LAT answers with a memo of its own

Doyle McManus, Washington bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, bucks up the troops with a go-get-em memo. Posted at Romenesko:

From: McManus, Doyle
Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 11:29 AM
To: DCburo
Subject: Dean Baquet

Colleagues and friends,

I am sorry to say we have lost Dean Baquet to the New York Times -- right here in Washington. Dean told people it was becoming clear that settling the ownership vacuum at the LA Times is likely to take several months or more; while his first choice was to return, he just didn't think he had the time and patience to wait around.

How will we compete against a NY Times bureau led by someone as formidable as Dean? To be high-minded about it, a good, competitive NY Times bureau is good for journalism as a whole. To be low-minded about it, well, it will still be the NY Times, still encumbered by that paper's institutional weaknesses and still, even with Dean on the premises, an often unpleasant place to work.

To be more concise about it -- and to quote one of our most incisive newsroom philosophers -- we'll just go out and kick their ass. We've done it before; we can do it again. In fact, it should be fun. Bests

Doyle