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Earlier this month, it was Truthdig's Robert Scheer reappearing on the L.A. Times Op-Ed page — notable because his firing as an Op-Ed columnist after thirteen years created quite a disturbance in 2005. Now today, former Times managing editor Doug Frantz — who also departed the LAT abruptly and is now senior writer at Portfolio — shows up with a commentary on the page tied to his recent book, "The Nuclear Jihadist: The True Story of the Man Who Sold the World's Most Dangerous Secrets and How We Could Have Stopped Him." They sure are a forgiving bunch at the Times opinion pages. Andrés Martinez, the pages' former editor-in-chief, got back in within months of bitterly attacking the paper and quitting in protest over Publisher David Hiller spiking last year's lame guest-editor idea involving Brian Grazer (and Donald Rumsfeld.)
Speaking of lame ideas: Several newsroom sources tell me that controversial ad-driven new magazine that was to replace the now-dead LAT Sunday Magazine — the startup that chief editor Russ Stanton didn't even know about — has itself been dropped. No official word yet, but stay tuned. A lot of news is expected out of the Times this coming week.