thank everyone

at the Pilot, our readers and our advertisers for the best 10 years of my

career. I’m very grateful to all of you -- and if I started to list you

all by name I couldn’t stop. So let’s just leave it at thanks.

What’s that? All right. I know. I’m going. The clock on the wall says

it’s time to head out the editor’s door, even though the party’s in full

swing.

WILLIAM LOBDELL is the editor of Times Community News, which publishes

22 local newspapers for the Los Angeles Times, including the Daily Pilot.

His e-mail address is o7 [email protected]