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There are some details of Michael Cieply's wooing by the New York Times — including L.A. Times business editor Rick Wartzman advising his star writer-editor to check out what the New Yorkers had to say — in Nikki Finke's column in today's LA Weekly. She writes that Cieply was flown back to New York to talk over the vacant film editor job with culture editor Jon Landman and others, and liked what he heard:
“It was just an absolutely great job. It was a life opportunity. And anybody in my spot in my life who didn’t look at that would be crazy,” Cieply told L.A. Weekly on Monday.
Cieply accepted the job in a phone call from the LAT lobby after managing editor Dean Baquet blew up, Finke writes. Meanwhile, newsroom buzz has Los Angeles Magazine senior writer (and ex-LAT staffer) Amy Wallace talking to the paper about returning, possibly in Cieply's stead.
Also in the Weekly: R. Scott Moxley says that Times reporters congratulated the defense after the mistrial in that Orange County gang rape case involving the son of the assistant sheriff. There's also something in the Weekly about a libel suit against the L.A. Sentinel, but the story isn't on the website.