First reactions **

Former Chicago Tribune writer John Cook, now a contributor to Radar magazine, blogs that John Carroll's departure from the LAT follows soon after he implied to the New York Times that his Tribune bosses lacked the backbone to stand up to a subpoena for a reporter's notes. Cook also reports that Baquet and his Pulitzer co-winner from 1988, Ann Marie Lipinski, have a "frosty relationship." It only matters because she is now the editor of the Tribune. Meanwhile, Cook flags what he calls Baquet's first correction: Today's story on LATimes.com says Carroll edited the Baltimore Sun from 1991-98, and Cook maintains he was there until 2000.

* 2:30 p.m.: "There apparently was no one incident that triggered Carroll's decision. Rather, it seems he just couldn't be sure that he would have the resources to put out the kind of paper he wanted and needed to," writes Rem Rieder, Editor of the American Journalism Review. "It's a sad day for journalism." (via Romenesko)

** 6:15 p.m.: Nikki Finke has some newsroom reaction in a post at the LA Weekly website.