L.A. Times Names Dean Baquet as Top Editor

"John and Dean picked up a great newspaper that was wounded and flat on its back and made it better than it's ever been in its history," McManus said. "And they did that in a period that had tight budgets from beginning to end."

Kit Rachlis, editor of Los Angeles magazine, who called Carroll's departure "a real blow," said: "The real question is what Tribune is going to do with the Times. Are they going to impose more cuts? Are they going to bundle bureaus together, especially in Washington? Close down foreign bureaus?"

In one switch announced yesterday, Michael Kinsley, the former Slate editor hired by Carroll to run the editorial and opinion pages, will report to the new publisher, Jeff Johnson, not the editor.

The low-key Carroll, who embraced Baquet in the newsroom amid sustained applause when the two men made the announcement, said he had been "ruminating" about leaving for a year, although he plans to seek another job after a long vacation. He described his legacy as "rebuilding the paper in a way that was journalistically successful and made it a genuinely happy place to work."

Carroll said he was "very close" to former publisher John Puerner, who resigned in March, but dismissed suggestions by friends that this hastened his departure. He also heaped praise on his successor, saying: "I don't think there's a better person in the country of his generation. Dean plays all the notes."

Carroll drew national attention in 2003 when the paper published allegations that candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger, now California's governor, had groped numerous women, some of whom refused to be identified by name. He also made news that year with a leaked memo that criticized the "apparent bias" of one of his reporters on an abortion story, writing that he wanted to challenge "the perception -- and the occasional reality -- that the Times is a liberal, 'politically correct' newspaper." Like most big-city editors, he has struggled with declining circulation, which dipped 6.5 percent earlier this year, to 908,000.

Baquet, a New Orleans native who left Columbia University without graduating to start his career, said he always viewed himself as a reporter, particularly an investigative reporter. Baquet won a Pulitzer in 1988 as part of a Chicago Tribune team that exposed corruption on the city council.

He gave up reporting at the New York Times, he said, because then-executive editor Joe Lelyveld "twisted my arm" and "made me become an editor" for a one-year trial.

While vowing to compete with his old newspaper and The Washington Post, Baquet said the Times must have a special focus on the entertainment industry. "I want the paper to have a real flavor of California," he said.