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Nikki Finke is reporting that Annie Gilbar was let go today as editor of the Sunday magazine published by the Los Angeles Times company, and that the magazine will return to the auspices of the paper's editors. Finke says Gilbar's $300,000-a-year payday was too expensive; Finke was a fan of the magazine under Gilbar. I've heard occasional good things, but mostly heard criticism (if not outright dismissal) and personally I found the magazine's view of L.A. too narrow and its personality too gushing — remember when Gilbar pronounced pessimism a bummer? The move, if Finke is correct, comes a bit more than a year since then-publisher David Hiller undercut Times editor Russ Stanton's standing by giving the magazine to the ad department without Stanton's knowledge. Now Stanton gets it back, apparently. When the first revamped issue came out a year ago, I asked:
Will anyone read this magazine who didn't read the two previous versions launched in the past two years? Hard to say, but it's also hard to see why they would.
The whole concept seemed doomed from the start: an upscale, "good news" magazine in this economy, totally divorced from the content and staff of the L.A. Times — yet delivered to the readers of the Times — and with everyone knowing that the magazine answered to marketing executives, not the LAT's journalists. The magazine cut back the zip codes where it was delivered in May, and got a new publisher in July — its second change in a year. (LA Observed Denise Hamilton offered some advice about writers last year.) Finke says deputy Nancie Clare has been promoted to editor.
* Confirmations: The Wrap, Style Section L.A., plus a Business Wire press release on Clare's appointment.