LAT's Rubin jumps to NYT

Alissa Rubin, who just last September was given the Paris bureau chief slot for the L.A. Times, succumbed to the lure of the New York Times. She's going back to Baghdad, where she used to be the LAT's co-chief of bureau. The newsroom memo circulating in New York follows:

Welcoming the Newest Member in Baghdad

We are delighted to announce that Alissa Rubin, Paris bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, will be joining our Baghdad bureau as a correspondent.

Alissa was co-Baghdad bureau chief for the L.A. Times from 2003 to 2005, and has returned periodically since then. Her coverage was remarkable, admired by her peers and competitors for its breadth, daring, political acumen, and vivid portraits of ordinary people. She also wrote about the aftermath of conflict in the Balkans as well as the Iranian nuclear impasse at the U.N. from her base as Vienna bureau chief. Alissa is a seasoned war correspondent ­ she has served four tours in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 9/11, and reported from Macedonia during the war in Kosovo in 1999.

When we began searching for experienced hands to help fill the gaps opening in our Baghdad bureau as some of our longest-serving correspondents cycle out, Alissa's name was on everyone's lips. Our Baghdad correspondents sing her praises, as a reporter and a gracious and generous colleague. She will be a senior member of the bureau, given her long experience and perspective in Iraq, and her friends there are thrilled that she will be joining them.