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Exactly an hour after praising his staff's fire coverage online and off, Los Angeles Times editor Russ Stanton sent a memo announcing the departure of managing editor for online Meredith Artley. You've read her memos here at LA Observed the past two years.
From: Stanton, Russ
Sent: Friday, September 04, 2009 1:09 PM
To: zzTrbAllHandsLAT
Subject: Meredith Artley
Colleagues:
I regret to report that Meredith Artley, managing editor, online, will be leaving us this month to join one of our Internet news competitors, CNN.com.
For the past two years, Meredith has done a spectacular job leading our efforts to expand the audience for our world-class journalism via the Web, and the results -- both locally and globally -- speak for themselves:
-- Our site traffic, as measured both by page views and unique visitors, has more than doubled. And over the past year, latimes.com has been the fastest-growing website among the nation’s largest newspapers.
-- We expanded and upgraded our Web staff, retrained our print staff and then integrated the two into one newsgathering operation serving several media.
-- We have won a host of accolades for our Web work, including two Overseas Press Club Awards, a Scripps Howard Foundation National Journalism Award and several nominations from the Online News Assn.
And we just unveiled a redesign of the site that has won universal praise from our readers and our industry.
Meredith joined The Times in March 2007 from the International Herald Tribune, where she was digital development director, responsible for both the online editorial and business operations. Before that, she was at nytimes.com as associate editor.
Her last day will be Wednesday, Sept. 16.
We have begun the search for her successor and hope to name that person soon. We wish Meredith the very best as she takes on new challenges in her impressive career.
Russ Stanton
Editor
After the jump, Artley's note to the staff.
From: Artley, Meredith
Sent: Friday, September 04, 2009 1:47 PM
To: yyeditall
Subject: To the talented newsroom of the LA Times....
This isn’t quite a -30- note since I’ll be around for a little while longer but in a lame duck kind of way.
I just have to say that it has been a joy to work with the talent in this organization, and in this vibrant city. Thank you all for the dedication and smart thinking that have pushed latimes.com forward in unmatched ways.
The growth here has been the product of a true newsroom-wide effort – that’s what makes it so impressive and unparalleled among the competition. There is such great digital leadership here -- Sean Gallagher, Dan Gaines, Tenny Tatusian are at the top of a long list of names that spring to mind. And there are so many people here who aren’t “web” or “print” but a hybrid. What a great thing that is.
I am certain you will all continue to impress and attract readers, and I look forward to being one of them for a very long time.
Congratulations on all the digital success so far and the many more to come.
- Meredith