Los Angeles Times: Michael Kinsley is OUT

Michael Kinsley, the Seattle based, but Los Angeles Times Editor of the paper’s editorial and opinion-pages is apparenly OUT. The Editor and Publisher has Kinsley Expected to Lose Top Edit Page Post, But Remain at ‘L.A. Times’.

The Los Angeles Times’ Michael Kinsley is currently in negotiations to change jobs, a move that will likely end his brief but eventful tenure as the paper’s editorial and opinion-page editor. Although details of his new position have yet to be finalized, Kinsley is expected to remain at the paper as a columnist and may handle some Web site duties, according to a source at the Times and a report in Tuesday’s New York Times.

The New York Times has Kinsley Plans to Change Jobs at The Los Angeles Times.

Michael Kinsley, the provocative editorial and opinion-page editor of The Los Angeles Times, said yesterday that he would be changing jobs in the next few months and most likely would no longer be running the department. He will not necessarily leave the editorial page, he said, but his new role is still being worked out.

“It’s a very complicated arrangement I have, and not all aspects are working as well as others,” Mr. Kinsley, 54, said in a telephone interview yesterday from Seattle, from which he commutes to Los Angeles every other week.

“This living in Seattle and editing the editorial page is not an ideal arrangement,” he said. “It’s not ideal for me and it’s not ideal for the paper. I don’t think it’s terrible. I think I’m doing a pretty good job. But that’s the one thing that is not working out, so we’re going to try to fix it.”

Mr. Kinsley, who was hired in April 2004 from the online magazine Slate, is in discussions with the new publisher of The Los Angeles Times, Jeffrey M. Johnson, about his future.

Flap has enjoyed reading Kinsley’s columns and his television work for years. But, let’s be honest…. he SUCKED with the Los Angeles Times as an Editor.

The Times deserves a full time California-based Editorial and Opinion editor.

If Kinsley were to devote himself to upgrading the newspaper’s on-line presence and new media technologies he would not have to make the grueling commute to Los Angeles from Seattle every other week.

Writing and the new media will probably be the best roles for him.