Well now we know where (soon to be ex) L.A. Times managing editor Doug Frantz is going. He is returning to Istanbul as Middle East bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal. Memo from the WSJ managing editor follows:

From: Brauchli, Marcus
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2007 3:30 PM
To: WSJ All News Staff
Subject: Doug Frantz

To the Staff:

I'm pleased to announce that Doug Frantz, now the Managing Editor of the Los Angeles Times, will become the Wall Street Journal's Middle East Bureau Chief, based In Istanbul.

Doug replaces Bill Spindle who, as previously announced, is returning to New York to become Corporate Finance Editor in the Money & Investing Group.

Doug has been a distinguished investigative reporter and foreign correspondent for the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. He will be responsible for the Journal's coverage of the Middle East and Africa and supervise the team of six reporters who cover the region. When he starts in September, Doug will report to Dan Hertzberg, our new Deputy Managing Editor, International.

Doug was city editor of the Albuquerque Tribune from 1975 to 1978. He then joined the Chicago Tribune as a metro reporter and later served as a Washington reporter. From 1987 to 1994, he was a financial reporter and investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times in Los Angeles and Washington. From 1994 to 2003, he was an investigative reporter and foreign correspondent for the New York Times; he later became the paper's investigations editor.

He rejoined the Los Angeles Times in 2003 as an investigative reporter based in Istanbul. He was named managing editor of the Times in 2005, overseeing its major newsgathering operations, including foreign, metro, national, Washington, business, sports, science, obituaries and Column One.

Doug earned a bachelor's degree from DePauw University and a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University. He won the Worth Bingham Prize in 1995 and 1997 and a 1993 Goldsmith Prize.

Doug and his wife, Catherine Collins, are completing a book about A. Q. Khan and nuclear technology smuggling, titled "The Nuclear Jihadist," which will be published later this year by Twelve Books. He has written eight previous nonfiction books.

Please join me in welcoming Doug to his new job..

Regards,
Brauchli NY

Hours before the announcement, Frantz's own paper reported — I have to assume based on his information — that "he does not have another position yet."

* Friday updates:
Times story on Frantz
Armenian National Committee of America takes credit
Fishbowl DC says new ME is John Arthur